In 1976, I was awarded a United States travel grant by the Visitors Information Service, which enabled me to visit a number of American Indian Craft Centres. I found the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Arizona, with its fine collection of American Indian basketry, the most interesting - no doubt because of my familiarity with Zulu basket weaving.
Although designs in the weaving of American Indian baskets were perhaps more intricate, and reflect a symbolism which does not appear significantly in Zulu design, the weaving techniques were often similar.
I also saw some good baskets in the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina. In this area of mountains and rushing rivers - Hiawatha country - baskets were woven in white oak strips, honeysuckle and river cane. The quality was high and the prices likewise.
The project was sponsored by a United States government department, and older women were paid to teach younger people a disappearing craft - a principle which could be followed in South Africa.
A development and marketing project which had aims similar to those of the African Art Centre was the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild in Ashville, North Carolina. Just as the Art Centre has aimed to assist rural crafts people in KwaZulu-Natal, the Guild served poor people living in the Appalachian Mountains.
Wood carving appeared to be a major local craft, with lovely indigenous woods such as ash, oak and cedar abundantly available in the mountains. But the items produced were sophisticated and obviously machine tooled.
By contrast, bowls, spoons and other items produced in indigenous woods such as wild olive and red ivory in Msinga are hand carved. It is an unfortunate truth that the sophisticated Carolina products are probably far more saleable to the public than the patiently carved items from Msinga and other parts of South Africa.
I cannot pretend to have gained more than a limited impression of contemporary American Indian art' and craft. However, I returned to the African Art Centre with a sense of pride in the originality and high standard of the products of KwaZulu-Natal artists and crafts people whose artistry, we hope, is being kept alive.
I also returned full of ideas for a brave new world of crafts, and suggested that a Crafts Guild be formed where 'non-Africans' could learn to coil clay pots from skilled Zulu potters, or learn the intricacies of bead and grass weaving, and where African people could learn patchwork and quilting, and where some of the crafts of India could be taught.
A real exchanging of traditional skills has not been that discernible here, but there has been a definite influence by artists and crafts people, black and white, on each other's artistic expression. There is a dynamic which does not necessarily need the Western idea of a guild.
Art never has and never will stand still. One example of the influence is the introduction of the Mchunu family's beaded birds into Bronwyn Finlay’s joyous paintings, and ideas from them which Clive van den Berg integrated into the painted cement fountain area for Durban's Workshop gardens.
An example of cross-cultural influence on craft is the popular course on bead weaving run by the Durban Art Gallery. The demonstrator is a Shembe bead weaving expert and among her pupils are lace makers who have put bead designs into lace making and have had bobbins beaded by women who come to the Art Centre.
The Mzila family
Thomas Mzila with his family's range of
woods wares
Having mentioned the work of wood carvers in North Carolina, it is appropriate to introduce the Mzila family of wood carvers from Msinga. They have been involved with the African Art Centre since its inception, and today Azmon Mzila is well known for his carving.
His father was a carver of traditional spoons, headrests and milk pails. Azmon Mzila initially carved beautiful small figures, but more recently has made decorated spoons and bowls in wild olive and red ivory.
A visit to his home at Keats Prift will find Azmon Mzila at work, using a bicycle wheel as an improvised lathe powered by pedalling the bicycle. The small carving industry is in his "Garden of Eden', where strange shaped stones encircle a garden he calls 'Paradise', It is in one of the most arid and stony parts of Zululand.
Mpostoli Mzila, a member of the new generation, matriculated and is now an entrepreneur. He sells the wood work of his family and old beadwork from the area to the African Art Centre and to museums.
Another member of the Mzila family is Thomas. He, helped by family members, specialises in utility items such as spoons, pot scrapers and small bowls. After his first call at the African Art Centre, he began peddling his wares in the suburbs of Durban. Unfortunately mass production of these hand carved items has sacrificed the fineness of his early carvings in wild olive wood.
Calls at the Art Centre by these carvers are infrequent. Their small output cannot be compared with the mass production of carvings found in Kenya and Malawi.
