By the end of the 1970s, 12 artists were selling their work through the African Art Centre. A decade later, the Centre's list showed no less than 80 artists. The 1980s saw a widening of the creative talents of artists and crafts people, and of interest by individuals and gallery directors in acquiring the work of black artists in what was termed a transitional stage.

Perhaps it was the buyers, and not the artists, who were in a transitional stage.

From 1965 until the late 1970s, the work of artists from Rorke's Drift featured continuously in exhibitions held at the Art Centre and other venues in Durban. The Durban Art Gallery acquired linocut prints by artists such as Azaria Mbatha, Dan Rakgoathe and John Muafangejo, as well as Rorke's Drift tapestries and ceramics, and sculptures by Michael Zondi.

All the media and techniques were known and accepted in a European style, even though the subject matter expressed was different.

Much has been written about the move of South African art into a new era. The change was excellently expressed by Steven Sack in the chapter. The New Generation, in the catalogue The Neglected Tradition: Towards a New South African Art (1930 - 1988). He wrote:

"...The 1980s are different to the extent that the market place has broadened and expanded, different kinds of materials are used. the range of imagery has been extended and the opportunity for formal training has Increased. There has been a reassessment and reaccommodation of functional objects within the fine art arena."

What was happening in KwaZulu-Natal, as seen by the Art Centre, was happening all over the country.

The KwaZulu-Natal artists who immediately come to mind as part of the new era of acceptability were sculptors Mziwakhe Mbatha. Henry Mshololo. Bheki Myeni and Philemon Sangweni, painters Sfiso Mkame, Derrick Nxumalo and later in the 1980s Trevor Makhoba, bead cloth sculptors Thembi Mchunu, Sizakele Mchunu and other family members, and Elliott Mkhize, the master maker of telephone wire bowls.

Apart from the interest of individuals and galleries, the importance of art and craft was demonstrated by the many requests the Art Centre received to mount exhibitions at conferences and meetings covering a variety of topics.

An exhibition consisting mainly of Zulu traditional items, but also of items illustrating the changes taking place -for example the use of plastic covered telephone wire to make izimbenge (small bowls and beer pot covers) and izikhetho (beer skimmers) - was arranged for the 1981 Students' Anthropology Society Conference held at the University of Natal.

The University's History Department invited the African Art Centre to present an exhibition for their conference Urban Life in Durban in the 20th Century. Appropriate urban crafts - tin can items such as candelabras, beer skimmers and vases of flowers, telephone wire baskets and covered bottles - were shown, as well as two suburban houses made of match sticks and some of Tito Zungu's ball point pen drawings.

A small exhibition was arranged for the annual meeting of the Natal Branch of the South African Society of Designers. It was titled Urban Craft/Craft in Transition/Folk 7 Art. Irreverently - but with no disrespect intended to Barbara Tyrell, the noted recorder and illustrator of African traditional life - the exhibition was renamed by Rodney Harber Goodbye Barbara Tyrell, an apt choice to describe the movement away from the rural to the urban scene.

In September 1980 an exhibition of art and craft from KwaZulu-Natal was arranged as part of the Work for the Future conference organised jointly by the Natal Region of the Institute of Race Relations, the University of Natal, the South African Sugar Association and the Urban Foundation.

In addition to the exhibition, written information on six projects with which the Art Centre was associated, and whose products the Centre promoted and marketed, was presented at the conference.

They were the Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre, the Vukani Association at Eshowe, Ngezandia Zethu at Emanguzi, KwaZamokuhle Handcrafts in the Loskop-Est-court area. the Church Agricultural Project at Tugela Ferry-Msinga, and the Ndonyane Weaving Centre at St Michael's Mission, Umzinto.

Craft from these projects was produced under a variety of conditions - in the home, under a cottage industry arrangement, at a craft centre or in a handcraft production centre - although in four of them articles were primarily made at home: the Vukani Association, Ngezandia Zethu, KwaZamokuhle Handcrafts and the Church Agricultural Project.

Common to all the projects was that they were initially subsidised by Church or other non-commercial organisations, and that they had had the benefit of skilled and dedicated consultants who had fostered traditional skills. The input from the Art Centre at the Work for the Future conference to some extent dispelled the rather simplistic idea that rural people could be mobilised on a large scale to become productive in saleable crafts.

The African Art Centre, aware of the importance of craft development in rural areas, in consultation with development projects organised a weekend workshop for crafts people in March 1983. It was held in Loskop, where KwaZamokuhle Handcrafts is situated, and attended by representatives from the African Art Centres in Durban and Pietermaritzburg and six craft organisations.

It is difficult to assess the success or otherwise of this 'grass roots' conference. But in summarising the two days of discussions Professor Eleanor Preston-Whyte, now Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development) at the University of Natal, pinpointed the major problems which had been identified by crafts people.

They were maintaining high standards, setting prices, coping with competition from other makers, finding adequate and suitable markets, the potential for craftwork to provide an ongoing income for a wide spectrum of people and, finally, the need for leadership training within projects against the time when the initiators - more often than not from overseas - leave.

Marketing the products, regardless of how successful the development of the craft has been, gives rise to taxing and recurring problems. In the case of KwaZamokuhle, much of the bead work was sold through Church agencies overseas, but even they require some sort of catalogue.

I know from experience how difficult it is to get an export market going. An expensively published catalogue with colour photographs may evince great interest. But the problem then arises whether the exact items can be produced in quantity, to specification and quickly. Often this is not the case for handcrafted items.

Following the KwaZamokuhle workshop and another similar one held at the Koinonia Christian Centre at Botha's Hill, we received a letter dated April 29, 1983 from the Desmond Leech Bequest. The letter acknowledged information on the KwaZamokuhle workshop which we had supplied, and indicated that an investigation was to take place on the feasibility of craft development in rural areas.

A later letter was received in September 1983, which said that after thorough investigation many difficulties had come to light, and the organisation had decided to postpone a national workshop.

Such prior investigation is, in our experience, necessary before steps are taken in the field of rural craft development, particularly on a major scale. Many well intentioned organisations - sometimes with considerable overseas funding - have failed because of lack of understanding of the problems and sensitivities in this field.