My life is peppered with unexpected things which are sometimes favourable and sometimes unpleasant.  My friend, John Smith has had the owners of two galleries, stocked with his work, have heart attacks and die.  I imagine similar disasters are par for the course and being an artist is like being in business.  You have to be brave, wary and adapt to circumstances.  On the one hand there is always someone who will try to con you or steal from you and on the other there are always opportunities. 

On the positive side, Stephanie Hoppen of Stephanie Hoppen gallery in London phoned and would like “represent” me.  This sounded very posh but it came out of the blue and I did not know who she was or if the gallery was a tea room in a dodgy suburb.  However, when I mentioned this to my friends, Mike and Margaret, they knew of the gallery and their response was positive and encouraging.  I also Google it and got this result: This smart gallery on Walton Street features top notch contemporary artists and photographers from around the world.  Stephanie is also the author of some books on interior decoration.  I am delighted and I am busy packing works to send to her.

In the past there seem to have been more opportunities to exhibit on big shows.  I participated in the Cape Town Triennial twice but failed to submit for the Bret Kebble shows and I am now too old for the ABSA Atelier and too established for the Sasol New Signatures.  In any case I am not motivated to make pieces for these kinds of events as I hate to feel pressurised.  Participation usually depends upon if I have something suitable at the time.  As a result I am pleased that my work Banana Boy has been selected for Kwa Zulu Natals’ most prestigious exhibition, Jabulisa.  

My premier gallery, Gallery on the Square, is also on the move.  It has migrated to the “art strip” at 140 Jan Smuts Ave, Parkwood. (Tel +27 11 447 0155)  The upgrade includes a change of name as it is now called Gallery 2. 

This past month I have made several small works. Seeking Penny and Push Up are made from the same kind of bone, giraffe vertebrae.  It is always difficult to think of something that will fit into the shape and suit the size of the bone.  However to make each new work, from the same kind of bone, different, is a double challenge and one I have enjoyed.

Black Bird is made from a piece of driftwood in which I have set pieces of bone from a bird’s wing for the whites of the eyes.  For me, it is a slightly ominous subject and makes me think of scenes from the play Macbeth.  By contrast the polish and grain of the wood is beautiful and the textures and shapes playful and entertaining.

Blue, Buck Jack is made from a giraffe scapula and is Picassoesque in that it simultaneously has two different views. A frontal and a profile view.  Joanna, my wife, likes the two views which she says it is like having two identities and a quality which she identifies with.  I suppose it is a bit like the girl with a curl who when she was good was very good and when she was bad was horrid.  Despite my protestations about being broke, this work is not for sale as she has decided to keep it.

One of the not so nice things is that From the navel to the nest was stolen from the Mirror Gallery in Cape Town. Then, to add insult to injury, the owners have decided to close the gallery.  Sadly, I think that the work will end up as firewood as it will not be easy to resell it.  I am upset but I am not going to starve or commit suicide.  On the contrary!  I am excited as perhaps London will bring me fame and fortune and make me a real artist.

Regards

Carl

2010  |  Black Bird  |  360mm x 330mm x 160mm

2010  |  Push up  |  135mm x 350mm x 150mm

2010  |  Penny  |  135mm x 350mm x 150mm

2010   |   Blue Buck Jack  |  595mm x 235mm x 140mm

2010   |   Ghost  |  730mm x 550mm x 460mm

2010   |   Shoot the Messenger|   650mm x 250mm x 420mm

If it were not for its continued monopoly and a few rand still in my Post Office Bank account I imagine the Post Office would cease to exist. I write emails and I imagine almost everyone else does even if they, like the snail mail, are not always delivered. Some things never change. Julius Malema reminds me of P.W. Botha waving his finger and telling the press how to behave. The tyre burning and police shooting at those who riot are indistinguishable from the images that I saw in the press in the Apartheid era. Perhaps, the more things change the more they remain the same.

Shoot the Messenger made in wild plum wood could have been an Apartheid era subject. In 1980’s, when I went to Rhodes and P.W. Botha was in power, I preferred not to read newspapers. However, my journalist friends made me aware of their frustrations and the press’s prescriptions and limitations. They were disabled and could not give the full story. This work is pertinent to threats to a free press and does have something of the horror and angst of that apartheid era. Specifically, the photographs of “terrorists” shot in the head that I was shown at that time. Those images are now part of the arsenal of this artist who conveys the concerns of this new era, or as some like to call it “the new regime”.

Ghost is part of my new regime which is much the same as the old one. Except mine has taken to heart all the lessons learnt from all I have done since the eighties. It has been made with more knowledge, more skill, and more determination than before. I think that this work achieves many things I strive to attain. It is a composition that is both organic and structured, a sort of ordered chaos. It has an exciting texture, surface, line and form. I don’t know the name of this wood but I have previously worked with it and know it as “good wood” with an unusual colour and fantastic grain. The shape of this work and its striations reminds me of Roy Lichtenstein’s “brushstroke” works, some of which he made in the bad old eighties.

There are a few things from bad old days I would like to re-instate like the ten rand that my granny used to send on my birthdays. I think it should be enough to buy me one of those big black Wilson’s toffees which would be better than socks or underpants. There are a lot of things that make me happy in our brave new world. I love email as you do not have to wait two weeks for a reply. The web is great for research and if you are looking for a different opinion you can read a newspaper from almost anywhere in the world. The spelling and grammar checks on my computer are great for writing as I can neither spell nor read my own hand writing.

As if to illustrate the benefits of our new world I have recently sold a work that is going to a gallery in China and had an email from a gallery in London interested in my work. In the bad old days sending work to China would have been consorting with the communist enemy and, being poor, I would have had to give it to them. In those days Maggie Thatcher’s London was capitalist and it was a time of economic ascendance for the British. Now, the Chinese are our financially well off, almost capitalist, friends, whilst our poor, almost communist, friends in London have been hard hit by the recession and are concerned about the prices of my work.

It is not that I am a supporter of either Maggie or Mao but at least in those days I still had friends and my birthday was remembered. This year I only received one birthday card which was from my Mum. I had to remind my wife and children of the important event and by then it was too late for the usual socks and underpants and even if you sent it, there was no ten rand in the post.

Regards
Carl

The ant may be insignificant but he makes a fantastic structure by carrying grains of sand and wood one at a time (from your house to his).  We, like the ants, should participate in some small way to constructing a better world.  Perhaps it is self serving but I would like to live in and leave behind a kinder, happier and culturally richer domain.    

Much of my white ant soul has been with the African Art Centre, a development agency.  It was initially set up by the Race Relations Institute more than 50 years ago with the aim of promoting art and providing work, financial independence and dignity through art.  In the distant past I have exhibited and sold work through the Centre.  I have served on the board of directors for more than ten years and recently I was elected as Chairman of the Board. 

I am delighted and a little nervous.  At the time of my election I had the thought that the board had elected a Mr Bean.  This was because I am aware of my own failings, intimidated by the wealth of talent on the board and admire the dedicated and hard working staff.  However, I realise that what is required is a team effort as that will ensure the continuation of the good work already done.

The ant is not an image I have used often although they have appeared in some of the trees I have made.  Trees and the wild life therein are a symbol of community for me. My recent work Fight or Flight is an example.  When I was full of optimism for our rainbow nation my trees were filled with insects, animals and birds, happily coexisting.  However since then the fauna in the trees has diminished and they usually have a predator amongst them. In this bone work the threat is a leopard, an animal that I associate with stealth and cunning.  I have occasionally carved a lion, like the Iron Lion, a new work carved from lump of ironstone that I found in Howick. However, the lion is an image I associate with power and leadership and differs from the leopard.  

I have sculpted a few works in stone, stones like serpentine, limestone, sandstone and granite, but the ironstone is by far the hardest.  I started using this material because I liked the organic shapes which made them suitable for my mounts and even though the work was minimal, the stone required diamond tipped tools in order to dress them.  Now, having acquired those tools, I am presented with an opportunity to sculpt something a little different. 

I, like most artists, am regularly tithed. This has nothing to do with my religious beliefs.  The tithe or tax is collected by charities that regularly ask artists for donations.  I like to participate, even when it is more than I can afford.  In the past month I have donated works to Every One Counts and will be participating in the Wildlands Art for Conservation to be held at the Spier Estate in April, 2010.   These charitable events are a great way for collectors to do a good deed, acquire works cheaply and in some cases you may even be able to put the amount spent against your income tax.

I will not tell the wildlife people that as a small boy and a destructive little pest, I used to catch large, shiny, black safari ants, make them bite the hem of my shorts and break off their bodies.  The aim was to have a row of gleaming ant heads decorating my shorts.  

The ants have taken their revenge.  They have steadily been eating and undermining my home. Then some time ago, at three in the morning, my doorbell started ringing. At first I reasoned it was a mistake, but when it persisted I thought it might be the police.  Eventually, seething with anger, I roared up the drive to the gate only to find no one there.  It left me in a confused rage.  The following day the doorbell was rung again but this time I could see that no one was at the gate.  I unscrewed the intercom to investigate and as I opened it ants poured out to defend their nest.

The incident has made me think.  Our communities do not need the self-serving, parading and clowning of a Mr Bean that we see all too often. What it desperately needs are those people with the self sacrificing and workmanlike mindset of the ant that quietly gets on with the job.

Regards
Carl

2010   |  Fight or Flight   |   510mm x 550mm x 220mm