How It All Began

How is it that a seed planted in early life can be a thread which weaves its way into one's path and becomes a major part of one's life?

In my case, early interest and later a 30 year pre-occupation with African art and craft stemmed from a lecture on Zulu culture given by Dr DK Malcolm, a University of Natal lecturer, one Sunday evening when I was a pupil at Pietermaritzburg Girls High School.

I do not remember much of importance from my boarding school days, but I do remember his lecture. He gave me my first insight into and respect for the traditional culture of Zulu people.

At the age of 16, I bought a doll in Mooi River, where I lived. It was made of a cocoa tin covered with white and some pink beads, with a rag face and beaded, plaited twine hair. It was probably from the Weenen district, where Mooi River farmers had their "labour farms'. I kept the doll, and it is now in the African Art Centre collection.

In about 1955, when I was working at Michaelhouse in Balgowan, I bought a 'love letter' from one of the cooks, which I constantly wore - somewhat to the surprise of the staff of this very English private school. Today I feel guilty about persuading someone to sell me such a personal thing.

It was a neck piece 'love letter' of simple design, which only the maker and recipient would understand. This probably accounts for my rather superior reply to tourists who would like to be told that the contemporary 'love letters' they buy actually carry a love message.

It could be that these three incidents established something in me.

And then in 1959, when I joined the staff of the Institute of Race Relations, I came across a box of beautiful beadwork from Nongoma, left over from a fete the previous year. It was the beginning of a small venture which eventually developed into the African Art Centre. We continued to get good supplies of beadwork from Nongoma, as well as some fine woodwork from the area. Bead workers from Inanda also soon found their way to the Centre.

With the move to new premises in 1963 it was decided that reasonable space should be given to the growing art aspect of the Institute's work. It was at this point that the art project - known at that time as the 'Race Relations Shop' - was established, not only as a fund raising project but also from the point of view that art was a means of communication between all South Africans. It therefore had a philosophical as well as a practical focus.

The number of beadworkers supplying the Art Centre increased. The Mzila family from the Msinga Reserve began to bring in wood carvings. They were followed by Michael Zondi and his brother Mandlenkosi, who brought in some fine sculptures which were displayed in the Institute's library.