I stared at The Displaced Ibis in awe.

One of the Ten Commandments is: “Do not covet.” I looked at my friends new painting and I’m very much afraid to admit that I broke that commandment. I coveted. Oh, how I coveted! It was a painting of an Hadeda Ibis. It is standing on an old trunk-like suitcase, an antique looking book and an old hat box. The Ibis definitely looks a little lost. How did it get there, I wondered? Maybe it’s wing is broken and it has taken refuge in an old dusty attic. I laughed at myself. I was doing what the artist, Peter Pharoah strives to do with his art: Make the viewer participate.

The Hadeda reminds me of home for its cry echoes over South Africa. And, it is standing on two things I love – cases and books. I adore travelling and am passionate about books. So this painting speaks to me on so many emotional levels.

“Who is the artist?” I asked, my eyes fixed on this incredible painting.

“Grace Kotze.”

I needed to know more!

I contacted Grace and in true Gaynor fashion, my questions were endless. Grace actually spent her childhood in Hilton, Kwazulu Natal. When she was 18, she moved to Durban to study Fine Art at Durban University of Technology. And she has been a Durbanite ever since! How could I have lived in Durban for fourteen years and not been aware of her art? Possibly because I didn’t live near an art gallery and was reliant on my legs to get me places! 

When asked who inspired her, Grace laughed: “Those who inspire me change constantly according to my creative concerns at the time. But Rembrandt will always stay top of my list!”

Well, she certainly chose to be inspired by a Master! She has also seen three exhibitions of Turners work. These changed her experience with paint. Through Turner she realised that paint is not a substance used to get your ideas down on canvas. Paint has its own voice to contribute to the painting’s song. She uses it with freedom and delights in its own particular volume and flow.

Although Grace began painting predominantly in oils, she has now changed to acrylics which she loves. She has also just started working in lino cut. Knowing Grace’s ability, I am dying to see some of her latest works.

The subject she feels most at home with is the human figure and portraiture. “It is so commanding and due to this power it is easily edited in order to just provide its essence. I have started to explore animals in the hopes that I can achieve such brevity of mark and detail. Time will tell though.”

Her compositions are often obscurely wonderful. “All my visual decision making stems from the need to produce work that has an emotional pull. So I search for coupling of objects and creatures that conjure a whimsy, longing, memory…”

Her ideas and thoughts are translated through her paintbrush and paint onto canvas and thus her creations are born.

I asked Grace from where she drew inspiration?

“Life in general. There is energy and inspiration at every turn. The city where I live is full of visual wonders in its buildings, animals and people. The movement and sounds alone create a vibrancy that keeps me on my toes.”

Grace Kotze’s work is created by blending her emotions with what she sees before her. Looking at her paintings, I find my feelings constantly moved and challenged. I have delighted, laughed and puzzled over her works. I wanted to speak to Grace and ask her to explain certain things and express the joy and pleasure I get from them. And then I thought: Hold on, you can’t do that with Van Gogh or Monet. I should rather share my interpretation of some of my favourites with the world

‘Coordinates’

This is what Grace has called these beautiful hands. They entrance and my imagination swirls within. To me, these are an elderly woman’s hands that are used to hard work. They carry a genuine sense of tangibility about them which make me long for a look at the rest of the body.

‘Learning to let go’ 

I stare at the beautiful face and puzzle about the moths and butterflies that are studded on the wall. The person’s face draws me in. I see resignation and loss. The man, butterflies and moths need to let go and fly free.

‘Precious Sparrows’

Looking at this painting, I thought to myself: ‘Growing up in Johannesburg, my world was filled with sparrows. Living in George, I hardly ever see them. Don’t sparrows like the Western Cape?’

I gave this more thought and came to the conclusion that the nooks and crannies in houses no longer exist as nesting sites. As a child, we had sparrows that nested in the little crack above our scullery door.

I miss the flurry of sparrows around me. This painting reminds me of how much I long for the joyful cheekiness of these little birds. I love the way they are painted, with broad, defined brush strokes. This makes their feathers appear fuller, as if they have just ruffled them.

The Pigeon and the Chinese Dragon Bowl 

This is another one of Grace’s ‘whimsical coupling’ paintings. I love the combination of still life and real life. I look at the vibrant colours in this work and smile. The impossibility of a pigeon sitting on the rim of this fine, delicate bowl! How perfectly the blue silk ribbon floats across the Chinese dragon. The colours and intriguing content of this painting make my spirit sing.

The Journey 

The unusual components of this painting fascinate me. It’s as if the contents of the oil-can has been used initially to create the background for the painting. I love the juxtaposition of Shakespeare next to Christopher Robin, and the incongruousness of a child’s wooden duck atop a pile of antique books. Why is it titled ‘The Journey’ I muse?

I love the way Grace regards her work.

“The most important thing is the painting that follows, not the one I have just completed. I don’t consider the works that I have painted over as failures, but one step closer to achieving something worth keeping.”

Grace Kotze anticipates the future with enthusiasm. What a great ethos for life! We should all learn from our past and continually look forward.

*

Grace’s works can be seen in George at Cape Palette Art & Picture Framing and in Cape Town at State of the Art Gallery.

The post Grace Personified! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

“Overall, my aim is to make the world a brighter place, through the use of illustration.”

I wriggled my feet in the grass, took a deep breath of the gorgeous air and sat back with my eyes closed, revelling in the glorious morning. I was sitting next to a bed of lavender and was overwhelmed by the buzzing of bees. I opened my eyes and truly looked at the busy activity taking place in front of me. I loved the smell and look of the silver stemmed purple flowering lavender plants. The bees obviously felt the same way. They sucked up the nectar with a greedy joy. There is so much about nature that I wish I could capture as an artist. I would love to be able to paint, draw or take photographs. Unfortunately, that is not the life that has been picked out for me. So I closed my eyes once more and enjoyed the sound.

A week later, I was walking around an exhibition of Nande Hattingh’s beautiful work at Cape Palette Gallery. The images I saw before me, took my breath away with their intricacy and detail. Then I stopped short. There were my bees!

I drew closer to the picture and really studied it. The bees rather than being amongst my lavender appeared to be among Pincushion Proteas. I would have expected these to have been painted vivid reds, oranges and yellows, dynamic hot colours. Instead these bees were buzzing amongst Proteas that were cool blues and greys in hue. Why this strange juxtaposition? Was the artist making a statement about the demise of bees and plant germination, thus the absence of vibrant, alive colours? Inwardly I laughed at my supposition. The bees could be nestled amongst those muted blueish, grey flowers merely because Nande liked that particular effect.

This is the thing about art.
‘Art is in the eye of the beholder!’

When I met Nande Hattingh, I was surprised to find she was twenty-three. She looked even younger. Fresh faced and clear eyed, not a scrap of makeup. She exuded a special kind of naturalness and was dressed with a bohemian flair which I love. Throughout our encounter, I was struck by her passion for nature. There was no affectation or pretence about her. I laughed when I heard that she was drawing before she could walk, even if it was with her mothers make-up! She studied for her degree at the Open Window Institute. Initially her artistic style was too fluid and lacked definition. She tightened her work by swapping her pencil for a fine-liner pen. As she said: “You can’t erase pen. Any line once drawn has to be integrated into the overall image.”

Nande describes herself as an illustrator more than an artist. I see her as a 21st century illustrator. She scans her newly penned images into her computer and adds colour and texture digitally, layer by layer. Not for her the smell of turpentine and oily brushes!

Nande’s love of the natural world began as a child and has never waned. Her daily runs turn into foraging expeditions. She discovers new treasures – flowers, seed-pods, shells, feathers, moss, tangled sea weed and these fuel her creative imagination. New illustrations emerge from the ‘energy’ surrounding these natural prizes.

I studied her image of a butterfly, or perhaps it’s a moth, atop a ball of tangled willow vines. I found it a captivating image. The caterpillar forms into a chrysalis which finally emerges as a beautiful ‘butter-moth’ from it’s cocoon. I like to think that subconsciously this was why Nande placed this beauty amongst a ‘chrysalis’ of tangled vines. To me, the willow vines and the ‘butter-moth’ represent new life and growth!

I love the drawing of a ladybird resting on a fern. The fern is made up of different shades of greens, yellows, purples and pinks. Are the purples and pinks perhaps a reflection of the Erica found interspersed between the ferns in the forest? l was intrigued by Nande’s annotation about the ladybird being known as ‘God’s little cow.’ I shall now always refer to them that way!

One can sense the doggedness within this swallow as it builds its nest, mud pellet by mud pellet. The birds determination seeps from Nande’s drawing towards the viewer. The image reminded me of a recent journey through the Little Karoo. I came across a swallow making it’s nest high in the eaves of a porch. Where was it getting the water to make the mud pellets from? Why was it making its home in this hot, arid landscape, I mused? I wonder if swallows are still making their mud pelleted nests in Cape Town with the current water shortage? Or perhaps, they have all evacuated Cape Town for other more flowing parts!

Nande’s images make me so aware of the astounding sense of awe that nature can induce. I have been blind to the wonder encapsulated in a single daisy. I remember watching male weaver birds striving to make the perfect nest for their partners. Ms Weaver would take a look around inside, decide the nest was not up to scratch and would tear it down. One could literally see the male weaver bird’s chest deflate. Then he would begin all over again. Nande’s works has widened my eyes to the natural beauty around me, in the same way my Cochlear Implants  re-opened my ears to sounds in nature. I cannot explain to you the joy of ‘hearing’ birds, crickets, rain and…..bees.

We must all appreciate and paint the sublime in nature – in our minds!

This week, I am going to a lecture on birds…….

The post Sublime in Nature! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

The shops at Christmas time are pits of hell!
I am so relieved that Christmas shopping is over for another year. So many people intent on buying presents, Christmas hams, turkeys, Christmas crackers….Fill the halls with bits of folly, I thought sourly to myself. Right, Mums’ present could now be ticked off my list. I still needed to get presents for my nieces. As I turned the corner in our Mall, I stopped with a gasp. My path was blocked by a tall, towering giraffe. Four warthogs scurried past my feet, literally colliding with a lion padding on it’s way, while an an enormous great white shark swam it’s lethal way overhead. The noise and bustle of the crowds receded as I stood there drinking in the wonder of these creations.

I gazed at these lifelike sculptures in awe. Sculpture seems the wrong word for these intricate creations. A sculpture to me has always been a thing carved in stone or wood that has been whittled away. These animals were created from an inordinate number of pieces of driftwood. They were placed in such a way that these animals had expression. They lived! I could almost see the lion breathe. I could literally see the giraffe’s eyelid and expected him (or was it her?) to blink!

Their creator, Bevan Van Druten, actually never trained as an artist. He was a chef and worked in hotel management. He was good at what he did, but maybe when he lay in bed at night, he sensed that something was missing; that piece that makes the world a place of limitless wonder and opportunity.

Then whilst browsing the Internet, he came across Heather Jansch‘s life-size driftwood horses and his world stood still. As Ms Jansch says: “The driftwood had a power and authentic quality that made it something extraordinary.”
Bevan couldn’t have agreed more. His garden in Wilderness was littered with pieces of driftwood that he had found on the beach or in river estuaries and taken home. He liked their feel, their shape, their colours. He was totally passionate about driftwood! Now Heather Janch’s idea took root. She had created horses but they didn’t play a part in Bevan’s world. He would try and create something he saw often in South Africa – the Blue Crane. He created a pair of Blue Cranes which sold instantly. Bevan had discovered what he was born to do.
Create using driftwood!

How does he go about creating these life-like animals? How does he know where to place each individual piece of driftwood? Where does he start? I was awash with questions. Bevan’s piercing eyes crinkled as he laughed softly.
“I always start with the core.”
I understood the importance of the core. Since my accident, it is something that I have had to strengthen in order for me to walk reasonably. He begins with a solid driftwood core or base. It is the skeleton on which he builds everything. He demonstrated this by showing me a beautiful impala he had made, leaping forewords. So real. One could literally feel it’s muscles bulging as it lunged upwards and out.

He produces work boards which he consults religiously. These consist of photographs and drawings of the animal on which he is working from different perspectives. Bevan studies every aspect of the animal. He seeks to understand how it stands, sits, chews, lies down. How the animal looks while flying? Which wing is tilted which way? Indeed, how the feathers are affected by the wind?

Then he begins to ‘sculpt’. Slowly and meticulously his animals come into being!

Pablo Picasso said: “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up.”

Bevan became an artist in his thirties, when he was already grown up! He is relishing his new life and is producing a host of superlative creatures. One of my favourites is his rhino. Pieces like this take more than a month to complete. It contains the very essence of the animal. Even though it’s static and made of driftwood, one has a sense of the muscles, tendons and sinews astir beneath the skin. Bevan seems to have breathed the spirit of the rhino into the wooden sculpture. One expects a snort and movement to occur at any moment.

Bevan’s artistic journey has made me appreciate that one should never be afraid to stop and change direction, to follow your passion. This is the secret to attaining joy.
I am sure that when Bevan lies in bed at night, his heart is now aflame with all the possibilities that life has to offer.

Follow your passion!

***

Bevan is based in beautiful Wilderness on the Garden Route – SA. More of his artwork can be found here!

The post A Safari in Driftwood! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

I looked at the picture on the mug in front of me as I waited for my hot chocolate to cool. I smiled. A buxom woman stared back. She looked as if she was posing or modelling. What tickled me was that this was not the tall, wafer thin figure that so many women aspire to nowadays. This woman was big and curvaceous. Yet she looked perfectly content within herself. She seemed to be saying: “It’s alright to be big. It’s beautiful to be large!”.
I like that! The equally large figure on the plate under the mug possessed considerable élan! I laughed softly to myself. Like me, this woman carried a jumble of bags. What’s really likeable about these figures is that they don’t conform to modern day “figure” expectations. They are Rubenesque and I like that!
Who are these caricatures created by? I didn’t need to look at the bottom of the mug to know these were Sharon Dold designs. Sharon, like me, lives in George. We had never met, but I planned to remedy that situation.
I invited her for coffee at Travelbugs, one of my favourite restaurants in George. While I awaited Sharon’s arrival, I tried to picture what she looked like. Did she look like one of her creations? Was she a large woman with a very red mouth dressed in a funky kind of manner? How old is she? I wondered. I remembered another one of Sharon’s creations: An older woman wearing a purple dressing gown and matching purple eye shadow. Her hair is in bright blue curlers that match the hilarious blue glasses through which her long lashed eyes are peering.
“Gaynor?” A soft voice enquired.
I looked into the smiling, fun filled face of a woman about my age. I smiled as I shook her hand. “Hi there, Sharon! I have been admiring your work and I didn’t know what to expect today. I was half anticipating the appearance of one of your Fat Ladies. But I see that you are nothing like them. I don’t know whether to be sorry or relieved.”
She laughed and this blonde haired, brown eyed woman sat down opposite me. We began chatting and Sharon’s story started to unfold…..
When she finished school, despite being passionate about art, she did a “very dependable” secretarial course. If you have the creative impulse within you, inevitably it finds it’s outlet. Sharon’s creativity was alive and well and burning to be released. For a friend’s birthday present, she took a plate and painted a funky bird on it that literally zinged in it’s bright, alive colours. Her friend raved about her creation! Soon Sharon was painting plate after plate with these freaky, funny birds. They were squawking, laughing, winking and behaving in an un-birdlike, thoroughly lovable manner. Her creativity had found it’s niche!
Her Fat Lady design for which her name is now synonymous leapt onto paper more than fifteen years ago and it is still the design for which she is widely known. Sharon laughed as she explained how one day a Fat Lady curved up at her from beneath her pencil. She smiled  greeting  her new creation and a few more Fat Ladies appeared in answer to that smile. I chuckled when she showed me a picture of two women in their bathing costumes on a beach. It is obviously not pleasant because they have their arms wrapped around their bodies for warmth. Their voluptuous breasts ooze above their arms! These Fat Ladies are not smiling though. Their eyes are beautifully made up but their red lipped mouths are pouting. I identify with that picture. I am not a great lover of the beach!
Sharon initially began marketing her designs from her home. She reproduced them very basically on plates and stationery. Now there is a thriving factory in the heart of George that utilises the very latest graphic design technology to produce an exciting range of homeware and gifting merchandise – stationery, crockery, trays, fridge magnets, spoon holders. Sharon Dold’s Designs are now found in over three hundred retail outlets throughout South Africa. One of her greatest pleasures as her business grows is that she is able to employ more and more local people.
I asked Sharon about the future, where she saw herself in five years?
“I would like to have significantly increased my international presence” she replied.
“Although it is wonderful that my designs have widespread recognition in South Africa, it would be incredible if they attained world-wide fame!”
I smile at the thought of beautifully made cards with Fat Ladies ‘strutting their stuff’ being sold at John Lewis in England (akin to Woolies in SA).
With the ailing, weak Rand there is definitely no better time to try!

To visit Sharon Dold’s Design web site click here!

The post A big fat success! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

        One of my Facebook ‘friends’ recently wrote a comment on Facebook that really tugged at my heart. She had clearly lost two people close to her. I sent her a private message saying that although I did not know the details, I felt for her. She wrote back and candidly told me that her son had been murdered and then nine months later her husband had been swimming, had a heart attack and died.

The post One day at a time! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

The post Born to Art! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

“To develop a complete mind:

Study the science of art;

Study the art of science;

Learn how to see.

Realise that everything is connected to everything else.”

                                                  Leonard de Vinci

Every time I visit in England, my final two days are spent in London. I say goodbye to family and friends and… a whole morning is spent at The National Art Gallery. I love my time there. Fresh from the hustle and bustle of Trafalgar Square, ‘B’ and I tumble into The Gallery. And give a happy sigh of contentment.  I think after a four frenetic weeks, the quiet and stillness of the National is a heady experience. ‘B’ and I happily meander from room to glorious room.

I know so little about art. But I like it. A lot. I was visiting a friend of mine when I saw the most beautiful painting on her wall. “What a stunning painting! And it’s an original.” I observed as I got closer. I read the artist’s name and drew back in surprise. “Lisl Barry! Your daughter. Shytenhauzen!” I exclaimed. I knew that Lisl painted but I had thought that she merely did the odd bit of hobby stuff. More advanced than paint by numbers, sure, but not much! I was obviously very wrong. Smile. VERY WRONG indeed.

Let me tell you about my friend, the artist, Lisl Barry.

On meeting Lisl, one is instantly struck by her eyes. They are this mesmerising blue and they seem to take you in, all of you – a good thing for a painter.

Looking around her beautiful studio, which is in an old waenhuis (wagon house) located in the grounds of the Rosenhof  Country House at the foot of the Swartberg mountains in Oudtshoorn, one is surprised by the sheer diversity of her work.

Yes, there are paintings that you would expect from someone who lives in the heart of the Karoo: pictures of  wide open dusty plains with huge blue skies, rusting water pumps, men herding goats and sheep, and children playing games in the dust.

But as Lisl says herself, “she now paints that which resonates with her eye and steals her breath – mostly quite ordinary moments transformed by the changing of light.” Looking at her paintings it is obvious that Lisl’s awe of the wonderful effect of light greatly influences her work.

Some of more recent works were inspired by an incident with her two young daughters standing on a bridge looking at the water running and tumbling below them. It swirled, puckered and foamed, leaped into the air as it hit a rock and continued on its way. The water fascinated her and she wanted to portray the tumult of what she saw.

I love the paintings that she does from her artistic imagination.Childs Peace is definitely my favourite. It has an innocence and a childishness to it that I find utterly entrancing. Last Christmas I was given African Dream Tree. The painting seems to vibrate with a colour and mirth all of its own. It also seems to echo my enchantment with rainbows.

In Lisl’s studio there is a painting of a Moroccan looking church.Standing outside the church is this goat. Lisl told me that there were also chickens, people, the odd cow ambling past. And yet here was this place of refuge amidst the vibrance and tumult of village life. It was kept beautifully. There might not be that much money for food and yet the door was painted regularly – green! I fell in love with the paintings name: God’s Green Door.

At the moment Lisl is working on a painting that I would sell my body for! It is of a grove of Silver Birch trees. They look other worldly in their delicacy and strangely enough, their strength. It is captivating in it’s gracefulness.

Tucked away on a shelf was a pile of books, 52 Ways to Grow Creative Children. I love this book that Lisl wrote. Lisl studied photography at Cape Town Tech and it is put to such good use in this book. It inspires parents to spend time connecting with their young children doing simple creative activities.

One’s art changes with oneself. I asked Lisl “where she saw herself in five years time?” and she replied: “I take each day as it comes.”

“And her best critic?” There was no hesitation in her response: “My husband, Tom.” She laughs. “He is my best and worst critic!”

Jacana have kindly given me a number of copies of Lisl’s book to give away to my blog followers. If you would like to enter a draw for one of these, please post a ‘Reply’ at the end of this blog saying why you would like a copy! I will contact the winners via email for postal address details. The draw will take place on Friday 15th November. I am afraid because of postage costs this ‘giveaway’ is only open to SA residents.

The post The Eyes of an Artist! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.