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The struggle with many a rigid Logooli cultural practices

  The Logooli community is one of the deeply cultured societies – with near everything supposed to have been done as per custom – to allow another custom to follow. One example is that for a mature man (with a child or more) to be buried, there must be a house structure at home. Another is that a boy must be circumcised and nursed in father land. If maternal family decides to, the boy will have a hard time reconnecting with father people - a dent on his masculinity. There were two children who got burnt to death in a house in Nairobi. The single mother had left for night work. Elders were told that one of the children was Logooli. The other, the woman had sired with someone else. The Logooli family wanted to burry their little one and long discussed the do’s and don’ts. Of a man who died childless and the grave was placed as if he had died as a man with children. It should have been dug on the sides, the grave. A real thorn should have been thrust in his buttocks, his name go...
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How do you respond to art?


The artist has a mirror attached on a tree outside his house. Sometimes in his usual gardening does he stop by it, sees how the jembe rests on his shoulder and the flowering plants yonder. He calls himself Lonely; that is how his artwork is signed. Today he would be continuing the work on the canvas. He is in no hurry. Good things take time.

Baroque is a time period when there was increased application and amplification of rather ancient ideas and innovations in reaction to increased human interaction. Startled by fashion, there is a figure of a man, straight in confidence, one hand in the pocket, a cap on his head, comfortable in his wear. He looks well adorned. Continuing work on the canvas, his brush today gives stroke to two men, bowing to baroque- each on either side. Baroque is represented by the central figure. No words can well express the emotional attachment to that time and its significance to the present. 


At his work place so are other better and upcoming artists. A man holds a chisel by the left and a hammering wood on his right. He is about to reduce a mere heavy log into a woman sleeping on one side. Let the tools talk. He who is pressed by the need to give the world a new dimension, a new understanding let him do it. There are welders, potters, sculptors, drawers, painters and writers. They all agree that the future is made by hands.

His friend, Nash is chaotic. Nash mixes paints and like a drunkard staggers them on a board. The end result is unfathomable. That is Nash, he says. Nash wants to show resistance, defiance, nonconformity and general detrimentality of people like him. He knows no single person understands anything better and so why should he care trying to understand? When the idea comes he splashes it. Take as much as your imagination will allow.

They share a coil of marijuana to break monotony.

Different people become artists differently. Some come to appreciate when it is explained to them. Others get amazed at its beauty. Mr. Lonely saw his father draw for him as a young person and when his fingers were strong to hold the brush, here he is.

 Everything is art, he adds. Bring him the normal of a scenario and he will convert it with a sixth sense. Crossing a road, a sunset, your room’s arrangement, your listening skills, your thoughts as you read this, how you perceive self and the world, how the world perceives you, nature and its wonders and the need for artificial intelligence in art. As Norman Garbo writes, there should be a person to take the canvas from the artist as soon as awesome job is done. An artist would want to add something here and another there. 

Art creates an urge in a person to look at things metaphysically. It is a poem in drawing. It is like music. How do you explain amplitude? That is how he can tell his story. A piece of art but helps you to develop a higher perception. The painter’s splash is not the end. It is your responsibility to establish a higher value, feeling, understanding, appreciation and all that.

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