Professor Nel once said to me that he was an artist who was a frustrated farmer but had he been a farmer he would have been a frustrated artist. He was my mentor at university and is my friend. He has been retired for a number of years but I have seen no evidence of his farming aspirations in the form of a pristine garden nor a vegetable patch lovingly tended.

Apart from an occasional slash and burn retaliation against the advancing jungle, his garden and house are usually overrun and it reminds me of the way the South American jungle swallowed the Mayan temples. The alien invaders are numerous and persistent, but the most onerous must be the frogs and toads.

The slimy green and warty hordes have long ago outmanoeuvred Jos and colonised his swimming pool. He, frustrated by the croaking and spawning masses, has abandoned the chlorine chemical warfare and yielding to their onslaught, retreated to the safety of his bedroom, where if there was a Sun God to worship, it emanated from the TV set.

Jos now feels that sculpture is too strenuous for him and gave me the elephant bone from which I made ‘Balance’. It is my largest bone sculpture to date and, I think, one of my best. This work articulates many different things. There is some formal exploration as I have used a variety of mediums and I am always trying to create a new exciting composition using the line, form, texture and colours that are available in the medium.

A railway ‘block’, the thing on which the railway track is mounted, makes for a very successful mount but is conceptually interesting as it reminds the viewer of my time spent on the railways. A twisted organic ‘pole’ that signifies growth emanates from the block and ends in the sculpture itself which balances on the pole by one foot.

The bone itself has some elements of purity and death and I have used contortions in the figure as a metaphor for emotions and in this instance they are all in balance. The bone is not the only debt I owe the professor as much of what I do is rooted in his and the Rhodes Art School’s legacy.

If you have seen some of Jos’s sculpture you will understand where I come from. If I was diligent and studious in my lectures I could have learnt more and been happier if I had paid more attention to Jos’s laissez-faire approach to life. It seems to me that more time should be spent on collecting mushrooms, visiting game reserves and fishing as I did as a student with Jos. It was a necessity for me at the time and I would have been a thinner student without the fish and mushrooms.

He, I presume, still has aspirations of being a farmer as he has bought a house in Bedford and I imagine he plans an orchard or veggie patch there. I do have a vegetable garden but it is primarily tended by my five year old son who digs a big hole and puts an entire packet of seeds in it and I, unlike Jos, do not want to be a farmer.

Perhaps I am an artist who is a frustrated fisherman but if I had been a fisherman…

Fishing for a living the way I do it would be a serious challenge as the amount of fish I catch these days could not even pay for the the tackle, let alone the petrol. I was better at it when I was a student, I was hungry and more driven.

Then if I could not catch the fish I could at least eat the bait. Now I am a lot more fussy and even if I can endure the smelly sardines I know my wife will not.

I must apologise for the photographs of this work. I use a black cloth as a background which sometimes works but in this case the pole and the foot of the sculpture do not show well. My photographs are often taken in haste and despite having done it for many years I have not mastered that art.

It seems I should have paid more attention to Obie Oberholser who lectured in photography when I was at Rhodes university. I see he is exhibiting at the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown and says he does not take photographs but makes them. The sentiment is typical of the Rhodes Art School when I was there. I think it puts the emphasis on the visual success of art works and on the artist as the craftsman. ‘Balance’ was spotted in my studio by a collector of my work and paid for when it was still being roughed out.

Since times are tough, I am delighted with the sale. Perhaps this is a case of there being not so many fish in the sea and a cabbage in the hand is worth two in Jos’s garden!