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Some simple but profound lessons about art and art-making go back childhood experiences. I am particularly interested in things I learned through the body and I have been sifting through my own childhood for the useful bits of information that have served me well as a dancer and a painter.

I grew up in a small midlands town, Greytown, in the province Natal (now named KwaZulu-Natal) near my Ouma’s farm, Welverdiend, in South Africa.

There were many enthralling lessons to be learned on this African farm.

1.

Ouma always had something occupying her hands; knitting, crochet or simply twiddling her thumbs. An early memory I have is holding on my spreading forearms her new unwound wool skeins, deriving great satisfaction from the alternating quick wrist rotations releasing the thread while she wound the fine thread into solid spheres of bright colors. (Art lessons: relation of line to form, hatching and color.)

2.

She noticed me playing with a left over ball of red wool one day. I was hooking my forefinger through a loop to make another loop in an interesting long but useless chain – so she gave me a crochet hook and taught me to crochet. The pinch and splay of fingers holding the thread in an even tension while flicking the wrists resulted in a web construction of intricate patterning. Through the body then with fingers, hook and thread intertwining  I wove  the insubstantial thread into  flat circular or square mats. (Art lesson: pattern, sequencing, foreground/background, design.)

3.

My first actual lesson in art was taught me by my Zulu childhood playmates, modeling clay oxen from the handfuls of red clay we scooped from the walls of the spruit on the farm. My efforts were so clumsy.  I was impressed and envy drove me to try ever harder to match the deft hands of my fellow sculptors.

What blew me away was, from my present-looking-back understanding, the expressive, abstracted quality of the little sculptures. No legs – but the bodies rested on 4 pimple shaped protuberances. The dynamic curve of horns, lovingly smoothed with spittle. The eyes, small indentations marked carefully with a thorn from the thorn tree. The wet cattle were carried carefully back to the kraal and fired hard in the coals of the women’s cooking fire.

(Art lesson: quality and character.Each fired cow had its own special character – due in part to size and color, but especially to the length and flare of the horns; angle and dynamic reach of the curved horns. I loved the collection, the row of little cattle, and subsequent re-arrangements in play with the miniature herd.)

These thought informed my recent paintings – in particular in the small Nguni cow in Ancestral Presence.

So goes my thinking on how I know what I know. This raises questions too on how you know what you know?

If tempted dear reader, you are welcome to send me a story/lesson to add to this

drift of thought about art or lessons learned through the body.