The last few months of last year carried with themselves arguarbly one of the best moments in my art endevours. I happened to finally meet this great artist who recides at Maseno and whose name I had heard occassionally said by our lecturer. The lecturer showed however a hint of ignorance in as far as the knowledge of this artist was concerned to him and I remember him (the lecturer) making a call in the middle of a lecture and asking a lame question that was something like, "Do you know the name of this Maseno artist?". The person on the other end of the line too demanded a few details before 'John Diang'a' came into our hearing.
After this 'mentioning' it took several months before I came to meet Diang'a. A university group which entails art, both visual and performing art, (it is called Spoken Heart) had a certain event which was to go down at a certain 'Pungulu Pangala garden'. I was with them and that's how I came to see the great Kenyan.
At that time there was not much of his artworks at the garden, which was at its late stages of completion after a long six years of landscaping and what not. It was for the very reason of curiousity did I follow the man, who is currently my patron to his home not very far from his garden.
"I have said I must come after you,"a stranger was telling him.
He took me a round at his home gallery called Espiella Cultural center and which started off in 1982 alongside with a theater ground in his barkyard with sculptural reliefs he did back in College, depicting Kenya's strugle for independence. He also told me of his plans of joining his house with the gallery and creating space for visiting artists so that they could have room for lodging for as long as they needed.
When you entered his house you are met with soapstone figures neatly arranged, the walls claim paintings and prints and the outside is characterised of huge sculptures.
"This is a house of an artist," he told me emphatically.
Born 1945, his has been a long journey which has acclaimed to him a name, from the Friez sculptural reliefs at the Kenya International Conference Center to theatrical extremes of The Land Of Majitu. There is a board on which newspaper cuttings dating back from 1969 to as late as 2007 are pinned on, and which is gradually loading up.
Just yesterday there was a newspaper article in the Saturday Nation talking about the 'madman' and covering, though in a nutshell, what his latest project has been.
Since the beginning of this year I have never missed at least three days in a week a time in this serene environment that Mr. Diang'a has taken great effort and commitment to make. And since the article just mentioned of finding some clay moulds of a 'fine art university student, let me herein brag a little bit and say that student is I.
Diang'a's lifetime major project comes at a time when our art needs a liberation. He tells me that it came to his realization that he has already done his part nationally and internationally and now what he wants to spend his quiet time doing is raising the young Kenyan who would like to grow to become an artist. Every society needs an artist, and not just any artist. If yours is a vision of a revolutionized Kenyan art industry, Pungulu Pangala is a place you should include in your inspiration list.
