HAPPY-GO-LUCKY BLOGGING

Last week a friend of mine remarked on all the perfect happy-happy blogs that continue to be happy, day in and day out with never a hair out of place or a glitch in the works. She wondered if those bloggers were really happy all the time or whether she was the only one who was screwed up.

This got me thinking. I know I am guilty of trying to keep my blog a positive place to visit. I've written many posts about how content I am, carving away at my totems in the courtyard with the sound of the stream rushing by, birds twittering, monkeys visiting. Yuk, cloying isn't it?.....but those peaceful times I write about are usually when everything is going well and I am brimming with creative energy. However, there is an ugly side to living in South Africa. The truth is I live in fear a lot of the time. Fear for my daughter who drives home alone at night, fear for my husband who has had death threats for speaking his mind, fear for my elderly inlaws who would have little chance against the intruders who have almost broken their door down several times and fear for myself especially when my husband is away and there is only one pair of ears to listen for thugs who might break in during the night. Armed thugs are a reality here. We have to barricade ourselves in to stay alive because these people have no respect for life and will rape, torture and murder at whim. Not even children or the elderly are exempt.

We are often shocked by the violence in this country. My best friend's husband was shot in cold blood leaving a wife and 5 children to battle on without him. Our beloved Dr. Bhamjee was brutally murdered during her lunch hour in her own surgery. My G.P.'s mother was beaten and left for dead by a group of men at 8.00 a.m after waving goodbye to her son from the garden gate. The son of a friend of ours was murdered whilst he was working his shift in the family hotel. A young matriculant who was studying for his last exam on the beach in front of our beach cottage was stabbed to death for no obvious reason. My step niece was shot 7 times by 5 thugs in front of her tiny children and left for dead. These are only a few of the incidents that have happened to people we know. There are millions of victims that we don't know . Victims of every race, colour or creed.

Perhaps we do need to share some of the negatives in our lives to balance all the positives we write about...or should our blogs be our sanctuaries where we unwind and escape to. I wrote about how my teenage daughter lost her battle with cancer and also my husband's recovery from this disease...and it worried me for days that I had shared too much information. Should we keep our private lives private or do we share our worries and benefit from all the feedback we get from the bloggersphere? I lose myself in my blog and the dozens of blogs I read. They uplift me and generally I come away feeling inspired. Last week Denise from grrl+dog shared her story about discovering a lump. Her journal pages during this period in her life are deeply moving. It is posts like these that make me feel so proud and grateful to be part of a blogging community such as ours. ......And yet I still worry that I am sharing too much.

A LUCKY PHASE ?

I'm just getting over a lull and now enjoying the storm. It feels as if all my senses are sharpened. My idea book is filling....I have sketcher's cramp in my hand...... not that I'm moaning, mind you. I'm loving this flood of ideas and inspiration as well as abundant gifts from friends and family. My mother inlaw insists that I  buy a few lottery tickets because this is obviously my lucky phase.

For years I've been searching for a Lukasa and on Monday I found the first Lukasa I've ever seen face to face and I've been floating in a fog of euphoria ever since.

A little history on the Lukasa (nkasa - plural). These wooden memory boards are used by Luba kings, diviners, geneologists and court historians in the Congo. The Lukasa is a memory aid, a means for evoking events, places and names which assist in initiation ceremonies. According to the book I have, A History of Art in Africa, "It stimulates thought and instructs in sacred lore, culture heroes, migrations, and sacred rule". "A configuration of beads, shells and pins coded by size and colour on one side may refer to kings' lists. Beads may stand for individuals, a large bead encircled by smaller ones perhaps representing a chief and his entourage. Bead arrangements also refer to proverbs and praise phrases" as well as migratory paths and roads.




On with the story......

Coming out of the bead shop I noticed a new shop next door filled with eye catching artifacts. A magnificent shield from Afghanistan, several unusual scrap metal sculptures, many African carvings ................and two beautiful nkasa. I think my heart stopped beating for a moment and way deep in my foggy brain a voice insisted that it couldn't be what I thought it was.  Then my heart kicked into overdrive.....because it really was a Lukasa now nestling in my hand. I was looking down at the ancient history of a particular tribe.....there .... in MY hand.



I had enough cash on me to buy one of the Lukasas but when M saw the look on my face he said "Look Babe, this doesn't happen often...you've worked hard and you deserve it." and then the dear man promptly bought me the other one.  So now I am the beaming owner of two nkasa :-)



The next time I go I'll take you all along for a browse. On this occasion I left my camera. The shop is simple with carefully selected items, obviously chosen for their aesthetic beauty....but what I haven't been able to get my head around and I'm still puzzling over it two days later is the fact that in one corner amidst the stunning artifacts, was a small rack of very sexy red and black lingerie. I stopped in my tracks feeling slightly confused. Wha???

FARMERS MARKET AT DAWN

We were up at the crack of dawn to go to the Shongweni farmers market about 30 minutes drive away.

The first thing we notice every time we go there are the dogs...everywhere! Walking, sniffing, begging, yapping, lifting legs, perching on laps.....

..........sitting on tables,

........pulling, nudging, entwining leashes, tripping up their owners..........

......a veritable doggie festival.

Though it sounds like chaos, it isn't. I've only seen one dog bare it's teeth. The others are pretty amiable.

It is quite the event with over 90 stalls selling fresh breads of every discription, dozens of different types of sausages, cheeses, pastas, stone milled flour, smoked duck breasts and trout, biltong, danish pastries and so much food that the the air is filled with the most tantalizing aromas.

There is much to look at, from Nguni skins to sandals made from car tires....

Christmas decorations made from wire and glass beads....

Some of them made on the premises.....

Paintings, ceramics, jewellery and life sized giraffes made from tin.

At the end of all the meandering, tasting and shopping we sat on hay bales to sip coffee and watch life stroll by.

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

Dynamism of a Dog on Leash by Giacomo Balla

Since the cat post was so popular I thought I would do a dog post for dog lovers. There are so many amazing artists out there that it was quite a challenge choosing my Top Ten.

Lucy , by Marci Forbes.

Lucy is constructed from discarded milk containers, cardboard tubes and newspaper. Click on Lucy to see more papier mache hounds.


This spectacular dog pulling on the leash is by Patric Farrows.



These humerous tin sculptures are created by Lucy Casson.


And now for something a little more serious.

Dogs of War by South African artist, Willie Bester.

Mosaic sculpture by Deborah Halpern.

Wire knit sculpture by Sarah Jane Brown.

Geoffrey Gorman works with juniper branches and found objects to make his intriguing sculptures.

Acme animal fun metal art "Good Dog Gone Bad" by Don Gidley and Sue Parker.

WORK AND PLAY

Whenever I take a break from my work or even from blogging I find it quite difficult to get back into the swing of things but once I've taken the first few steps ideas begin to flow again.

I'm rereading Living The Creative Life by Rice Freeman-Zachery. She writes "Work begets ideas, which begets work, which in turn begets more ideas". This is so true.

Another book I've been dipping into is Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
I wrote this excerpt into my quote book because it struck a chord.

"Art is exquisitely responsive. Nowhere is feedback so absolute as in the making of art. The work we make, even if unnoticed and undesired by the world, vibrates in perfect harmony to everything we put into it - or withhold from it. In the outside world there may be no reaction to what we do; in our artwork there is nothing but reaction.

The breathtakingly wonderful thing about this reaction is its truthfulness. Look at your work and it tells you how it is when you hold back or when you embrace it. When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you commit, it comes on like blazes."




My Hunter/Gatherer totems will be off to the Gallery soon. I think I'll be quite sad to see them go but on the other hand it will be exciting to get feedback.