Jewellery as a product is made by people from every corner of the country. Kenya is a multicultural society in that we have the cultures or ethnic groups with diverse value and cultural systems. Understandably therefore the art of bead making or jewellery is not specific to a given community or region. Most jewellery has a combination of locally sourced natural materials and tends to have an authentic touch identical with the cultural background of the producers or artist. Kenya has an abundant wealth of raw materials. These range from semi precious stones, cow or goat bones, horn, wood, seeds, leather items, decorated items from kisii soapstone, imported African traditional beads from different African regions in the south, west, east and central Africa. Other materials used are copper, brass, and aluminum to mention but just a few. However, the items need to be made more neatly inorder to command ready sale in overseas market. There are some jewellery products whose products are synonymous with the product or community e.g. the Maasai community and particularly the Maasai woman present distinctly rich variety of their traditional fashion accessories. Responding to the market trends and tastes or market driven designs and demand is very crucial in the marketing of jewellery products. To this end therefore, all efforts are made to come up with creatively designed product by using semi precious and natural materials in making items like brooches, bangles, bracelets, hair ornaments, ear rings necklaces etc. The point is there is already a wide range of creatively and cultural rich design of jewellery products available from Kenya that sells at differentiated price depending on the raw materials used.
The banana fibre products are popular for their household utility use. These are items like laundry basket, office waste paper basket, and fruit or egg trays. There are also banana fibre products that serve as house deco. These are art scenes depicting African culture, animals, and nativity products. Of late, the Kikuyu ethnic women community from central province have introduced Banana fiber "Kiondo" basket. Unlike the sisal baskets, the banana fibre "kiondo" do not need any colouring. As for the hand woven banana fibre basketry, the producers are based in Central and western province and even in slum areas. 90% of banana fibre basketry producers are middle-aged women who make the banana basketry to supplement their sources of income. It is also an activity that instills a sense of belonging and security. Most of the producers lifetime dream is to educate their children and acquire or build a better house which has a security of tenure. Like in most slum areas, a majority of the women take both the role of the bread earner and house head. There are many reasons behind it such as having been widowed, divorced or even migrated from rural areas in search of greener pastures in Nairobi just to find themselves in the slum life. Traditionally unlike men, women do not have property right or inherit from their place of origin thus rural land. Therefore their best alternative is to adapt to urban slum life where basic social amenities are not only lacking but inadequate to serve the usually high population of maginalized citizens. The problems that face the slum community and their rural counterpart is poverty and unemployment. Many of the slum dwellers rely on unreliable source of income such as temporary construction work while their women combine their respective source of income with child rearing among other household chores. In order to fight the odds against them, women unlike men have formed their own Banana fibre groups. The common objective is to work as a team as a way of seeking recognition and to empower the group members. This is realised through networking with the powers that be. These women slum groups, source the banana fibre raw material from the rural areas where banana plant is grown. The fibre are collected from the garden while dry and later softened by soaking the fibre overnight before usage.
When we talk of God given talents, the word is often well expressed through the works of Batik Post cards, Batik artworks and other forms of artwork. Ordinarily, these artworks are made by outgoing talented individuals artists. Most of them undergo their training at various institutions in the country such as the young men Christian Association (YMCA). The Kenya Polytechnic and Youth Polytechnics formerly known as Village Polytechnics. Some develop the artistic talent or skill through the hand of more experienced artists or through encouragement from friends and relatives. Many of the artists come from rural, urban and pre-urban squatter villages. Almost all of them are married and as such their use of God given talent is so handy as their main source of income. A majority of the artist operate at their respective homesteads. It is a thing which is not only cost effective but of added value to building the family social and cultural bond. The selling of Batiks, cards and other forms of artworks is often done by individual artists and in rare cases by a group of artists who come together as a means of attaining socio-economic gains. This is done in the spirit of seeking recognition which would otherwise not be possible to be accomplished or realized by working in isolation. This kind of initiative is informed by the fact that groups attract assistance more easily than an individual. Most of the products that the artist are able to come up with using natural material, display a significant touch of cultural value or national heritage. It is indeed impossible to enumerate each and every single item that come out of these creative individual artisans/brains. The materials used are cotton clothes or silk, various dyes for colouring, wax to separate colours, while iron charcoal box is used to clear off wax. The production process is quite involving and labour intensive. The use of natural material is already growing popular in that even maize cobs, water plants and other types of leaves are now handy in the hands of creative artist. Some of the products made are things like Bird figures, Christmas tree decos, wall hangings, animals, traditional homesteads or Kenyan people in their ethnic attires such as the Maasais, Pokots, Turkana, etc. Each batik piece of work can be produced according to the customer's tastes and interests in terms of colour, design etc. Many of the art does give insights that express value of life and people's culture thus depicting natural heritage e.g. wildlife birds, animals, people including abstract art e.t.c. In recent years, some artist have come up with Batik bone designed house utility items like spoons, knives, Beer opener or even cultural custom dress etc.
Post cards made from Recycled locally available materials
Post cards made from water Hyacinth
Maasai beads ladies bangles of various designs
African kikoi and Kangas
Soapstone Dice and Token Products of Various Designs
Hotels,Restaurants,home - Utility Olive woodcarving and Bone batiks products of Various Designs
Home utility, Turkana Basketry Products of Various designs
Vesse Pot
Tulip Pot
Square Pot
Plate Pot
Box Pot
African ladies Bags/ Purse of Various Design
Home, hotel and Restaurant utility - African Basketry Products - Fruits/ bread laundry table mats of Various designs.
Soapstones URN Products of various designs
Coloured soapstones Products
Natural Soapstones Products
