Art That Tells The Awesome Mystery Of An African Culture

By Raphael Okello
Passion and pride for African cultural heritage and the wild beauty enshrined in her distant untamed jungles burns in the hearts of about 20 unschooled youthful artists.
They call themselves the Juakali wood carvers. A name that symbolises the strenuous nature of their work.
Their workshop, a ramshackle structure adjacent to the American Embassy along Ggaba road, is an art gallery of sorts. Its floor is littered with a diversity of wooden art work shaped out of mahogany, ebony and mvule timber.
The clumsy roadside gallery is often the same: Several artists dressed in torn, dirty and creased clothes preoccupied with their work. Clattering of hammers against chisels rupturing little bits of wood as the chisel digs delicately into the wooden piece, slowly changing its form.
The final result is a manifold of remarkable miniature sculptures and captivating images of wild animals and Ugandan culture presented with exceptional artisan skill.
Several sizes of exquisitely decorated treasure chests, chairs and tables are all over the gallery floor. Wall hangings chaotically dangle under the three-metre-high roof.
The amazing sculptures of traditional dancers, giraffes, hippopotamus, crocodiles, elephants, lions and buffaloes not only display Uganda’s hidden beauty but express painful nostalgia for the craftsmanship that once upon a time was a prestigious fabric of any African traditional society.
With admirable skill and hair-raising craftsmanship, inherited from their ancestors, for many years, the Juakali wood carvers have demonstrated their love for authentic African beauty.
“We never went to any school to learn this,” Jeremiah Bwambale, one of the artists says. “We grew up watching and helping our fathers mould and sculpture.”
He says that they were about 10 when they settled along Ggaba road in 1992. They migrated from Kasese after the copper mines had closed.
“We had no choice but to look for a place where we could survive. The expatriates who were our main clients had left,” Hassan Mwindo interjects.
They followed their fathers to Kibuli before moving to Ggaba road. Today they are 20 artists.
Theirs, however, seems more than just an art and craft business. “I look at what we do as a special service to the nation,” Bwambale proudly says. “When foreign visitors buy our works, we hope that more visitors will be inspired to travel to Uganda.” “We love our country and her cultural diversity. We feel proud showing the world her bountiful beauty.”
“We can make just about any artwork designed to fit in homes, churches, offices and hotels provided it is out of wood,” a jolly Bwambale says.
They carve traditional dancers, gorillas or any wild animal, without a picture for reference. “These are our animals. We have grown up seeing them,” he says.
It takes them a few hours to complete several pieces depending on the size and decorations involved. While some pieces might be easy, Bwambale confesses that “the most challenging piece to carve is someone’s portrait. It takes about one month and costs sh150,000.”
The prices for artworks, chairs and tables vary from one artist to another. But the price of chairs is between sh45,000 to sh55,000. While chairs are the favourite items of Asians and a few Ugandan clients, tourists on the other hand prefer sculptures of elephants and giraffes.
Bwambale says most of the artists are orphans or destitutes.
“Although we do get a good number of clients (six), some days we don’t,” Bwambale says. “We can’t raise enough capital to form an association through which we can widely market our products.”
He says that hotels have small craft shops and only refer tourists to them if they are particular about the pieces they would want. “That is why we conveniently settled along the road.”
“Here we take special orders. We inscribe clients’ names on the artwork and that really excites the tourists. They love it,” he says.
There are peculiar miniature sculptures of pygmies and hideous facemasks, carefully arranged in rows, as if unfolding intriguing mysteries of a foreign culture concealed in sacred jungles. “These are made by Congolese artists. His tone is laced with great reverence for the Congolese artists. “We cannot make these because they never teach us. They bring the pieces from the Congo,” he says.Ends