THE HAIRPOLITAN MAGAZINE VOL 6 MAY 2017

FEATURE STORY
THE MAKING OF A
PIONEER CREATIVE
Interview with Grace Nyokabi Kihara
Before joining the University of Nairobi, 1969
I remember once in lower primary being asked to
explain, to the entire class, what our parents did
for a living. I was at a great loss! I knew my mother,
Grace, was a Graphic Designer because she said
so but I didn’t know how to explain exactly what it
meant. I spent many a weekend at her design studio
playing with sticky rubbers made from cow gum or
with left over fonts from discarded letrasets. Yet to
be perfectly honest, my young mind, did not grasp
the illustrious career that Mum was crafting as a
female creative of her generation. When the idea to
interview our mothers for this issue came up I took
the chance to ask her as many questions about her
career as I could.
CHILDHOOD
“
INFLUENCES
I was curious to know what
in her childhood, being
the fifth born in a family of
seven children, could have
contributed to her being a
creative mind. She credits
this to her late Mum, Peris
Wambui Kihara (whom I
am named after), who had
a strong creative streak in
her. My grandmother loved
to cut and sew her own
dresses. She also, at some
point, attended a course
offered by a colonial white
lady where she learned to
knit, quilt, bake and make jam and marmalade.
Grace says she ended up learning how to knit at an
early age and was already sewing her own underwear
by the time she was in upper primary. She was also
encouraged by her older sister, Lois, who taught
her how to read and follow knitting patterns. While
in Alliance Girls’ High School, she went on to knit
pieces, which were entered for a competition at
the Home Craft Section of the Nairobi International
Show
Grace goes on to credit her creative exposure,
especially in the field of photography, to her late
father Joshua Kihara Wang’ang’a. “Dad was taking
us to the studio for family pictures in the 40’s and
50’s. I found myself going for studio portraits before
joining campus and actually seeking out a couple
of good studios. We did basic photography at the
University but I was to find myself slowly developing
interest and buying my own cameras and snapping
away especially during my travels out of the country,”
she expounds.
BECOMING A DESIGNER
Growing up, I had a vague
idea of her being part of
the first batch of Graphic
Designers out of the
University of Nairobi (UoN).
I finally sought to know
exactly how this happened.
She explained that after her
studies in High School, she
was at a loss on her career
choice. The ones on offer
namely Nursing, Secretarial
and Teaching didn’t suit her
tastes. She instead went to
take up her A Levels at the
then Highlands School (now
Moi Girls), Eldoret. It was
formerly an all European
School that the Kenyan
Government was taking
over and africanizing. There she studied Fine Art,
Geography and English Literature. She graduated
and once again was faced with the dilemma of a
career choice.
“
In those days, they who were artistically inclined
attended Makerere University (Kampala,Uganda)
where they could study Fine Art majoring in Painting
and Sculpture. “I am not sure if I was good at drawing
but I loved drawing maps in Geography and really
coloring them,” she muses. At the time Nairobi was
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