Veteran Nigerian artist Nike Davies-Okundaye has made her name innovating the art of her heritage and giving other women hope by paying it forward.



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The best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others,” says Nobel prize-winning Nigerian novelist Wole Soyinka on pursuing a life in the arts.



This observation is perhaps most true when applied to the
life and work of fellow citizen and internationally-renowned batik artist,
Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye. 



Born in 1951 in Ogidi-Ijumu, a small village in western
Nigeria known for its spectacular rock formations and traditional art industry,
Davies-Okundaye has reached the pinnacle of her career thanks to an enduring
dedication to preserve and innovate the culture of her people.&nbsp; 



The daughter of impoverished traditional artisans, she did
not, like many artists of her stature, receive any formal education in art or
preparatory schooling. The poverty of her childhood led her to leave school
after the sixth grade. Instead, she was trained informally in the traditional
crafts of her people through methods practised by women in her family for
generations.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="411" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38525" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike.png 411w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike-300x450.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike-200x300.png 200w" sizes="(max-width: 411px) 100vw, 411px" /><figcaption>Veteran Nigerian artist Nike Davies-Okundaye. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



Yet, over a career spanning five decades, Davies-Okundaye
has gone on to educate generations of artists, at no cost to them, through a
network of art centers across Nigeria. A far cry from the girl shaped by
tragedy very early in life. 



“I lost my mother when I was six and I lost my grandmother
when I was seven. The knowledge was passed on to me by my great-grandmother who
was the head of all the weavers in our village,” she recounts.



Following the death of both her mother and grandmother, she
was taken in by her great grandmother, an established adire, a specialist in
the traditional art of fabric dyeing of southwest Nigeria. From her,
Davies-Okundaye learned to weave fabric on traditional looms beginning the
family’s fifth generation in the craft.&nbsp; 



Her father, too, was a practitioner of the traditional arts.
An accomplished basket weaver, he also practised embroidery and leather work
and was a known musician in the community. 



In Ogidi, parents passed on their skills to their children
in a form of vocational training concentrated within the household.
Davies-Okundaye started as early as seven.



“Once in a week, they taught me crafts. This craft they [taught] is for [us] to be able know how to do handwork&#8230; so that’s how I was learning.” she recalls. 



An adept student, drawing from her family’s many artisanal
specializations, she quickly developed her own style and technique in textile
weaving and painting. 



Unfortunately, the young woman wasn’t allowed to nurture her
talents for long. Her family made the controversial decision to marry her off
when she was just 14 years old, an event that would impact the course of her
life very powerfully.



“They married me to a minister who already had four wives!
This is why I ran away from home and joined a traveling theater,” she says.



It was the traveling theater that took her to Osogbo, the
Nigerian town where she first established herself as an adire in her own right.
Historically, it was the source of beautiful handmade indigo textiles and, in
the 1960s, it became a nucleus of contemporary African art in the country.&nbsp; 



Indigo to the Yoruba people is the color of love. The
process of adire-making is therefore a labor of love. It involves extracting
indigo from the indigenous elu plant using labor-intensive techniques followed
by painting and resist-dyeing the fabric with a homemade cassava emulsion. 



As she became better versed in adire, Davies-Okundaye
decided to sell her work in what would be her very first gallery, out of her
bedroom, in 1968. This was her entry into a formal career in art.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="501" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike4-1024x501.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38526" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike4-1024x501.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike4-300x147.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike4-600x293.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike4-768x375.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike4.png 1262w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption> Batik art by Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



‘I called it African Art Number One Shop and I noticed that
it was only expatriates that would come to my shop and buy the pieces,” she
says.



During this time, she matured as an artist, experimenting
with fabric design and painting as well as teaching herself a new language,
English, to communicate with her foreign buyers. 



One of them was Alan Donovan, the acclaimed American
gallerist and collector of African artifacts. Arriving on the continent in 1967
as an aid worker during the Biafra War, Donovan took every opportunity to
travel around West Africa discovering the art and culture of the region.



When he stumbled upon Osogbo, it was inevitable that he
would end up at the door of the African Art Number One. Now living in Kenya,
Donovan became a repeat customer. He would return time and again, encouraging
her to make more work, which he would take to Nairobi. 



Her work would be distributed to discerning collectors like
Donovan. Among them was Joseph Murumbi, Kenya’s first Vice-President and one of
Africa’s most recognized private art collectors. From that one-room gallery,
Davies-Okundaye reportedly sent over 100 pieces of her work and that of other
Osogbo artists to Nairobi.&nbsp; 



In 1972, Donovan organized the Nigerian Festival, part of a
pan-African trade fair, in Nairobi. This was officially Davies-Okundaye’s
international debut at the gallery of the African Heritage House, founded by
Donovan and Murumbi’s wife, Sheila, the same year. The partnership continued
for decades, returning Nike numerously to Nairobi for East African exhibitions
of her Adire.



Interest in Kenya led to her first international tour,
taking her to the United States at the invitation of the American government,
along with 10 other established artists from across the continent. The
experience, she insists, was a catalyst for the founding of her art centers and
business in Nigeria.



“We were privileged to be the first artists from Africa to
travel to America in 1974. They asked us to bring something back that would
benefit our people. They took us to galleries and museums and they allowed us
to see their craft,” she remembers.



What she brought back was an even greater passion and
understanding of art, one that has led to philanthropy via her eponymous art
centers. The first opened in 1983, where she worked with disenfranchised women
on the streets of Osogbo. There, much like her own informal education, she
shared with them her skills in adire, weaving, painting and other traditional
arts for free. The centers have since grown to three in other Nigerian cities:
Abuja, Lagos and her hometown, Ogidi.



The Lagos center also houses Davies-Okundaye’s monumental
art gallery, said to be the largest in West Africa with over 8,000 pieces from
artists across Nigeria. The gallery, which opened in 1996, was a direct influence
of her American tour in the 1970s.



“The gallery that had in Osogbo was nothing compared to what
I saw [in the US] and I [wanted] to build a gallery where everyone’s voice
would be heard,” she says.



True to form, the gallery has achieved all that and more.
She has been responsible for discovering new talent in the country and actively
takes on an up-and-coming artist every month, building her collection and
diversity of voices piece by piece. 



Any one of these young artists may look at her career and
wonder where her secret to success lies. She is honest about the obstacles in
an industry that in many parts of the continent remains largely unrecognized.



“I always know my work. So whatever you do, you need to do
it very well and I tell people don’t rush, you will get there at the end of the
day. Have peace in your heart,” is her advice.



However, the patience that has carried her through has been
fueled by careful financial planning. As an entrepreneur, Davies-Okundaye has
endured because of this. She reinvests at least two-thirds of her income in her
business and art centers. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="402" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38527" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike5.png 402w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike5-300x457.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nike5-197x300.png 197w" sizes="(max-width: 402px) 100vw, 402px" /><figcaption> Batik art by Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure></div>



“Always plan ahead because if you make money today, you may
not make any for several months. I keep working. Even if I can’t sell any
pieces, I’ll find other work to pay for the materials,” she says.



This earnest combination of hard work, frugality and
philanthropy has made Davies-Okundaye a veteran artist of not only Nigeria but
of Africa. She has had pieces on permanent display at the Smithsonian
Institution’s National Museum of African Art in Washington DC for the past six
years.



The Gallery of African Art in London held a month and a half
retrospective of her work in 2014. Next year, she will return to the
Smithsonian for a celebration of her 50-year-career. Her work is cherished in
private collections all over with world. 



That doesn’t stop her from adding to her repertoire. Aside
from adire and textile painting, she recently began working with beads,
producing intricate portraits depicting life across Nigeria, completing a
single piece over the course of a year.



Even at 67, Davies-Okundaye has no plans to retire. 



“I still make time for my own work&#8230; and I still manage to cook for my husband,” she laughs.



-Marie Shabaya

nike1

The material of life according to textile queen Nike Davies-Okundaye

Under 30 alumni, born on the same day and with similar stories of entrepreneurship, are collaborating to disrupt industries and shape the future of Africa.

The road to entrepreneurship is cold, lonely and riddled with potholes. It helps if you are walking it with someone else.
Millennials Siya Beyile and Thato Kgatlhanye are doing just that.
Together, they are redefining business and shaping the future
of Africa.
“Entrepreneurs always talk about collaborations but we don’t do it enough. We want to resource Africa’s future. Resources go beyond natural resources, which is where the world has been focused. Our ideas, our people and the way we do things has value, so we must take advantage of it,” says Kgatlhanye.
Beyile and Kgatlhanye have big dreams, but a year ago, they were strangers, treading a path of hardship and pain.
At just 25 years old, Beyile has a resume most would envy.
In 2013, he founded The Threaded Man, a fashion blog for men, inspired by his mother, who often called him “umfana othungiweyo”, the ‘threaded man’ in isiXhosa.
He worked with major brands such as Adidas, Stuttafords, American Swiss, TITAN watches, H&amp;M, SAB, Hugo Boss and Pandora. He styled stars like Nomuzi Mabena, MsCosmo, Khuli Chana, AKA, DA LES, Amanda Black and Somizi Mhlongo.
At the age of 22, he was appointed Fashion Director of the South African Music Awards and MTV Africa Music Awards, he was named one of the seven leading voices of African men’s fashion by GQ and he graced the cover of GQ Style.
Beyile was adored by many, but beneath the stylish exterior was a story that was less flattering.
A slew of bad business decisions saw him lose money and his credibility, and the setbacks almost cost him his life.
“I had to shut the business down because of depression. I tried to commit suicide many times. I had made a lot of money but I had not touched it. It had gone to pay loans and also buy my company back. I never got to enjoy it. I shut down,” he says.
It took a toll on his confidence. He tonsured his head and spent six months in a rehabilitation facility, where he worked on rebuilding himself.
“I lost a lot of public value. People started unfollowing me [on social media] and just didn’t like me. People in the industry that I respected even turned on me. I would go to places and people would whisper around me and look at me with shame. It was embarrassing. I would go home and cry.”
He closed his business and moved back home to Cape Town to rethink and rejuvenate.
With a new attitude towards life, he relocated yet again to Johannesburg to start over. In February, he connected with Kgatlhanye, a FORBES AFRICA 30 Under 30 alumni and award-winning entrepreneur.
“When we met, we realized we had the same vision of disrupting. She was tired of being known as a bag entrepreneur and wanted to make sustainable luxury and wanted to get into fashion and I wanted my fashion to be sustainable and wanted to run a factory but didn’t know how. She had the experience of running a factory and I knew all things fashion,” says Beyile.
<div id="attachment_37746" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37746" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-37746 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Thato-n-Siya-712-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Thato-n-Siya-712-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Thato-n-Siya-712-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Thato-n-Siya-712-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Thato-n-Siya-712-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Thato-n-Siya-712-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Thato-n-Siya-712.jpg 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Thato Kgatlhanye and Siya Beyile. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2016/02/01/ceo-rethaka/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: CEO, Rethaka</a>
Kgatlhanye is the founder of Rethaka Group, which started in textile manufacturing and waste management. She became known for collecting and recycling plastic waste into solar-powered school bags for poor children.
“We started like that so we could get an understanding of the nuts and bolts of manufacturing. Most of the time we don’t own the value chain of products. Take clothes, for example, people just go somewhere to buy things but don’t know the suppliers of zips and buttons and you end up cutting into your margins by virtue of not understanding the value chain. So we collaborated to form a new company, where we bring in the ability to build and make things in a sustainable way and then sell them on our platforms,” says Kgatlhanye.
Beyile and Kgatlhanye founded 712 Group, which now houses both their brands. The company is named after their birthday; they were both born on December 7.
“We are building a global powerhouse with African brands. Those brands will be spread across technology, manufacturing, fashion and sustainability. Africa right now has become a focal point but a lot of the brands we consume on a daily basis are not African. We have a lot of talented people in these spaces but we don’t see them opening stores around the world and disrupting. We feel like our market has been hijacked. There is no corporate structure that supports our brands,” says Beyile.
The pair agree there is more power in collaborating than working in silos.
“Working together helps. We know our strengths and weaknesses. For example, I know that I can’t be CEO. In the last five years, I have been in business, I have learned I am not capable because there are certain things I don’t think about. However, I have also learned I am a visionary.  I am good at coming up with concepts and connecting people but I am not good at implementing. However, Thato is good at taking the idea and having it live in the world, which is a nice balance,” says Beyile.
Kgatlhanye concurs: “There were a lot of loopholes in our individual businesses that we were struggling with. It would have taken us longer to try togrow our businesses individually than it will take us now as a combined unit. I was a master in something he needed and he was a master in something I needed.”
Beyile says they have both learned not to rush, but rather to build a solid foundation, generate cash reserves and work on growth.
<blockquote>“A lot of businesses led by young people will ‘grow’ but when you look at their growth metrics, staff turnover and profitability, those things are not solid,” says Kgatlhanye.</blockquote>
Beyile agrees.
“The biggest lesson from my journey is that business is not a friendly sport. If you have ambitions to be a billionaire and to be on the cover of FORBES AFRICA magazine, to get there, you will suffer.”
Given the current market, Beyile says their business structure is different.
“When I look at media companies, their staff turnover is low. This is because young people are frustrated. They don’t want a nine-to-five. They want to build their own businesses and have their own lives. We can’t expect to hire young people full-time and expect them to be happy and to work for us for 20 years… Young people need to be put in positions of empowerment, so we work with freelancers and businesses owned by young people on a project-by-project basis.”
They say the additional benefit of collaborating is it helps them save money on office space, speeds up project turnaround times, ensures quality work and gives them faster and more effective growth and team results.
It is true: teamwork makes the dream work. The future is bright for these young entrepreneurs born on the same day in the same year and with the same vision for Africa.

Thato-n-Siya-733

Two’s Company; 30 Under 30 Alumni Collaborate

Picture yourself living in early 19th century Africa. What would you be clad in? Most likely an outfit made of traditional cloth, perhaps Kuba cloth.
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“We have one of the most beautiful art forms in Africa,” says Crown Prince Kwete Kwete.
Prince Kwete is the son of the 125th king of the Bakuba Kingdom, King Kot Mbueki III. Textiles from Africa are said to be one of the most important gifts to the world of art. The Kuba cloth is associated with royalty and has inspired great artists like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Matisse’s appliquéd techniques were influenced by the Kuba cloth displayed in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Kuba cloth originated with King Shamba Bolongongo and his son, Shaamweky. From the 16th century, the Kuba people have dressed themselves in Kuba cloth, wrapping it around their waists like a skirt. The cloth is made of raffia from the palm tree. The raffia is picked and dried, softened and woven into different lengths and sizes. The process can take three to four weeks or up to a year.
“Textiles are a sign of wealth for us and every king has a cloth that he wears during ceremonies. When a member of the royal family dies, women from the kingdom wear a certain color cloth for six months. Designs are symbolic and used for particular ceremonies,” says Prince Kwete.
When a king dies, his wives wear special red cloth with subtle patterns in velvet on the borders and openwork embroidery in the middle. Specially designed weavings made of leopard skin and shells are reserved for the king, his wives, the royal court and dancers.
The Kuba cloth is made by the people of the Bakuba Kingdom in the Democratic Republic of Congo—formerly Zaire. But it is the Shoowa, a small sub-tribe of the Bakuba who are renowned for making intricate textiles from the palm fiber creating a tuft pile-like effect using the clipped raffia threads. Weaving intricate geometrical designs can take up to a year.
Some of the designs are on display in museums around the world and have been studied by scholars like George Meurant of Belgium. The beauty and complexity of the Kuba cloth has only recently been appreciated at a time when the most elegant designs are disappearing. European collectors of African textiles started amassing collections of embroidered cut-pile textiles towards the end of the 19th century. These pieces often fetch millions of dollars at auctions. Most collectors are private individuals in America, Britain, France and Poland.
Kuba cloth is on the brink of being lost; Prince Kwete is trying to preserve it with the help of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
“The Kuba cloth is displayed in leading museums, but people do not know where the Bakuba Kingdom is located. Kuba is still existent and we are a population of approximately half a million people including immigrants. Congo is bigger than Eastern Europe and Kuba land is three times the size of Belgium,” he says.
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Together with his father, Prince Kwete is working with the central government of Congo to reach out to other Africans through culture.
“DRC is known for war, but there are attractive investment opportunities in the country.”
King Kot Mbueki III is the first king of Bakuba to have travelled to Kinshasa and Europe.
“He ‘broke away’ from the kingdom by preserving tradition,” says Price Kwete who describes the Bakuba Kingdom as democratic.
“The king is there to reign and not to rule. We have managed to maintain our culture and art because each tribe is represented in the king’s court. When selecting a chief of a village, the people of a village have to go to the king and suggest someone. My father then honors the people’s wish by appointing the suggested person. This goes back nine centuries.”
According to Kenyan fashion model Emma Too, the Kuba cloth is one of the most valuable African textiles together with the Ashanti and Kente from West Africa. American fashion designer Ralph Lauren is known to have made several designs using the Kuba cloth and supermodel Iman wore Kuba designs when she modelled for Africa Heritage. The cloth is also used to decorate homes. Because of its growing demand, the market has been flooded by fake cloth.
“You can tell an original Kuba cloth by how it has been sewn, designed and the quality. If you compare a genuine and fake cloth, the quality of material is world’s apart,” says Prince Kwete.
The people of the Bakuba Kingdom use the cloth as a source of income to support their families through school.
“Since our main source of income was farming and that can barely sustain families, you find people selling their valuable pieces,” says Prince Kwete, who regularly organizes auctions to arrange money for projects in the kingdom.
The price of the Kuba cloth depends on the year it was made, how long it took to make, the design and history of the piece. There is a museum in Mshenge—the capital of Bakuba—which is used by the royal family to display valuable pieces.
“Once any society in Africa loses its identity and adopts a new one, your culture disappears,” says Prince Kwete.

Tag: Textiles

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The material of life according to textile queen Nike Davies-Okundaye

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