A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE Kenya Arts Diary

By Margaretta wa Gacheru, Ph.D (shared at December 6th Launch of KAD 2024) For as long as i have known nani, ie since the 70s, she has told me about her famous artist father who assisted fledgling artists just coming out in the world. that was what was her incentive in launching the kenya arts diary in 2011. most of the artists who were in that first diary are famous today, i'm happy to report. Every year up to 2021 we created a new diary filled with new arts, rarely repeating the ones we had featured in years before. But in 2020 we lost our marketing manager and we thus published eoo many diaries to distribute, just Nani and me, so we went bankrupt. 2020 was our last diary. up until... Niketa and i started talking about how we missed the diary. Then we met Tim Bromfield who was a lover of the Diary, so much so that he helped us get back on our feet and into action. Only different these two tech-savvy put the whole process of creating the diary online. If you as an artist did not see our call out to you, you must not have been active on social media or we simply lost your email,. Pole sana. Anyway, we proceeded with Tim and Niketa doing a gigantic part to make it all happen. I am so grateful to them . anyway, Nani could make it but sent her best wishes to you all. The diary is DEDICATED TO NANI wgi we cgerish as the founder and first curator of the diary. Today I must thank Sarit Raja-Shah for giving us wonderful support this year. He is not only the GEM of I&M bank. He is a conaseur and collector of our leading Kenyan arti and artists. I also must thank all the artists, both those in the diary--congratulations and artists who arehere in support of the Diary. WELCOME!! PLEASE EVERYONE, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY ANYTHING, THE MIC IS AVAILABLE FOR A MINUTE OR TWO