Gaynor-twirls are not always successful. Often instead of going in a perfect round spin, my body teeters, leaning Tower of Pisa like, and then plummets to end up in a most undignified heap. This time however, my body did a Tower of Pisa lean, wobbled to the correct angle and finished in a Gaynor-twirl of perfection! I will leave the style of that perfection to your imagination!!!
“I love being in Hampstead,” I cried.

Hampstead seems to have a buzz about it. My friend, B and I left the home where we were staying and headed straight for our breakfast haunt, Le Pain Quotient. It is a charming little coffee shop that seems to have a golden glow of warmth inviting you in. We always head straight for the same table that looks out onto the busy street. What a blissful way to begin our day. Sipping hot chocolate, devouring a warm, crispy. buttery almond croissants and planning the day ahead.

Leaving the coffee shop, my eyes lit upon an antique shop about fifty metres away.
“Oh, B, I know I can barely afford to ‘breathe’ in there, but please, I have to go in.”
We passed through these luxurious old green curtains that had bells attached. The owner, a red haired, green eyed woman, alerted by the bells, looked up at us.
“May we just look around? I can’t afford to buy anything but this shop simply enticed me?”
The owner laughed. “Look around all you like,” she said in this gorgeous Irish accent.
What glorious and splendid treasures met my eyes in that trove of a shop. A eighteenth century silver box that would have looked so perfect on my dressing table. It was going for £523. A touch out of my price range! 

We wandered around Hampstead and discovered a quaint bookshop. How I love bookshops. This was my favourite kind because it was a second hand shop. It had old books peeping shyly down at me from atop their shelves. Right at the back, on the fifth shelf there was an red book that seemed to be beckoning to me.
“Yes, come nearer, come on,” it seemed to say, “you’ll like what I contain between my covers.”
I reached for the book and it slipped between my fingers and fell open onto the floor.
“Glory, I’m sorry!” I said to the shop assistant as I gently picked it up. “Oh, it’s Yeats,” I said.
The book had fallen open on He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven.
“Gosh, this was one of the first poems I learned at drama school. After my fall, it was a poem that I managed to re-learn.”
“Say it for me,” B asked curious.
I shut my eyes briefly and from somewhere inside of me the word came tumbling out:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark clothes
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.

On our way to Belsize Park tube station, we took a short cut up a pathway that snakes past the Royal Free Hospital where construction work was under way. Hoardings had been erected with a startling difference. That was when I saw them. The paintings!A 30-metre-long outdoor gallery with impressive large scale reproductions of paintings imprinted all the way. I drew in my breath sharply and simply stared. They were laminated paintings that were of Hampstead and other areas in London. They were startling in the striking colours and their vibrancy was almost stupefying. I moved from one painting to the next, drinking in the images shining out at me. On the last hoarding was a write up about the artist, Oliver Yu Chan. It began:
The paintings displayed here are by local artist, Oliver Yu Chan, born 8th December 1986, a young man on the autistic spectrum.
This artist was autistic.

I have a friend that has a young autistic daughter who I recently met. I came away knowing that I needed to understand this disorder more. Autism is an intricate developmental disorder. It is made up of social and communication difficulties. Self-stimulatory and repetitive behaviours result and narrow, overly-focused interests. I saw all this that day at my friends house. Her daughter was unable to talk and was perhaps thrown and disturbed by my presence. This resulted in incredibly repetitive behaviour. There is a school of thought that seeks to manage and control it. There are also those that see autism as a neuro-diversity that needs to be understood. Once understood, then the person’s potential can be realised. This I believe is the method Oliver Yu Chan’s mother took. 

As a young child, Oliver had very little speech and language and couldn’t sit still. He was perpetually on the move. He had many ‘obsessions’. His mother, Caroline, was always keen to encourage artistic interests as way of diverting him. She presented her child with a picture of a hedgehog.
“Oliver, do you see this picture of a hedgehog? Try and copy it,” she coaxed.
Oliver, whose attention was always flipping from one thing to another, looked at the picture, slowed down and began to draw. He recreated it beautifully. He looked at his picture and he smiled. As he later said: “That was the beginning of my ‘Amazing  Journey in Art’.” 

Oliver ‘speaks’ to the world through his paintings. I have found more of his art on the internet: oliveryuchan@tumblr.com
It was there that I discovered one of my favourite paintings. It was done  in 2018 and is simply called: Freud Museum London in Swiss Cottage. It is merely a picture of a house with a car parked outside. Yet it speaks to me of the artist. A man who sees our world as a place of colour and vibrancy. Isn’t his sky ringing and shouting beauty into the world?

Hampstead sparkles with an energy and vigour that stimulates me. We boarded the tube and the doors shut on Hampstead.
“If I were to live in England, B,  there is no doubt in my mind that I would live in Hampstead.”
B laughed.
“Oh, you of champagne taste, you would never be able to afford it!”
“Ahhhh, but I would choose a ‘partner’ who would,” I joked back. “Or, you never know, I might win the Lottery!”

Hampstead, brilliant, glorious Hampstead!!!

The post Hampstead Happiness! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

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.

My brother came in, took a look at me and said with gleeful delight: “I have just heard Mum’s car come up the driveway. You are going to get into so much trouble!.”
The lipstick that I had painted my entire face with, was not an easy thing to get off! My bottom ached for a long time from the hiding I received.

Lipstick!
It was through my friend, Nisha’s Varghese’s Facebook post that I first saw these incredible lipstick paintings. Nisha has acute cerebral palsy, yet in spite of this she continues to make her life an adventure. She had been zip-lining in the Tsitsikamma forest in an attempt to show the world that anyone can take the ‘dis’ out of disability. I travelled up there to cheer her on. My heart lifted to see Nisha’s face as she was placed into the chair that would send her skimming from tree to tree. She has a big, wide smile that permanently lights up her being and greets what life offers readily. Following her forest adventure Nisha tweeted:

“Thank you to my Dad who taught me to fly!”

Sarah Britten, an artist, followed Nisha’s forest adventure on Twitter and was inspired by this comment. She decided to create a series of painting for Nisha in celebration of her birthday and to help her raise funds for two causes that are close to her heart, Jumping Kids and Miss Earth South Africa using….lipstick.

I think back to the my facial lipstick painting of my childhood as I stare at these lipstick paintings in awestruck incredulity. I love them. I look at Sarah’s final painting of Nisha as an angel with wings. Sarah is saying to Nisha: “This is how I see you. I don’t see the girl in the wheelchair. I see an angel with wings.”

I think that part of Sarah envies Nisha’s ability to fly. This is something we all should have – wings! Often we are afraid to do things in life, and refuse to take chances that present themselves. How much in our lives have we missed out on because we don’t realise our wings are there? We all have wings that must be used. Wings that will fly us to places we are afraid to go. Nisha, in her wheelchair, flies to places so many of us need to travel to!

Sarah is an artist living in Johannesburg, who uses lipstick like pastel crayons to create astounding paintings. Boredom, (she was meant to be working on her PhD thesis), a touch of procrastination, access to the cardboard her “ex” used to make his architectural manuals, lipsticks lying within easy reach and her first creation The Dying Rose was born! From then on, there was no stopping her. I don’t think her “ex” could have been too pleased to arrive home to a house devoid of his cardboard and these exquisite paintings standing in it’s stead!

Sarah’s art has changed quite dramatically since that first rose. “I’ve moved from fairly literal still life subjects to far more expressionist work. My work now includes subject matter like the Johannesburg skyline and wildlife.”

Looking at Sarah’s website, there are beautiful images of her work. An angel, a horse, a bull, the beseeching look of a lion cub, a horse galloping towards the face of a baby, a tiny unicorn looking out onto this wonderful, fiery expanse of a world. What is so marvellous is that there is a short story wonderfully written behind each painting. One of my favourites is entitled: The brave little lion. I was tremendously moved by the story behind this beautifully crafted image. Sarah writes:

When I was a little girl, the thing I was most afraid of, more than anything, was something bad happening to my mother. When I was six or seven years old and home sick from school, my mother started choking after an infection triggered a laryngospasm. She came to me gasping, panic in her eyes, and I banged and banged on her back to get her to breathe again. I knew that she might die, and that I was the only one there to save her, and I will never forget the terror that transfixed me.

So if I try, I can start to imagine what six year old Kutlwano Garesape must have felt last Friday morning when he saw a man attack his mother.

“Kutlwano slapped the man across the face and told him to let go of me. He kept on screaming . . . ‘Let go of my mommy, it is my mommy’ while slapping and kicking the man.”

He paid for his bravery with his life, strangled and stabbed and then dumped on a railway track, where he died in his mother’s arms.

There are so many stories like this, in shitty dorps where no one has any real hope of a better life, and where there are a probably a thousand explanations for the casual savagery of a man walking past a mother taking her children to school. But this story has cut through the fog of distraction. In amidst the relentless muck of cruelty and cynicism that scrolls down our screens, this story is somehow worse.

I couldn’t read this without weeping:

“I picked Kutlwano up and held him to my chest. He was full of blood and his hands were cut as he tried to defend himself. He told me to hold him and I sat down on the railway line and held him to my chest.
“He asked me to kiss him and I did. He then stretched out his hand to his brother.”

Whenever something in the news really gets to me, I find it easier to paint. Initially I imagined Kutlwano as a sun in the sky, smiling his dimpled smile forever, even though his life was stolen from him by some common or garden species of evil that felt entitled to take what it wanted. But I am not very good at painting faces, and lipstick is imprecise, so I destroyed the portrait in frustration and depicted a lion cub instead.

Brave little lion in lipstick

You were strong and you fought like a lion, Kutlwano, and you saved your mother. I hope you knew that before the last of your life seeped into the gravel and dust of that railway track in the middle of nowhere. You asked her to kiss you, so you must have known.

I wish you could hug your mommy again, and hear her tell you that she loves you. Your spirit will live on, you brave, brave little boy. At least, this is what we tell ourselves while we rage at the terrible wrongness of your death, and hope against hope (though we know better) that there will be no more like it, please, no more.

Like Sarah, I also wanted to weep.

“Lipstick is a wonderful medium. So much so that I don’t think I’ll ever stop using it” Sarah remarked. “However, I also love experimenting with other media like mascara and eye pencils. When I encounter stories like yours, all I want to do is create.”
I am so thrilled that she is working on a painting for me. I know exactly where it will go in my room. It will be the last thing I see before my light is switched off.

When I saw Nisha’s paintings by Sarah Britten, I thought what an interesting blog this lipstick painter would make. I sent her an e-mail expressing my admiration for her work and asking if it would be possible for me to write about her. I received this astonishing reply:

I want to tell you that I have been following your story for years and years. I remember the terrible Camelot accident only too well. My mother was part of the chorus with you and I actually saw one of the performances. I remember the news coverage so vividly. I saw you onstage performing in ‘My Plunge to Fame‘ and have been following your exploits on social media. Connecting with you at last feels like a turning of the circle; a connection that has been twenty seven years in the making.

And, all because of lipstick!

*

***

Tomorrow – April 8th Nisha is again spreading her wings. Paragliding!

Showing yet again that the impossible is possible and at the same time raising awareness for the #FreeTheWesternSahara campaign.

The post Lipstick Wings! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

I

The post “Less is More!” 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.