One of the most commercially successful artists in Kenya, Nani Croze, has lived a life few could dare to <g class="gr_ gr_3 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="3" data-gr-id="3">imagine,</g> and introduced a new expression supported by her art, philanthropy and entrepreneurship.



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The journey to the Kitengela Glass estate begins like any other from Nairobi. Traffic is often heavy and there is frustration on the roads. But as you pass through the last of it, a different world unfurls. The road is murram (gravelly) and a new settlement is unfolding around it, overlooked by a new railroad track for the high-speed train to Mombasa, recent signs of development consuming the old Maasai plains.



But no less than a mile away, cushioned by the narrow gorges
of the Nairobi National Park, is the entry into a wonderland where the life and
work of German-born artist Nani Croze has concentrated for over the last 40
years. It is an eccentric paradise with a lush covering of indigenous trees and
shrubs, canopies over stunning and colorfully outrageous architecture that
announce the artist in her territory.



However, her life in Kenya was a gift of fate. Croze first
came to East Africa with her first husband, the animal behaviourist, Harvey
Croze, and their children at the end of the 1960s. 



“I came to Africa in 1968 to study elephants in the
Serengeti and four years later, the study was finished and we decided to go
back across the continent back to Europe. I filled a VW van with my three kids,
safely in the back, and we got as far as the Kenyan border. The car broke down
and we stayed&#8230;and that was that,” she tells me in the aviary area outside her
house as birdsong echoes around generous foliage.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="962" height="555" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38656" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31.png 962w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31-300x173.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31-600x346.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31-768x443.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 962px) 100vw, 962px" /><figcaption>Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



Mother Nani, or ‘Mama’ to the community of artisans and
their families that also call Kitengela Glass home, is a matriarch in this
setting. Her hair is pinned up in a loose bun revealing tanned cheeks and
piercing blue eyes. 



A formidable painter and muralist, Croze is an artist of
many mediums. However, a little-known fact is her life in science. As a young
woman, she convinced the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and founding father of
the science of animal behavior, Konrad Lorenz, to work under him. Her earlier
works depict this scientific knowledge in lively wildlife motifs.



Nonetheless, she is perhaps most known, these days, for her
work with glass. Her estate is testament to this; colored glass panels of all
shapes and sizes line the structures at the entry of her world. The winding
walkway is flanked by sculptures accented with thick glass. The outdoor seating
is dalle-de-verre. 



The workshop and furnace are open for passersby to see. Its
products, ever-present at every corner of the estate, also decorate the
balustrades of the estate’s gallery, roof to her personal studio, intentionally
constructed around a formidable mogumo (African fig) tree, a souvenir from the
early days. She found it growing on the barren plains of what would become
estate when she arrived in 1979, a genus local legend claims can never die.



By this then, a single mother of three, Croze stumbled in to
the glass arts out of economic necessity.&nbsp;
She had purchased the land from the Maasai community of the area and
was, at the time, a working muralist. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="618" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38657" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11.png 922w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11-300x201.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11-600x402.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11-768x515.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption> Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure>



“My architect [told me] ‘you can’t pay school fees with
murals, you better start something new, what about stained glass?’” she
recalls.



An influx of Christian missions meant that stained glass
windows were crucial for finishing new churches and, as an art, they were more
profitable. This has since expanded to a wide-range of recycled glass products
from blown glass to beads, mosaics, murals, sculpture and, of course, dalle de
verre. However, the stained glass studio, the first on the estate, still
remains, busy and peopled, tucked away in a quiet corner of the gallery
building.



Croze, perhaps one of the most commercially successful
artists in Kenya, is often credited for introducing this new craft to the
region. She herself is self-taught and along with her son, Anslem, trained by
glass-blowers in the South of France and Holland, built the first furnace in
East Africa. He eventually took over the glass-blowing side of the business and
now runs his own studio next door along with an eponymous retail brand in
Nairobi selling decorative glass vessels, furniture and lighting. 



In her own right, Nani is responsible for training the first
Kenyan glass artisans, initially in stained glass and then in glass-blowing and
mosaics.



“We started together, my first [assistant] was a man called
Omondi. We started on stained glass-making and how it works and it’s quite a
process but once you’re in it, like all my guys here&#8230; you get quite good at
it. It’s a traditional and weary process but once you have [the finished
window] you have something beautiful that can never be undone,” she says.



Of the things that cannot be undone is Croze’s legacy not
only within the community of the estate and the industry she has created around
it but in the lives of many in East Africa.



Kitengela Glass is home to more than 50 artisans and their
families, many of whom have gone on to build independent careers in and outside
of glass art. An example is Edith Nyambura, formerly the resident mosaic
artist, who began her career at Kitengela and eventually wrote a book about her
work in 2010. 



There is also the young Patrick Kibe, colloquially known as
‘Mr. Dudu’ (Mr. Insect in Kiswahili), who arrived as a student at the estate
almost a decade ago and is now carving his own niche, creating figures and
sculptures of indigenous flora and fauna from recycled materials.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="810" height="537" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38658" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4.png 810w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 810px) 100vw, 810px" /><figcaption> Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure>



Then there is the school Croze founded, not far from the
estate, often billed as the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. Her
motivation was to introduce to the country the creative education she had
received as a young girl in Germany, which she regretted that her own children
did not have attending local schools.



“We have such terrible schools in Kenya that are so bad for
children! A child should grow up free, they should have music, art, new
movement and environment,” she laments.



The Rudolf Steiner School started with a class of 10 in
Nairobi’s leafy Karen suburb, popularly known as the setting of Out of Africa,
Karen Blixen’s pre-colonial odyssey. 



“It took its time. We had a very good worldwide sponsorship,
especially from Germany. We’ve had our ups and downs but now we have two in
Karen and the other one in Kitale [in western Kenya].”



In addition to her contributions in education, she is also a
key campaigner for young artists across Kenya. She is the founder of the annual
Kenya Arts Diary, a weekly calendar and catalog of up-and-coming contemporary
artists in the country.



The ninth edition was released in November with an exuberant
exhibition at the Nairobi Museum and since its founding has been produced by a
group of passionate volunteers. Every year, she picks up two artists featured
in the diary and invites them to a residency at the estate. The inspiration for
the project, she says, was her father, the acclaimed German woodcut artist HAP
Grieshaber, who also took a similar interest in his students.



“He would always help his students. Art is very expensive
most people can’t buy it so you either make it yourself or you make sure it
happens. The diary is just a venue to make sure people buy it and see it every
week,” she notes.



Although the next issue of the arts diary will be her last,
Croze remains ever passionate about her adopted home and community and hopes to
continue giving back to it while she is still alive.



“I was the first mzungu [Caucasian] in Maasailand&#8230;we had a
really good relationship and we still have with the Maasai community but my Ma
is still not very good, I must say. I feel very much a part of the community,”
she says.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="463" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38659" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21.png 463w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21-300x399.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21-225x300.png 225w" sizes="(max-width: 463px) 100vw, 463px" /><figcaption> Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure></div>



Croze is a focal point at the Nairobi National Museum, from
the dalle-de-verre mural that welcomes museum-goers at the main exhibition
hall, to her mosaic path that snakes through the museum gardens to the goliath
metal and glass sculptures that mark the way through the complex. She remains
one of the few living artists in Kenya to have such a permanent and public
showing.



Even away from the whimsical glass oasis that she has built,
echoes of her are littered across Nairobi. Her commissioned murals on major
commercial buildings such as the American Embassy in the city’s diplomatic district.
She was the first to color the walls of the newly-established United Nations
Environmental Programme, UNEP, in 1972. Her art is also at the Times Tower in
the heart of the old city, home to the tax authority. There are also pieces
dotted across the region, a recent commission at a call center in Eldoret, in
western Kenya, and the windows at the Serena Hotel in Kigali.



“I just want to make sure that it all keeps going.&nbsp; There are always problems here and there, all
the time, but I want to keep it going,” she says.



Croze, true to her word, is still going with plans for a
vocational school to train a larger population of recycled glass artisans in
the nearby township of Tuala. Plans are also underway for a devotional school
to replace her personal chapel that was lost in a land dispute and, of course,
more commissions while she is still able to work on them. 

On the future of the world around her, a life’s
work, she is surprisingly indifferent. “I leave it to the Gods,” she ruminate

nani

IN PICTURES | The glass ceiling is what she makes it

There is an old adage that says people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
But the good news is you can live in a glass house and make money. Hidden in the hot Kitengela plains of Kenya is a 30-year-old factory that uses recycled glass to transform homes, hotels, offices, churches, museums and other buildings into spectacular sights.
Kitengela Glass is located on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital and borders the Nairobi National Park. The factory stands out like an oasis in the desert. It’s home to glassblowers, glasscutters, artists and sculptors who turn the recycled glass into amazing works of art.
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The studio is owned and run by 68-year-old Nani Croze. A muralist turned glassblower, Croze has been in the business for over three decades. “I am still a German, although I feel completely Kenyan. I am waiting to be given an honorary citizenship,” she says. Croze came to Africa with her first husband in the late ’60s. “We studied elephants in the Serengeti. We planned to go back after four years in a VW van we had converted for our three children. But by that time, my eldest son had grown too big to fit into the van, so we decided to stay.”
Her scientist husband got a job at the University of Nairobi, where he taught animal behavior. The family lived in Limuru, in the highlands, in a rented home. When the owner died, the house was sold to people who felled the trees in the compound. “I decided to look for somewhere with no trees so I could plant my own and no one would be allowed to cut them down,” says Croze. The search for land took them to Kitengela, an environmentally protected area where her husband had previously worked.
“He went to Geneva for a conference and his colleague said: ‘Excuse me, Dr Croze, I think you have a tick on your neck!’ We were living in the bush and he could not take it any longer.” Divorced and with three children to bring up, one of her architect friends advised that she try her hand at stained glass. “I was not going to make enough money to pay for my children’s education painting murals,” said Croze.
She went to the UK for a three-week course. She was told she would need 30 years to learn. So she learnt through experience. “The major milestone for us was that importing colored glass is very expensive, heavy and fragile—it breaks very easily. So I thought, ‘Why don’t we make our own?’ Slowly, we built a furnace with the help of a Finnish glassmaker, and I started collecting waste glass.”
Croze soon discovered that not all glass was compatible as it melts at different temperatures. “It took a long time but I am happy we invented glassmaking in East Africa!” Croze’s son, Anselm, joined her and now does his own glassblowing. She credits a Dutch Catholic priest in Uganda for teaching her some of the tricks of the trade. “I visited him because he also made stained-glass windows in the 1970s. He made his own lead and tools and imported glass from France. He showed me how to make glass in the bush.”
Kitengela Glass prides itself on being the pioneer glassmaker in East Africa. Glassmaking traces its roots to Egypt and part of the Middle East in the second millennium BC. “To my knowledge, glass was never made in East Africa. My interest is in a new craft for East Africa—making glass from recycled glass. We make colored sheets for stained-glass windows locally. We import only what we cannot make.”
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From waste glass, Kitengela produces vessels—anything that can hold a liquid—bowls, flower vases, tumblers and glasses as well as sculptures, jewelry, chimes and chandeliers.
But Kitengela Glass is perhaps best known for making dalle de verre (French for glass blocks), a new technique of making stained glass. “My work with dalle de verre can be seen in various buildings in Nairobi like the Barclays Plaza, CFC Bank and the American Embassy canteen wall. Dalle de verre is popular with banks because it is secure—made of thick glass, concrete and metal reinforcing.”
Used bottles and waste window glass are taken to Kitengela Glass to be smashed and melted before they are blown into vessels, beads or flat glass or cast into dalle de verre blocks. The difference between dalle de verre and stained glass is that dalle de verre is an inch thick and set in concrete, with metal reinforcing for stability. Traditional stained glass is much thinner and can be painted and fired. It is attached piece by piece with strips of lead which are soldered at the corners, then puttied for stability.
“I made traditional stained glass long before we started melting glass. I realized the cost and difficulty of importing colored glass and therefore started to make our own.”
Croze compares glassblowing to flying an airplane. “You must do it all the time to be good at it.” She is currently working on a major project that involves making a centerpiece mural from dalle de verre for a new Catholic church in Tanzania. “The foreground in the lower section is to have images of creation like the savannah grassland, the acacia tree, some footprints to represent Africa as the cradle of mankind and above this will be a scene of the Holy Spirit hovering over the earth.”
Dalle de verre is also used for making staircases, tables and memorials. “We made a memorial in honor of Dan Eldon, a Reuters correspondent killed in Mogadishu, Somalia. The memorial has a lens, representative of his profession, in glass. It looks nice when the sun shines through. Glass needs light from the opposite side.”
Kitengela Glass also decorated the Kenyan home of the French billionaire businessman, art dealer and racehorse breeder, Alec Nathan Wildenstein, who died in 2008. Croze is presently making a memorial piece for Kenyan Nobel Laureate, Professor Wangari Maathai.
“Our handmade glass is like the early medieval glass with bubbles and striations. No-one knows about medieval glass anymore. It is like the taste of tomatoes: people have forgotten what an organically grown tomato tastes like,” she says.

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IN PICTURES | The glass ceiling is what she makes it

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