BY KAREN BOSSICK
Hailey artist Kim Howard had been on a couple of safari trips to Africa. But this past winter she went back to heal following a devasting bicycle accident in Scotland that required several surgeries.
She found it there with the Kikuya Tribe who took care of her on a working farm, feeding her three meals a day of the Kikuya food. She found it on walks to Karen, the home of Danish author Karen Blixen who wrote “Out of Africa” and “Babette’s Feast.” And she found it in the birds she saw on their migration.
Howard painted those birds and the surroundings she found herself. And she will show some of those works, along with works of France in spring, from 5 to 7 p.m. tonight—Friday, July 7—during Gallery Walk at Anderson Anderson Architecture. The office is located on the second floor of the Friesen+Lantz Gallery at 320 1st Ave. N. in Ketchum.
“They took me to Nairobi National Park during the bird migration. And I saw so many animals and birds during my time there I decided I needed to be painting them,” said Howard. “There were osprey, hornbills, storks—the black storks cover the water like an umbrella, then grab the fish when the fish come into the shade.
Howard had been spending several months in Scotland where she was painting when she decided she needed a month away. So, it was back to Africa.
Seeking a different kind of experience where she would be living with people, she found what she was looking for with the Kikuya Tribe living on Kepro farm and in Gataka Village in the fertile central highlands.
She was their only guest in a rented farmhouse 45 minutes out of Nairobi. The family picked her up at the airport, took her to their farm and set her up so she could do her art.
“It was a pilgrimage for me to photograph and paint these birds on the covered porch of this working dairy farm’s terrace,” she said. “The borders of my paintings are the plant and floral life of the farm. The watercolors are painted on Scottish word dictionary pages from 1824 that I found in an old bookstore in Inverness.”
Howard ate beans and barbecued meat, along with a grainy cous cous, hummus and chickens her hosts plucked from their flock of 43.
“They had 16 employees harvesting the greens, coffee, tomatoes, cabbage, turnips, and they had cattle and dairy cows, which pretty much covered everything. They even made all the food for their eight German shepherd dogs.”
As she familiarized herself with the area, Howard began taking hour-long walks down and up the creek bed to Karen Blitzen’s farm and the giraffe sanctuary that’s 10 minutes away. And she volunteered to paint beads with the Kazuri women.
“They use their own clay out of the soil and fire it. They have 30 women--a group that makes the beads, a group that paints them, a group that assembles and strings then and then a group that takes them from there. I’ll have some for sale during Gallery Walk to raise money for the village work force.”
Howard will also have some of the journals she kept filled with sketches and notes that people can look through. She also hopes to bring a big table cloth made out of the beautiful colored African fabric she brought home to use to display the beads.
“If I don’t get it done in time for Friday night, I will have it at the Ketchum Arts Festival,” she said.