Pilot who chose to work with stone

The decision for him to become such was not easy but, his love for art moved him.
The beauty of the Zimbabwe sculpture movement is that it is has been and still continues to be graced by colourful personalities who just like Matisse leave their high-profile professions to practise art.
Among these colourful personalities is Mike Munyaradzi, who falls in the avant-garde group of Gideon Nyanhongo, Dominic Benhura, the late Anderson Mukomberanwa, Coleen Madamombe, Agnes Nyanhongo, Eddy Masaya, and Fabian Madamombe among others.
For him the decision to become an artist was again not easy considering what he had to weigh art with being a holder of a BTech HND in Software Engineering from Manchester University and a qualified pilot who is ranked as the captain it meant his decision had to be well considered.
Captain Munyaradzi still practises both professions but interestingly enough he spends much of his time sculpting than flying because his decision just like Matisse was influenced by his love for art.
What is in art that compels such colourful personalities to consider it above everything else? It is the love of it.
Munyaradzi has exposed himself to stone sculpture more than he has exposed himself to flying and software engineering because he has been an artist for many years now.
His work is of a high standard and it forms part of the display in the foyer of the Harare International Airport. He has attended and featured in different exhibitions in Europe and America and some of his pieces form part of the permanent collection of Humana People to People, an international organisation dealing with humanitarian needs.
Nothing best explains the beauty of this sculpture movement than the fact that one man who flies the Boeing is the same man you will find in his studio, covered in dust and holding his hammer, navigating the chisel just the way he carefully navigates the Boeing into cruise control. 
For those who are privileged to understand and follow the Zimbabwe stone sculpture movement they do not marvel much for in the 1980s his father the late Henry Munyaradzi made a piece and he titled it, “The First Man on the Moon”.
To date Mike Munyaradzi works from his studio at a plot in Ruwa.