Unfortunately I was not able to go to on the Intercultural Trips this year due to lost files. But as the phrase goes when God closes a door he opens a window. He most definitely opened a window for me, he opened the Nairobi National Museum's window.
I worked for the head of the art department, where I had the most wonderful time. I was in charge of assisting the artists whose work was currently on exhibition in the gallery and I was able to ask them for advice on my own artwork. This was a great experience for me because I am a higher level art student, which is difficult enough. Being able to work with a professional artist was a great experience for me to hear where their inspiration came from and where they started off from and how they got to where they were.
Each artist that was there over the four days that I volunteered there had their own style of work, used different types of medium and had different inspirations. Often when I would ask them what they were trying to convey in their artwork it was completely different than what my first perception of the piece was. For example there was a art piece that was very abstract by the artist Samuel Wangeri, where his art pieces focus was on some of Africa's native animals. However in the art piece that we were discussing it had a women in the picture who seemed to me to be running away from something that was scary, the colors that he used in his piece made the audience convey a certain emotion something close to sadness. When I told him what I thought he said that what I said was totally different then what he was originally trying to convey.
This was a great experience for me where I got to work closely with professional artists and inside a museum and have made some very good friends now. This has definitely inspired me in some of my pieces where I tried to use the same types of medium.
