Supplier: Handicrafts, sculptures, kitenge dresses, african regalia, kikois, paintings, hand made leather bags and belts, kisii soap stone items, maasai and other cultural artifacts
Buyer: Industrial safety products, mobile phones, tele communication equipment, computers
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.
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.
