Noria Mabasa - Sculptor of Dreams by Artfundi.tech

LIVING HUMAN TREASURES

Noria Mabasa

Sculptor of Dreams

Noria Mabasa Sculptor of Dreams

Acknowledgements There are many people and organisations whose generosity has gone into the development of this publication. The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) would, first and foremost, like to thank Noria Mabasa for her time, her boundless wisdom and her grace. We also express our gratitude to the members of the Mabasa family and the traditional leaders of Tshino who contributed to the accuracy and authenticity of this account. Furthermore, our thanks go to academics Dr Elelwani Ramaite-Mafadza and Dr Same Mdluli for their considered comments, as well as to art specialists Wilhelm van Rensburg and Dr Alastair Meredith. A special word of appreciation goes to Makhulu Mabasa’s student, Tracy Witelson, for agreeing to add her valuable voice to this narrative in a manner that displayed immense sensitivity and respect towards her mentor. In addition, the DAC would like to thank Steve Lawrence, the Government Communication and Information System, Julia Charlton and the Wits Art Museum, Ditsong Museums of South Africa, the Sandton Convention Centre and H12 Leshiba for the photographs.

Self-portrait of Noria Mabasa, Tshino

Foreword Noria Mabasa: Sculptor of Dreams forms part of a Department of Arts and Culture project to identify and document South Africa’s Living Human Treasures. South Africa is fortunate to count among its citizens many who are extraordinarily gifted in the realm of social and cultural traditions. These are our Living Human Treasures. South Africa’s Living Human Treasures are specialist practitioners who are held in high public regard in the areas of the arts, rituals, social philosophies and indigenous knowledge. These exceptional South Africans possess, to a very high degree, the knowledge and skills that truly embody the living spirit of our country’s human heritage. They perform a vital role in creating, advancing and preserving this heritage. In so doing, they are the bearers of tradition, transmitting indigenous knowledge to future generations.

Contents 6 10 18 26

Prologue Chapter 1: If you can dream it, you can do it Chapter 2: Arts training: are artists born or made? Chapter 3: Themes and subject matter: the artist as social commentator

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Chapter 4: Knowledge production: sharing the riches that come from the soil Chapter 5: Market access: still the ‘neglected tradition’? Chapter 6: Transferring indigenous knowledge: how to fire up future generations Bibliography

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Prologue C

arefully tucking her tangle of grey-flecked dreadlocks under her doek (headwrap), Noria Mabasa sets off to walk the couple of kilometres from her home to the royal house of the acting chief. Her years may be advanced, but her steps are assured. When she arrives, she is told that the regent is regrettably otherwise occupied. Undeterred, she patiently walks back along the rows of neat houses in her village of Tshino in Vuwani, Limpopo province, in what city folk might refer to as rural Venda. Two days later, she attempts the trip again, timing it to avoid the Limpopo heat. This time, her persistence is rewarded. The regent gladly grants permission for the visitors from Johannesburg to be welcomed into the village the following week to conduct research on Noria’s life and art. Grateful, she sets off on the long road back home again. She is an octogenarian, but you wouldn’t say it. Her face bears the creases of lived experience, but she is robust and radiates quiet strength. You also may not guess that this humble figure, clad in unostentatious attire, is an acclaimed artist who has exhibited around the world and has a street named after her in the far-off metropolis of Johannesburg. Or that the rural homestead she is striding back to with such purpose is a sprawling living monument to her art, teeming with all manner of fantastical beings and creatures conjured from the earthly, mythical and spiritual realms of Venda lore and her imagination. It may also surprise the uninitiated observer to learn that Noria, who shows so much respect for traditional authority, is globally revered as Page | 7

It may also surprise the uninitiated observer to learn that Noria, who shows so much respect for traditional authority, is globally revered as a fearless feminist and African contemporary art pioneer ...

a fearless feminist and African contemporary art pioneer who defied convention to carve immense wooden sculptures that today adorn public spaces such as the Sandton Convention Centre and the V&A Waterfront’s Nobel Square. And that she is generous with her innate indigenous knowledge, gladly sharing it with all racial and age groups and thereby contributing to social cohesion. If you were to ask her, Noria would probably brush off such lofty praise in her trademark no-nonsense manner. She would say that to her, art is a calling. It’s about listening to Page | 8

her dreams and obeying her ancestors. “All my teachers were women,” chuckles this self-taught artist, alluding to her spirit guides. But it’s surely serendipitous that her middle name is Muelelwa – which means “someone who remembers” in Tshivenda. Through her art, which draws on traditional methods to engage with contemporaneous themes, she entreats the onlooker to neither forget our past nor ignore our present.¹ Citation: 1 Kennedy, Mabasa & community members, 2018

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Chapter 1 IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, YOU CAN DO IT

oria Muelelwa Luvhimbi was born on 10 May 1938 in the village of Xigalo in northeastern Limpopo, in what was then the Transvaal province. She was the third child of Samuel Makhado Luvhimbi and Martha Mashau Luvhimbi (née Tshivhula) and grew up in a large extended family.¹ Her father had several wives and the young Noria had many half-siblings.² Armed with only a year of formal schooling, the teenaged Noria moved to Soweto in 1954 to help look after her brother’s children. At the time, there was little to suggest that, almost half a century later, such would be the esteem in which she was held that eight full pages would be devoted to her work in the post-apartheid matric visual arts textbook.³ Her life’s path would not be determined by her circumstances, but by her ancestors. She thinks back: “I was still a young lady, staying with my brother in White City Jabavu, when I had the same dream four

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It was in 1965 that she first fell ill. "My tongue was twisted to the other side," she relates. "I couldn’t speak.” times. I dreamed my father was calling, asking for water in a little calabash. I told him: ‘I’m too scared to give you water, because you’re late [deceased].‘” The dreams eventually stopped, and she met and married Tatana Jim Mabasa, and they moved back to Venda and had two children. But Noria was not destined for a conventional life. She sits on the bed in the coolness of one of the traditional Venda huts on her property, its walls decorated by her own hand, and speaks about the dreams that

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began coming to her again, this time of “an old makhulu* with no mouth or nose, with leprosy, telling me how to make a human figure. That old woman bothered me so much for 10 years.” A born storyteller in both her art and her conversation, she speaks using her hands – the same hands that still create sculptures that are admired all over the world. Her gestures become increasingly animated as she relives the pain and the revelations that came to her from the world of spirits, and led to her becoming an artist. * "Makhulu" means "grandparent" in Tshivenda

It was in 1965 that she first fell ill. “My tongue was twisted to the other side,” she relates. “I couldn’t speak. The traditional healers tried to help. My husband chased me away, saying he couldn’t look after a sick and tired woman.” Taking refuge with her family, her sleeping and waking hours became almost unbearably haunted. One night she fell asleep with a book next to her, and a creature resembling a dog appeared and started reading to her. A huge pillar of fire came down from the hut’s roof, before retreating. She fainted. When she came to, she started praying. She was confused – was this God or Satan speaking to her? “It was not a vision. It was real,” she insists. “I was not dreaming. It really happened.” She repeats this refrain frequently: these seeming apparitions were not figments

of her imagination. Her eyes mist up as she recollects: “My hands felt loose; they weren’t working. I couldn’t lock the door. I crawled out. My hands were lame. I screamed and called my neighbours.” Her family thought it was witchcraft, and consulted a prophet. His traditional remedies eventually bore fruit: the paralysis and the terrifying flames disappeared. “Even today before I get sick, I see a flicker of fire going by and know that I'm going to get sick,” Noria says. Her illness eased, but the leprous old hag kept taunting her. Her father, long silent, began appearing to her again in 1974. “He said: ‘So, my child, you are refusing the riches that are coming from makhulu.’ … I started shaking. My tongue twisted again. He kept coming back, and told me to go to his sister and perform a traditional ritual.” Page | 13

Again, after the ritual her sickness miraculously vanished – but this time she was determined to keep it at bay by obeying her ancestors’ wishes. She went down to the river, collected clay and started making figurines. She had observed when growing up how to make and fire clay pots, and applied this knowledge to her fledgling artistic practice. “At first, my kids were embarrassed when I asked them to go to town to sell my [sculptures of] ‘little people’,” she laughs. “But my daughter eventually agreed and was excited when she came back with lots of money – R20 – from selling them.” One day when she was dozing, the old woman returned. “I had been making ‘little people‘, and she wanted to show me how to make ‘big people‘. I did so, and they started selling so fast!” Page | 14

Noria says that ever since then, she has been guided by the spirits of her ancestors in her work. As time went on, she would learn to obey what her dreams told her – even if it meant abandoning a project and starting a new one. Even when she made the foray into woodcarving – which was virtually unheard of for a black woman, let alone a Venda woman – it was because of divine intervention. One day, Noria spotted a piece of wood in the river while collecting clay. Her mother thought she was crazy when she grabbed it, remarking: “This one wants to dream.” And she did: she fell into a deep sleep, and dreamed about a huge log rolling along a waterway until it became wedged under a bridge. Then she woke up.

Afraid that she would fall ill if she failed to obey her dreams, she headed back down to the river. Two women were washing clothes. She spotted the log from her dream and asked them: “Is this your log? Can I take it?” “Yes, you may,” they replied.

CARVING OUT HER OWN NICHE

She summoned her children to help her chop up the driftwood with an axe. Her very first carved figure – of a woman, paying tribute to the makhulu, her spirit guide – was made using an axe to hew and pummel the wood.

After she had acceded to the wishes of her spirit guides, it wasn’t long before Noria’s distinctive painted clay figurines – ranging from policemen and soldiers to Venda domba dancers – started attracting interest beyond Vuwani.

As she honed her craft, she would chisel away carefully at great hunks of kiaat, marula and wild fig, incorporating their knots, holes and imperfections in her monumental yet intricately realised works. But even as she became globally renowned as a pioneering female woodcarver in a traditionally male-dominated arena, she continued to listen to her dreams. Once when she was in Namibia on assignment, no dreams were forthcoming and she eventually had to beg the ancestors for inspiration. They obliged, and she was able to work. She reflects: “I consult and ask for guidance from my ancestors. I need a dream to tell me what to make. Unless it comes to me in a dream, nothing will happen. I can’t work. And if I dream about something and don’t do it, I get sick.”

In 1976, she held an exhibition at the Venda Sun Hotel in Thohoyandou, where all her works were sold. She came to the attention of the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, where she held a solo exhibition in 1986 titled Parade, and her career took off in the 1980s and 1990s as her work became more complex and bold in its themes and execution.² Among the notable group exhibitions she took part in were the BMW Tributaries, a showcase of South African art curated by Ricky Burnett for exhibition abroad (described by art academic Professor Anitra Nettleton as “the first in apartheid South Africa to include black artists from its rural areas alongside artists, both black and white, from its urban centres”).4 In addition, her work was showcased at the Vhavenda Art exhibition at the Venda Sun Hotel; the Cape Town Triennial; the Vhavenda/Shangaan Wood Sculpture exhibition at the Association of Arts; the Clay+ exhibition at the University of South Africa (Unisa); the Images of Wood exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery; and the Artists from Venda exhibition at Everard Read. Her art has taken her to the United Kingdom, where her work was included in the Art from South Africa exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford in 1990. In 1993, she was part of the South African contingent at the Venice Biennale and also participated in the Southern Cross and

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the <<Rewind>>Fast Forward.ZA shows in the Netherlands, the latter alongside fellow traditional artist Esther Mahlangu, who has also visited her at her homestead. In 2002, her work was exhibited at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Her works are housed in the collections of institutions such as the Iziko South African National Gallery, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the Standard Bank Gallery, the University of the Western Cape, the University of the Witwatersrand, the Pretoria Art Museum, Unisa and the University of Fort Hare, as well as in the United States and the United Kingdom.5

AWARDS Noria Mabasa has amassed a number of accolades over the years, including:¹ • • • • • • • • •

National Order of the Baobab in Silver (2002) Special Award from Makhado Municipality (2002) Female Artist of the Year from Makhado Municipality (2002) Limpopo Morula Awards (2004) Limpopo Achiever Awards (2006) Department of Arts and Culture Craft Awards – provincial winner (2009) Tribute to Women in the Arts and Culture Sector (2010) South Africa’s Renowned Ceramic and Wood Sculptor (12th Premier’s Service Excellence Awards; 2012/13) USIBA Creative and Cultural Industries Awards – Visual Arts and Crafts (2018)

‘MOTHER OF THE NATION’ Noria is widely known in Tshino village as “mother of the nation”. She moved there in 1968 after relocating from Xigalo, which was designated for Vatsonga-Shangaan people as part of the Gazankulu homeland. She has been embraced by the Tshino community with open arms, as one of their own.¹ As the head of her household, she takes care of her younger brother, Phineas Luvhimbi, who is blind. He says he is “very proud of her achievements … Noria looks after me; otherwise, I would have died a long time ago.” She maintains a warm and cordial relationship with the local traditional leaders and is given unfettered access to timber at the royal homestead. The fact that this courtesy even extends beyond her immediate district illustrates the high regard in which she is held in the broader Venda area. Tshino regent Vho-Makhadzi Luvhengo Ramashia (pictured with Noria), the sister of the late headman, says: “I know Noria and her work very well. We’re proud of her work. She was not born here … but we welcomed her. As an artist, she has uplifted the name of our community. The youth is inspired by her.” In these parts, the elders speak with nostalgia of the time when former president Thabo Mbeki and his spokesperson, Mukoni Ratshitanga, paid a visit to the Mabasa homestead in 2002, to inform her in person that she would be receiving the Order of the

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Baobab in Silver. It was a great honour for this small community, they say. Everyone here, it seems, has his or her own Mbeki anecdote – including Noria herself, who describes with humour and mock-drama how she had to break into her own home, having locked her key inside ahead of the presidential delegation’s arrival, with a vast contingent of police officers watching her burglarlike manoeuvres. The regent’s brother, Vhavenda VhoMushaisano Alex Nesengani, recalls: “President Mbeki visited Noria at her home – [this shows] she has truly put our village and Venda on the map because of her work. “I’m so grateful for Makhulu’s work. When I was attending boarding school, she was

a cook there; in a way, she raised me. “Years later, I went to work in Johannesburg and in Newtown, I saw there is a street named after her. The same grandmother who raised me is honoured in the big city! This community is known all over because of her work.” Another traditional leader in the area, Vhamusanda Vho-Edward Ramukhuba Phaswana, says: “Makhulu is very special. She’s not just anybody; she’s different. She has trained youngsters and has had tourists visiting her at her homestead ... people coming to her to get knowledge. “Her value is such that the community had the opportunity to receive Mbeki. It was a great honour to have Mbeki visit us – the community felt appreciated. Especially with this being a rural area, it gave them hope.”

Citations: 1 Kennedy, Mabasa & community members, 2018. 2 Van Rensburg, 2003. 3 Louw, Beukes and Van Wyk, 2018. 4 Nettleton, 2000. 5 Loots, 2004 Page | 17

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Chapter 2 ARTS TRAINING: ARE ARTISTS BORN OR MADE?

lobally, there is a growing school of thought that eschews formal art training, arguing that true artists are self-taught and not “made”. Journalist Charlotte Seager wrote in The Guardian in 2018: “The study of art is becoming less common in the UK … Fine art is still a popular degree choice, but as university applications fall and artists showcase their work online, there are more self-taught artists being discovered.”¹ Noria Mabasa falls into this category of self-taught artists, also known as “outsider art”. Drawing on received knowledge and observations of cultural practices as a young girl growing up in Venda, and inspired by her dreams, she began creating clay sculptures and, later, carved wooden figures, with no formal art education to speak of and only a year of schooling.

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While accepting that there is a certain purity to being a self-taught artist and evolving one’s own style unimpeded by the strictures of academia, there are drawbacks, observes Wilhelm van Rensburg, senior art specialist at the Strauss & Co auction house.² “In the art world, there is a distinct difference between formally trained artists and what are known as outsider artists, who have not gone through art school,” he says. “There’s a bit of snobbery surrounding the whole thing. If somebody wants to exhibit in a prominent gallery, locally or overseas, the first thing they will ask you is: ‘Where did you study?’ So, that [a formal qualification] is very important if you want to become a career artist – especially in contemporary art.” Page | 20

Professor Anitra Nettleton notes that urban artists in South Africa have generally had access to formal art instruction, either at tertiary academic level or through community projects.³ “[B]ut their counterparts outside cities have had little exposure to modern art-production methods and media. For the most part their training has occurred in the ambience of indigenous traditions of material culture production, largely centred on woodcarving, beadwork and mural painting.” This limited access to formal training can result in “unfiltered” art that is virtually untainted by outside influences and commercial concerns. In her article, Seager quotes an untrained British artist, Helen Downie, as saying that there is a “freedom to creating without instruction”,

“In the art world, there is a distinct difference between formally trained artists and what are known as outsider artists, who have not gone through art school." maintaining that she feels less pressure to create art that pleases others. “If you don’t study art, your subject matter is entirely different,” she is quoted as saying. “Everything comes from inside you.” Van Rensburg agrees, saying that in the case of rural-based South African artists such as Mabasa, “it can actually dilute their art if they adopt modern methods”. He notes that, globally, outsider art has gained due recognition since the 1950s – albeit sometimes carrying the label “naïve art … with some derogatory connotations”.

In fact, when “new” indigenous art such as Mabasa’s came to the fore in the 1980s, it was initially referred to as ”transitional”, implying ”a cross-fertilisation between Western and African modes” and cultural contexts. But this term has since come to be rejected as wholly inadequate.4 Outsider art may be a more comfortable fit for these artists. “It [outsider art] enjoys support and recognition, even cult status. It’s an artificial distinction [to draw between trained and self-taught artists], a snobbish one, but such art is recognised,” says Van Rensburg. Page | 21

He points to the esteem in which selftaught Limpopo cartographic artist John Phalane is held as another case in point. Of course, outsider artists in developed countries such as the United Kingdom can use the internet and social media to build a following and access the marketplace, something that is not an option for some of their South African counterparts who may not be computer literate. In South Africa, emerging artists who are unable to study towards a visual art degree have the option of enrolling in short courses at most universities to enhance and hone their technical skills, although this is chiefly an urban option. However, many local “outsider” or rural artists, out of necessity rather than choice, rely on received wisdom passed down through the generations. Seeking out formal artistic training is problematic if one lives far from the major centres. But Van Rensburg says one should not underestimate the value of on-site skills transfer and apprenticeships with established artists: “[Noria Mabasa] had a homestead that was effectively [her] training college. It was part of [her Venda] tradition to hand [skills] down.” Another option is a learnership, which is a workplace-based training programme. This enables working artists to study while earning a living, “giving access to those under-qualified artists without a matric to enter the market”, Van Rensburg says. One of the most viable solutions for rural artists in particular may lie in having access to sustainable training initiatives at Page | 22

community level to ensure the transfer of indigenous artistic skills and knowledge. Here, it’s often not for want of trying, and there are several stories of community art centres lying vacant or underutilised. For example, the Ditike Arts and Crafts Centre, situated between Thohoyandou and Louis Trichardt (now Makhado) near Mabasa’s village, was held up as a flagship training and market access project when it was launched in 1985 by the then Venda Development Corporation. Mabasa herself was attached to the centre. Today, Ditike lies vandalised and unused, although a group of Vhembe artists is now attempting to revive it “so that artists and crafters have a space to call home”, according to a 2018 article in a Limpopo weekly newspaper.5 Another example of an underutilised training centre is on Mabasa’s own property. In 2007, the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) built a spacious, multiroomed arts and crafts studio at her homestead, “necessitated by a combination of the need Ms Mabasa had for a working space, as well as the imperative of ensuring that she is provided with a vehicle to pass on her knowledge and skill”, according to an article from that year on the DAC website.6 The Vhutsila a Vhutibiwi Art and Craft Centre (pictured on previous page) – its Tshivenda name alluding to a custodian of indigenous knowledge passing on his or her wisdom for the benefit of future generations – was envisaged as a self-sustaining hub for skills development for rural artists and crafters.

One of the most viable solutions for rural artists in particular may lie in having access to sustainable training initiatives at community level ... Page | 23

Mabasa says she used the remainder of the government subsidy left over from the building of the art centre to train students “of all races and all ages, from different communities”. She believes many of them showed talent, a fact borne out by the remnants of their sculptures that are still on display in one of the back rooms. However, funds dried up and the training could not continue.7 The gallery and training space are currently lying dormant, save for housing much of the still-prolific artist’s output. She still hopes for a commercial or government sponsorship to enable her to continue with the workshops and impart her knowledge and technical know-how to future generations of indigenous sculptors. This type of mentorship and coaching, as well as workplace-based learning, is at the core of what the Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (Cathsseta) envisages to reinvigorate the country’s arts, culture and heritage sub-sector, according to its most recent Sector Skills Plan. This is based on projections that the twin factors of technological advances and globalisation will continue to greatly influence skills planning for all sectors.8 It observes: “The perception that some occupations are hobbies, for example arts and crafts … means that there is little emphasis on actual education and training in these fields. Entrants into the workforce thus often have no qualifications and very limited skills … These misconceptions reflect the need to modernise the public perception of Page | 24

such occupations and promote them as critical economic drivers.” The Seta further notes in its arts, culture and heritage career guide booklet that the sector is “predominantly self-employment driven”, and that “graduates are continuously competing for the few available job opportunities”. Indeed, work in the creative industries is broadly not regarded as being “stable and secure”.9 However, Cathsseta’s skills plan identifies a growing trend towards the convergence of arts, culture and heritage, citing the increasing popularity of heritage tourism and cultural tourism as an example. “[This] will require increased knowledge

and skills that cut across industries,” it believes.

culture forms, particularly in marginalised communities.

Currently, Cathsseta says, there is evidence of a skills mismatch between graduates and employer requirements in the sector. It has also identified a lack of arts, culture and heritage training providers in certain provinces as a problem.

The Seta also recommends developing the capacity of TVET colleges to offer accredited courses relevant to the sector. Programmes such as internships and work-integrated learning also need to be intensified, it proposes.

As a result, the Seta is exploring partnerships with higher education institutions, technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges and public entities – such as a proposed venture with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Arts and Culture to establish an academy to develop indigenous arts and

“Our research has shown that these programmes need to improve mentorship and coaching provided to learners. Bringing in industry specialists has also been identified as one of the factors that could play an important role in preparing learners for the labour market by ensuring that training done is relevant to the industry.” Given this apparent renewed impetus to revive arts, culture and heritage training, it follows that using existing training spaces such as Ditike and Mabasa’s centre, and expert trainers such as rural artists themselves, could plausibly help fill the sectoral skills gap. This would give emerging artists with raw talent the opportunity to upskill themselves – conceivably not only in the technical aspects of art production, but in the business side of the art market too.

Citations: 1 Seager, 2018. 2 Kennedy & Van Rensburg, 2018. 3 Nettleton, 2000. 4 South African History Online, 2019. 5 Mukwevho, 2018. 6 Dac.gov.za, 2018. 7 Kennedy & Mabasa, 2018. 8 Cathsseta. org.za (Sector Skills Plan), 2018. 9 Cathsseta.org.za (Arts, Culture & Heritage Career Guide), 2018

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The Flood (1994/1995), marula wood, Sandton Convention Centre

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Chapter 3 THEMES AND SUBJECT MATTER: THE ARTIST AS SOCIAL COMMENTATOR Art commentators and academics have widely hailed Noria Mabasa as a feminist and a challenger of patriarchal power relations. She is held up as a trailblazer, having broken with tradition to become the first known Venda woman woodcarver in a male-dominated art form (and one hailing from rural South Africa, at that), and as an outspoken commentator on societal issues through her art. Professor Anitra Nettleton notes that in Limpopo, woodcarving is generally a skill passed down by elder male relatives to younger men through apprenticeship – yet Mabasa “transgressed the normal division of labo[u]r among the Venda men and women when she moved from clay to wood as a medium”.1 Added to this, the fact that she grew up and began her career as an artist in an oppressive and chauvinistic society under the thumb of apartheid only serves to make her accomplishments that much more

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remarkable. In her work, just as she moves fluidly from clay to wood and even to paint as her mediums of choice, the motifs she employs also meld the current with the customary, the spiritual with the political. Traditional folklore and lived and observed experience coexist in harmony – or, as is more common in Mabasa’s work, in tension. Art academic Professor Kim Berman, writing in the Weekly Mail in 1987, perhaps sums it up best: “Mabasa’s work stems from and concerns her environment. Be it the land of the mind or that of the external material world, all the elements of Mabasa’s Venda landscape are reflected there. Generally, the clay figures arise out of her surrounding material world, while the woodcarvings are drawn from the vistas of her mind.“² Artist Sue Williamson writes how Mabasa’s early ceramic work (pictured overleaf) was shaped by what she observed in the then-Venda bantustan. There, “[c]orruption and nepotism [had] become rife. The large and hitherto unseen tribe of bureaucrats, politicians, and the military that the new order brought to Venda, caught Mabasa’s attention, and she first became known to the art world for her ironic and amusing painted clay figures of this new breed.”³ But it was her carved wooden sculptures that really captured the international art world’s imagination, largely due, Nettleton argues, to their figurative, dreamlike quality: “The very opacity of the subject matter is part of the object’s mystique or charm.”

“The reason I included a drum on the sculpture speaks to an underlying message regarding women’s issues ... that we are beating our own drum.” Gallery manager Dr Same Mdluli writes that in the breakout Neglected Tradition exhibition of urban and rural black South African art in 1988, Mabasa was “represented by works in two distinct styles: her clay figures are generally linked to her ideas about her traditional origins but [in a] contemporary context – a juxtaposition of urban concerns rendered in a traditional material; while her wooden sculpture is associated with the spiritual realm or a form of fantasy often perceived to be free from any formalist concerns”.4 Fellow “untrained” artist Dr Phuthuma Seoka, quoted in art specialist Wilhelm van Rensburg’s TAXI art book supplement on Mabasa, observes that it is through dreams that the powerful ancestors appear, particularly to rural artists, guiding them and inspiring their art.5 In the educational supplement, Van Rensburg notes that while many rural woodcarvers have translated the spiritual dimension of their ancestral culture into Christian iconography, “Mabasa’s work depicts the everyday, secular world … Her choice of subject matter is racked with political turmoil and natural disasters, but her work is full of human compassion and creativity imbued with the spirit of her ancestors.”5

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Reinforcing her stature as an art pioneer in an era that preceded the mainstreaming of feminist theory, he says: “[She] challenged the norms of the patriarchal society that she lived in … [and] has not shied away from representing a repressive political system.” Mabasa downplays the feminist label, simply saying that she sculpts what comes to her in dreams and that she has been guided by women muses her entire life.6 However, her reputation as a fearless female sculptor is given heft by, inter alia, her gigantic work (pictured) that was once on display at Pretoria’s Union Buildings, which commemorates the 1956 Women’s March to the seat of government (and the seat of apartheid power at the time), to protest against the pass laws that made the carrying of passbooks compulsory for black South Africans. Mabasa says this work, which took her several months to complete, is the one of which she is most proud. “The reason I included a drum on the sculpture speaks to an underlying message regarding women’s issues … that we are beating our own drum,” she explains. “They [women] were not allowed to voice their issues back then, but in our current state our voices are heard.”6 Her monumental, two-metre-long wooden sculpture Carnage II (1997) is a prime example of how she combines topical events with figurative African mysticism. It depicts six people locked in combat with a snake, a lamb, a lion and a crocodile in its evocation of the destruction left in the wake of a flood in what is today KwaZulu-Natal. “Sometimes I have strange dreams that bother me so much,” relates Mabasa. “Often I have premonitions about something happening in the future, and then it happens. I dreamed about the Natal floods even before they happened.” Page | 29

Mdluli notes, citing Nettleton, that this work, which was a finalist in the third Cape Town Triennial, was "exceptional [partly due to] its technical excellence based on the criteria stipulated by the competition; however, it seems as if most writers were unsure of how to write about it because it could not be labelled as ‘craft’ – a categorisation usually associated with ‘rural’ artists. Its sensitivity to material and form demonstrated the same kind of sensibilities that Western modernist sculptors like Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin showed to their material.” This piece, which Williamson hails as being “extraordinary and powerful”, marked a significant evolution from Mabasa’s early Page | 30

clay figures (another wooden sculpture with a similar theme, The Flood, is pictured on page 26). Williamson writes of the broader significance of Carnage II: “The tensions are perfectly balanced; the strength of the loosely worked forms and the purity of line are breathtaking. With this seminal piece, the visionary Mabasa emerged as a major figure in South African art.” This work, she says, “incorporates references to Venda historical tradition, local experience, and a 1987 flood in Natal that received widespread television coverage”. Adding to this, Nettleton posits: “Mabasa has negotiated a space between her own Venda-centred view of a distant disaster and the metropolitan view of

those in the art world.” She says exposure to urban and Western art markets may have broadened the approach of “rural” artists to their work and their subject matter, while remaining within the ambit of figurative sculpture. The fact that, today, the artist remains steeped in her Venda customs while living in a Western-style house and keeping up to date with world affairs via satellite television shows that it is possible to marry the two seemingly disparate worlds, both in life and in art. The University of Venda’s Dr Elelwani Ramaite-Mafadza praises Mabasa’s art for being anchored in contemporary life: “She dreams about things and then creates works about real-life issues. One is about how cancer affects women and another portrays a woman who is negligent and doesn’t take care of her children. Her work gives her the chance to talk to an audience and explain her dreams.”7

She says “there were more opportunities” for rural dwellers in the past. “People could go to the fields and plough, and be self-sufficient. It’s not so easy now. People rely on government grants.” So embedded is she in her community that she frets over whether one of her sculptures, depicting an incident close to home of a man who tried to rape a child, is too sensitive for public consumption because she fears repercussions. Other works in her overflowing home studio are humorous in nature. One depicts a married couple in bed (pictured), with the wife asking her husband about his eye that was injured in a fight at the tavern. Many focus on everyday Venda life, ceremonies and royalty; like Frida Kahlo, Mabasa’s self-portraits are in abundance. Citations: 1 Nettleton, 2000. 2 Berman, 1987 (South African History Online). 3 Williamson, 1989. 4 Mdluli, 2018. 5 Van Rensburg, 2003. 6 Kennedy & Mabasa, 2018. 7 Kennedy & Ramaite-Mafadza, 2018

Van Rensburg adds: “She has also not hesitated to raise awareness about HIV/Aids in the country, making sculptures about sexual promiscuity from as early as 1989. In her sculptures, Mabasa has also tackled issues such as rape, hoping to educate people about some of the social ills of our time.” Mabasa firmly believes the artist cannot be divorced from the society in which he or she lives and operates. “The artist is part of a community … you can’t separate the two,” she insists. Observing the problems plaguing her people first-hand, her work is often a response to what she sees around her in rural Limpopo.

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Chapter 4

KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION: SHARING THE RICHES THAT COME FROM THE SOIL

oria Mabasa may have tasted international success as an artist, but she still goes about creating her art in the old, traditional ways. She considers it a privilege to be able to preserve her cultural heritage, and to share her wisdom and knowledge, through her artistic gift, which is deeply rooted in her identity as a Venda woman. Her philosophy is that “the riches come from the soil. If you do everything from the soil, you will prosper.” In this sense, she is a custodian and a baton-bearer of indigenous knowledge, passing it on while shaping and reinventing it for her own artistic purposes.¹ She still gets younger people to collect her clay from the river, as she did when she began sculpting several decades ago. She still fires her own ceramic sculptures and pots in her self-made kiln – a massive fire pit at the back of her property. She still roams around her village and others in the area, foraging for logs and

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It would seem that Mabasa has successfully navigated the tightrope between "traditional art'" such as curio making on the one hand and so-called "high art'" on the other. driftwood for her often gigantic carvings that she creates using a hammer and an array of chisels. Indeed, today, despite her stature as a world-renowned contemporary African artist, she insists on doing things her way, not bowing to the definitions, boxes and demands of the Western contemporary art world. In doing so, she stands out as an artist who uses traditional methods and motifs to reflect on topical issues, who is redefining and adding nuance to the “art versus craft” debate, and who is a flagbearer for weaving elements of African mythology and mysticism into her work. It would seem that Mabasa has successfully navigated the tightrope between “traditional art” such as curio making on the one hand and so-called “high art” on the other. She unapologetically still makes Venda pots, food warmers, eating and cooking utensils, bowls for traditional brew and other everyday household objects, and is widely praised in her community for keeping those traditions alive. You can buy one of her small handmade patterned bowls for just R10. Indeed, despite its negative connotations in some circles, she does not see “craft” as a dirty word. Mabasa offers her own definition of what is art and what is craft: “When something is created for yourself and your homestead, for private use, while observing tradition, that is craft. As soon as Page | 34

you take it into a public space to be seen by everybody, that is art. I do both.” Her community is grateful that she respects and foregrounds their customs in her work. Citing her depictions of the traditional Venda domba dance ceremony as an example, one of the traditional leaders in the Tshino area, Vhamusanda Vho-Ramukhuba Edward Phaswana, says: “Makhulu has preserved our culture, which is a great thing.”¹ Writing in the Weekly Mail in 1986, Ivor Powell notes how being close to their communities shapes the art of rural indigenous artists: “Part sculptor, part shaman, part curio maker and part utensil carver, these artists work inside and for the communities to which they belong.” He believes this distance from the “abstract and alien art world” is precisely what makes them so powerful.2 Mabasa also fuses the ceremonial with the aesthetic in the immense traditional drums (pictured) she makes, and frequently weaves the drum motif into her other work too – including her iconic sculpture of the 1956 Women’s March. Art educator Wilhelm van Rensburg observes that the division between “art” and “craft” is a recent phenomenon, as in medieval Europe artists had to grind their own pigments and belonged to trade guilds. This distinction, he says, is largely a Western construct, with objects of material

African culture such as pots being seen as crafts, and figurative sculptures as art – but the line is becoming increasingly blurred, with headrests, snuff containers and beadwork now found in many museums and galleries as examples of traditional African art.3

made for drumming, but a sculptural piece incorporating the shape of the drum. Similarly, her clay pots, although coiled and fired in the traditional way, are unusual in that they are decorated with figures of people and animals and are often too big to be used in a traditional way.”

He believes that Mabasa is a prime example of how this divide can be comfortably straddled: “[She] confounds and complicates the art/craft divide, as is evident in her sculpture Ngoma Lungundu of 1995. This ‘great drum’ is carved with intertwined figures representing the voices of the Venda people who speak through the beating of the drum.

In fact, Mabasa herself said of her one-and-a-half-metre-tall clay pots made for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg: “These are not pots. These are sculptures.”3

“Although the drum element is an important part of the sculpture and its meaning, the piece is not a utility object

Sometimes her art is designed for purpose, though. This knack for creating functional or useful – yet aesthetically pleasing – art can be seen at H12 Leshiba, a game lodge that brings traditional Venda flavours into a luxury setting near Louis Trichardt (also known as Makhado). Page | 35

HOW VENDA CULTURE INFORMS NORIA MABASA’S ART Much of the subject matter employed by Noria Mabasa and her artistic peers in Limpopo is rooted in the realm of Venda mythology and lore. This can be traced to the traditional practice of ngano, the Tshivenda word for fairy tales, according to the Venda cultural resource Luonde.co.za.¹ It says that these ngano are usually related orally by senior female family members, often around a fire and accompanied by dance to dramatise the stories. The protagonists are usually people and animals, the latter being anthropomorphised and imbued with human characteristics such as intelligence, cunning or stupidity. For example, hyenas, owls and snakes are regarded as agents of evil and harbingers of witchcraft in the ngano, with the exception of the python, which is revered in Tshivenda culture as a symbol of fertility and longevity. This can be seen in the domba dance – one of Mabasa’s most famous and distinctive motifs – which is an initiation rite in which maidens link arms and move in an undulating, snake-like motion (pictured overleaf). overleaf) In doing so, they pay tribute to the python that is believed to guard the waters of Lake Fundudzi, a body of water in the Soutpansberg area that the Vhavenda people regard as sacred. Many of the artist’s wooden sculptures portray humans and animals intertwined in conflict or tension, as a nod to these traditional fairy tales. She also draws her inspiration from her ancestors (vhadzimu), who are believed to be the intermediaries and message-bearers between living beings and Nwali (God). Page | 36

Mabasa worked on site for several months to reimagine a traditional Venda cultural village complete with her own distinctive aesthetic stylings, creating striking utilitarian items such as undulating benches and voluptuous female figures reclining next to bathtubs with breathtaking views (pictured). Indeed, she describes in detail how she had to take into account the intricacies of plumbing when sculpting the female forms for the lodge’s indoor and outdoor showers.¹ By Mabasa’s own definition, these beautiful fixtures – designed to not just be admired but actually to be used by tourists and visitors – would be seen as art, not as craft. Van Rensburg is adamant: “There’s no question about it – she’s an artist, not a craftsperson. In the world of new media and contemporary art, artists are actually going back to craft material, such as Walter Oltmann making sculptures with wire. It’s very important to preserve these indigenous art forms – it’s what makes us unique in the world.”³ Academic Dr Elelwani Ramaite-Mafadza agrees: “Noria Mabasa plays a very important role in our community in preserving the Venda culture with her God-given talent. But there is not enough being done to preserve indigenous art such as hers.”5 While many of Mabasa’s ceramic works draw on Venda life and customs, her wooden carvings could be straight out of the pages of fantasy fiction. One giant piece in her gallery depicts human figures intertwined with beasts such as snakes, birds and peacocks, pivoting around a giant brain (pictured overleaf).

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Besides these nods to Venda spirituality and myth, Mabasa’s sculptures also reflect the rituals and cultural traditions of the Vhavenda and other indigenous peoples, according to an article on rural tourism website Openafrica.org. Her works often show women dressed in traditional clothing, with details such as beadwork giving clues as to the status of the person she is depicting.² Drums also feature regularly in Venda legends and hold powerful magical properties, with Mabasa including this motif in monumental works such as Ngoma Lungundu, which translates as “the drum that thunders”. When it comes to gender roles in Southern African society, Mabasa’s status as a Venda woman who heads up her household is not necessarily an aberration from her culture’s norm. Venda women are permitted to own property and that within her own muta or homestead, a woman is regarded as being in charge and is respected as such.¹ Nonetheless, even as she draws on this indigenous Venda paradigm for her work, and operates within it, the fact that Mabasa challenged her culture’s gender norms to embrace wood as an artistic medium can be seen as a significant deviation from traditional convention. Citations: 1 Luonde.co.za, 2019. 2 Code Like Clockwork (Openafrica.org), 2019

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Much as Mabasa has been hailed as a feminist, Dr Same Mdluli says it is the spiritual and mythical themes at play in her work that deserve more analysis: “I would be wary to put her in the rubric of feminist; I think her work is a lot more complex than that,” she says.6 “[She represents] an area that is very much unexplored, that of African cosmology, as do [fellow Limpopo artist the late] Jackson Hlungwani and [artist and storyteller] Credo Mutwa. That sphere or realm of study is still untapped. I don’t think anyone knows how to approach it, because on the one hand it’s creativity and artistic expression, and on the other, spirituality and mysticism.” As an example of this, Professor Anitra Nettleton says the crocodiles in Mabasa's works may be drawn from Venda cosmology, in which they are a central metaphor, “referring to both kingship and witches”. She says Mabasa “continues to plunder the imagery of male traditional carving and Venda mythology to produce works that have a particular meaning for her and for those with some knowledge of Venda history”.7 Nettleton notes that although such works have become shrouded in a kind of “undifferentiated African mystique” to outsiders, such a perception could also be perpetuated by Mabasa’s limited command of English when interacting with the Western world, effectively silencing her voice in explaining her creations. But, many might argue, the richness, complexity and bounty of indigenous knowledge contained in her work means her art is quite capable of speaking for itself. Citations: 1 Kennedy, Mabasa & community members, 2018. 2 Powell, 1986 (South African History Online). 3 Van Rensburg, 2003. 4 Kennedy & Van Rensburg, 2018. 5 Kennedy & Ramaite-Mafadza, 2018. 6 Kennedy & Mdluli, 2018. 7 Nettleton, 2000

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Chapter 5 MARKET ACCESS: STILL THE ‘NEGLECTED TRADITION’?

n 1988, a groundbreaking exhibition was held at the Johannesburg Art Gallery: The Neglected Tradition. Heralded as a turning point in South African art history, along with the BMW Tributaries exhibition that preceded it in 1985 and the Cape Town Triennial the same year, it saw the work of almost 100 black South African artists being showcased at a major art museum while the country was still shackled by apartheid.¹ In the catalogue, curator Steven Sack wrote that he hoped the exhibition would “serve as a catalyst for re-examining prevailing notions about the nature of ‘black art’ and, indeed, the very definitions of art which have in many cases been adopted unquestioningly from Western art traditions”.² As Sack noted subsequently, South Africa’s visual tradition had been based on an almost entirely Eurocentric pictorial account of the country’s history, and interest in “black art” had been minimal.

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But initiatives such as The Neglected Tradition proved pivotal in making the local and international art market sit up and take notice of the work of Noria Mabasa and many of her contemporaries.

“Broadly speaking, the South African art market is very strong. We’re seeing continuous growth, and more and more interest across all price points. There’s huge excitement, especially when it comes to contemporary South African art.” It was, to some degree, the beginning of a golden era. Observes fine art specialist Wilhelm van Rensburg: “There was a phase in the Eighties and Nineties when these [indigenous rural] artists were absolutely snapped up. They were very popular and fashionable; they were part of a changing South Africa. But because the art market is fickle and trained on fashion, they fell out of favour. Only now has the idea of contemporary African art resurfaced [as fashionable], and these 20th-century artists are being revisited.”³ In November 2018, almost exactly 30 years after The Neglected Tradition, two of Mabasa’s sculptures were up for sale during an auction of more than 100 lots of South African contemporary art by Johannesburg auction house Strauss & Co, during a special session titled An Unsung History. Auctioneer Dr Alastair Meredith said optimistically before the auction commenced: “We hope we will look back and see this as a historical turning point in terms of the secondary [art] market.”4 There are indications the tide may be turning. Works by Mpumalanga sculptor Cyprian Shilakoe and Limpopo landscape artist Moses Tladi fared well at the auction, fetching well above their reserve prices, and Van Rensburg says fine art auction houses are gradually “getting people away from Maggie Laubscher, Irma Stern and Pierneef by introducing them to this [type of art]”. He admits, though, that “there’s still a big educational task ahead” to convince buyers of the inherent value of black indigenous art, especially that produced by artists outside the urban areas. Page | 42

Interviewed subsequent to the auction, Meredith said “[black South African art] is generally very undervalued and underappreciated”, although artists such as Tladi are being “rediscovered after being neglected for half a century … and rightfully so”. 5 “Broadly speaking, the South African art market is very strong. We’re seeing continuous growth, and more and more interest across all price points. There’s huge excitement, especially when it comes to contemporary South African art.” International galleries, art fairs and private collectors are increasingly cottoning on to the worth of African art, he believes. The record prices fetched by the late singer David Bowie’s substantial collection of South African art when it was auctioned by Sotheby’s certainly didn’t hurt the country’s resurgent contemporary art reputation. According to a Brand South Africa article published after the 2016 sale: “[Bowie] had hoped that by using his influence to bring African art to an international audience, art lovers could bypass the often clichéd categorisation of African art as artefact, curio and lowbrow, and give it its rightful significance in the global cultural experience.”6 It may be on course to assume such a place. Meredith projects: “The sub-genre of neglected black and white South African artists of the last century is expected to build momentum over the next few years, with more people waking to the idea that here were fantastic artists doing work during the various cultural boycotts.” The fine art landscape in South Africa is shifting, and private art foundations and collections are increasingly taking the place of the state and parastatals as art custodians and investors, he adds. In the case of Mabasa, she is better known than many of her rural artist counterparts and is fairly well represented in national and institutional collections. Meredith says, however, that the Mabasa works that Strauss & Co has sold over the years have generally failed to fetch high prices, with the exception of her wooden sculpture Legend of Hlopeka that sold for R356 000 in 2009 and was loaned by the buyer to the Constitutional Court. Mukhali (1996) (two views, pictured above), clay, 88.5cm x 37.5cm x 22.5cm, Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum) – acquired 1996. The sculpture is a reverent depiction of the artist’s grandmother, who she never met, as a young Venda initiate. Mukhali means “guide” or “mentor” in Tshivenda 10

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Part of the problem is that there are many artists who copy Mabasa’s style, and imitation is not necessarily the finest form of flattery when it comes to provenance and matters of artistic copyright. However, under the 2018 Copyright Amendment Bill, artists like Mabasa will “enjoy an inalienable right to receive royalties on the commercial resale of his or her work subsequent to the first transfer by the user of that work”, in line with the legislation.7 This resale royalty right means that the artist will not only be paid for the initial sale of the work; he or she (or their heirs) will benefit should it appreciate in value during their lifetime, and for 50 years following the artist’s death. Once such an artwork is resold on auction, for example, the artist will be entitled to a portion of the proceeds. Page | 44

The bigger picture for artists labelled as “rural” is that market access is not merely a matter of protecting one’s intellectual property and ensuring one’s art finds its way to the buyers and collectors of fine art; the sensitive matter of exploitation also enters the picture. Mabasa was attached to the Goodman Gallery for a while, but is currently not represented by a gallery. This, some maintain, makes her and her rural peers from that generation vulnerable to exploitation, with the fact that some of them are illiterate further complicating matters. Such artists’ perceived naiveté and lack of city smarts may also compromise their prospects of negotiating fair prices. This is why it is not surprising that Mabasa has a close-knit inner circle of family and friends that protects her fiercely and devotedly.

Mabasa herself believes she has been exploited. For example, she was involved in a large-scale, long-term commercial project for which she feels she was inadequately compensated and for which she does not receive royalties. But even she concedes that monetary compensation was not discussed upfront; she simply trusted that she would be “properly” remunerated for her labours.8 She also relates how a woman purporting to be from a gallery once came with a huge truck and took “half of my pieces, but never paid me a cent. I went to the lawyers but couldn’t track her down”. Mabasa speaks about “smooth talkers who say they’ll buy two, take two free … they say they will sell it but never deliver”. Once bitten, twice shy, she asserts that she will gladly take commissions – but no pay, no play. “People can order, but they must pay upfront.” Another factor complicating such artists’ access to markets is logistics. Explains Van Rensburg: “Among the obstacles for rural artists, especially those in Venda, is that their work is often extremely big and they are unable to transport it to the major markets.” He says the best bet for emerging artists is still to find a gallery that relates to them and believes in them, and will be able to sell their work.³ Dr Same Mdluli also alludes to the power wielded by the gallery system. “What’s clear is that the galleries are still very much the go-to places for who’s current and who’s in and who’s out. Now there’s this wave of private museums popping up too.”9

She maintains that part of the problem with some “outsider” artists gaining a foothold in the art market is the drawing of artificial distinctions between “urban” and “rural” art in the first place, with the latter term being loaded with condescension. “What was clear from the Eighties is that these artists were never going to be incorporated into the larger mainstream, because they served a particular purpose. For example, if you look at [the late wood sculptor] Jackson Hlungwani … to consider him a ‘rural artist’ is patronising. So … art historians and art critics [need to] start looking at these artists away from that lens.” Convenient catch-all labels and a capricious art market notwithstanding, Mabasa is arguably one of the luckier “rural” artists who has made a living out of her art and is still practising today. Her Union Buildings commission enabled her to partner with trusted family members to invest in property, transport, farming and telecommunications ventures, in a bid to make a sustainable living outside the art sphere. Sadly, many of her generational peers did not have the benefit of reliable financial planning advice. Having external business interests is her way of providing for her family’s future and “empowering my children”, says Mabasa. However, “when you’re an artist, income is seasonal. You have nothing to fall back on but your passion.”

Citations: 1 Antiquarianauctions.com, 2018. 2 Inyourpocket.com, 2018. 3 Kennedy & Van Rensburg, 2018. 4 Unsung History auction, 2018. 5 Kennedy & Meredith, 2018. 6 Anderson (Brandsouthafrica.com), 2016. 7 Parliament.gov.za, 2018. 8 Kennedy & Mabasa, 2018. 9 Kennedy & Mdluli, 2018 10 Louw, Beukes and Van Wyk, 2018

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Chapter 6 TRANSFERRING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE: HOW TO FIRE UP FUTURE GENERATIONS

oria Mabasa has a rich, vast and deep well of indigenous artistic and cultural knowledge that she is willing to share with anyone who would treasure such a gift. In a back room of her Vhutsila a Vhutibiwi Art and Craft Centre at her homestead, she offers a tantalising glimpse of her teaching process, explaining how she trained a diverse group of students shortly after it was built. The floor still sports an assortment of the clay figures made by these students.¹ She would sit in the middle of the space, showing students how to make a small pot from clay. With the basics demonstrated, she would go on to sculpt half a figure of a person and then ask the trainee to complete it. When the students were done, she would unceremoniously break their figurines, much to their dismay. “Now, make your own person using your own brain,” she would instruct them.

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The results of her students’ subsequent labours are still on display – and some of them showed genuine artistic talent, she recalls. Another former student is Tracy Witelson, a professional artist and art teacher who runs Art Studio 32 Flavours in Johannesburg. She has visited the artist at her homestead several times and has welcomed her into her own home as well. Their relationship has gone far beyond the initial teacher-student interactions; their families have developed a close and loyal bond over the years.² Witelson is the perfect example of a mentee who went on to evolve her own distinct style. She met Mabasa in the early 2000s when her art therapy group held a weekend workshop at the H12 Leshiba lodge (in the Soutpansberg mountain range), where Mabasa was recreating a living Venda art village. Recalls Witelson: “She got us up at 5am, clapping her hands. She said: ‘Get out of bed – what do you think this is, a holiday? You haven’t come here for a holiday; you’ve come to do art.’ She marched us up the mountain before breakfast to look for wood. I was expecting little bits of dried wood, but Noria had trees in mind. So, a friend and I landed up carrying a dry tree back on our heads.” The group, comprising participants across the racial spectrum, spent two days carving wood and two days sculpting clay. “She taught very much by demonstration. She’d look at the wood and turn it until she could see something; she looks for the form in the wood, perhaps a face or a crocodile.

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Then she’d start carving it with an adze – an African axe – and was incredibly accurate with it. She’d give the wood back to us and we’d carve it with chisels and hammers, and then take it back to her, so it was very collaborative,” Witelson relates, demonstrating the process with her hands. “There was one big piece of wood that she refused to carve. Noria turned it around and said: ‘We don’t carve this – the mountain has already made the art’ … She has a profound respect for nature and natural forms.” Witelson says Mabasa’s mentorship style extends beyond the simple teaching of techniques; it’s more like the sharing of a sacred and precious gift. “Because she has no formal training, all she’s learnt has been from her observation of nature ... We were all very aware and conscious of the process. She’s a potent and profound human being, and being in her presence is quite awe-inspiring.”

“There was one big piece of wood that she refused to carve. Noria turned it around and said: ‘We don’t carve this – the mountain has already made the art ’… She has a profound respect for nature and natural forms.” One night, Mabasa told them her life story, “explaining how art saved her life … And then she quite unexpectedly prayed for us. The prayer seemed to be about us all finding our path as artists, and expressing ourselves and following the gift that she could see in us. She felt that she needed to bless us somehow.” Subsequently, over the years, Witelson went to see Mabasa several times, and later with students of her own, “to visit and to learn. I just loved her and really, really wanted to see her again. I asked her if she’d teach me how to carve wood and she was thrilled, because she said most women don’t carve. And we made claywork as well.” This ongoing mentoring was mutually beneficial, with Mabasa being compensated for her time and for the use of her lodgings, and also selling her work to workshop participants. Students would immerse themselves in her life, feeding her chickens and dogs, tending her vegetables and making art. “The interesting thing about Noria is that her making of art and her life are completely meshed together, and you’re invited to join that. It was a real win-win situation – it was very good for my studio and very good for her,” Witelson notes.

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"It works well when relationships of trust are established and there is mutual respect; then there can be a transfer of skills and knowledge and stories." Mabasa also came to do a workshop at her Johannesburg studio, paying it forward. Today, Witelson uses the skills imparted by Mabasa to create her own wood and clay sculptures, while in turn passing on this valuable knowledge to others. “I teach children, teenagers and adults – and all of them benefit from everything I’ve learned from Noria, which is not just about skills but also taking yourself seriously as an artist,” she says. “Like her, I teach sculpture by demonstration. It’s evolved into my own style, but the understanding that the form is in the wood – that’s from her … the idea that it’s not just me imposing my ideas on the piece of wood, but the piece of wood collaborating [with me].” Her experience suggests that an effective transfer of knowledge from artistic sages such as Mabasa to mentees often goes beyond technical or skills-based learning – it is also a deeply enriching spiritual experience, and certainly not a mere commercial transaction. Page | 50

Noria Mabasa and Tracy Witelson, pictured during the early years of their mentor-mentee relationship

Witelson believes that there is an innate “ancient spirituality” to artists such as Mabasa that is inspiring to protégés: “She believes you get called to be an artist by the ancestors, so whenever she’s teaching people, she’s looking to see who’s been called … something she thinks is inspiring in the person or their art or their relationship with materials. She gets very excited and animated when she sees what she calls a ‘really-really’ artist. “My observation is that it works well when relationships of trust are established and there is mutual respect; then there can be a transfer of skills and knowledge and stories.”

One of the most effective ways to keep ancient indigenous knowledge alive may be by drawing young people and communities into an informal mentoring process, as opposed to formalised training. Witelson tells of how Mabasa and her peers set up a Venda dancing and drumming group to teach the traditions to children in her community, but that this fell by the wayside when many of her friends passed on. Dr Elelwani Ramaite-Mafadza asserts that the importance of preserving these customs cannot be overstated. She runs an indigenous music and oral history project at the University of Venda to document and preserve the culture, instruments and dance of the Vhavenda and other nations, but it has been hamstrung by a lack of funding.³

She laments: “There have been clay artists and sculptors who, when they died, their art died with them. The same thing applies to indigenous instruments: people have died and no one has learned how to play or make these instruments.” She would like to see the Department of Basic Education introducing indigenous art and culture classes in schools. “We need cultural education in our syllabuses, and we also need to introduce resident artists in our schools, whereby artists like Noria can ‘adopt’ a school. They need to spend time with learners and teachers, teaching art to young learners. It must be assessed and marks given for it, to ensure that it’s taken seriously. It’s important that these artists are compensated appropriately,” she says. Page | 51

Official interventions aside, the transfer of indigenous knowledge is also being impeded by society’s general apathy towards the passing of the cultural baton, she maintains. “People have come to believe their culture is not important … Many children go to private schools and are no longer communicating in their mother tongue. Their language is being sacrificed. That’s why education should start at home. We need to change mindsets to beef up cultural education at home, because

people are being taught to put their culture aside,” says Dr Ramaite-Mafadza. It’s not the artists who are the problem, she points out: “Like other people her age, Noria is generous – she doesn’t keep her art to herself. She wants to impart knowledge of her culture, but she has not been [as successful as she could have been].” Art academic Dr Same Mdluli believes that South Africans need to do more to take ownership of their traditional wisdom,

Traditional Venda huts flanked by clay sculptures at the artist’s homestead, Tshino

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learning from how other countries have protected their respective indigenous and aboriginal cultures: “It’s going to take a bigger intervention at a government or Unesco [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation] level of preservation, and often these kinds of initiatives have to be initiated by individuals or champions,” she says, resignedly.4

repository of intangible cultural heritage, but, like Dr Ramaite-Mafadza’s laudable initiative at the university, a lack of financial resources has hampered her from setting up a regular schedule of classes.

The government has built a modern arts and crafts centre at Mabasa’s Tshino homestead to help her pass on her rich

“God has preserved me and kept me safe. I can’t sit still; there’s still a lot left to do.”

As for Mabasa, she still hopes to resume training others, but says she can’t and won’t stop working, regardless of what the art market dictates.

Citations: 1 Kennedy & Mabasa, 2018. 2 Kennedy & Witelson, 2018. 3 Kennedy & Ramaite-Mafadza, 2018. 4 Kennedy & Mdluli, 2018

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Epilogue One day, I was sitting here with my own thoughts. I was thinking that when my mother passes, I would like to have a ceremony for her. Then I heard a sound – it was my father. “Have you forgotten about me?” he asked. I went and erected a tombstone for him, and gave him a ceremony. I realised then that the water my [late] father had been asking for during all those years was just a symbol. I was always the obedient one at home, and this [artistic] gift was bestowed on me because I was the obedient child and would respect it. I honour my gift because it comes from the spiritual world. That is why my art is, first and foremost, a calling rather than a career. – Noria Mabasa, Tshino village, October 2018

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Peace and Democracy (2012), bronze, Nobel Square, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town

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Bibliography Anderson, C. (2016). South African art part of the David Bowie collection | Brand South Africa. [online] Brand South Africa. Available at: https://www.brandsouthafrica.com/people-culture/south-african-art-part-of-the-davidbowie-collection [Accessed 14 Nov. 2018]. Antiquarianauctions.com. (2018). The Neglected Tradition. Towards a New History of South African Art (19301988) - Auction #34 | AntiquarianAuctions.com. [online] Available at: https://antiquarianauctions.com/lots/theneglected-tradition-towards-a-new-history-of-south-african-art-1930-1988 [Accessed 13 Nov. 2018]. Cathsseta.org.za. (2018). Arts, Culture & Heritage Career Guide. [online] Available at: https://cathsseta.org.za/ wp-content/uploads/2018/11/FINAL-Arts-culture-heritage-career-guide-booklet.pdf [Accessed 14 Nov. 2018]. Cathsseta.org.za. (2018). Sector Skills Plan: Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (Cathsseta) 2018 - 2019. [online] Available at: https://cathsseta.org.za/wp-content/ uploads/2018/10/CATHSSETA-Sector-Skills-Plan-201819.pdf [Accessed 13 Nov. 2018]. Code Like Clockwork (Pty) Ltd (2018). Noria Mabasa | Participant | Open Africa - Do Travel Differently. [online] Openafrica.org. Available at: http://www.openafrica.org/experiences/route/96-ribola-art-route/participant/2201noria-mabasa [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018]. Dac.gov.za. (2018). Art Gallery opens in honour of Noria Mabasa | Department of Arts and Culture. [online] Available at: http://www.dac.gov.za/content/art-gallery-opens-honour-noria-mabasa [Accessed 13 Nov. 2018]. Inyourpocket.com. (2018). Unsung History - South Africa’s forgotten artists and the Neglected Tradition. [online] Available at: https://www.inyourpocket.com/johannesburg/unsung-history-south-africas-forgotten-artistsand_75283f [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018]. Jacobs, K. (2019). A R T T H R O B _ R E V I E W S _ C A P E. [online] Artthrob.co.za. Available at: http://artthrob. co.za/09mar/reviews/bellroberts.html [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018]. Kennedy, C. (2018). Attending the An Unsung History session at Strauss & Co’s auction of South African art, Johannesburg. Kennedy, C. (assisted by Buthelezi, T., Luvhengo, T. and Muhadi, M.) and Mabasa, N. (2018). Interview with Noria Mabasa, as well as community members and elders, Tshino. Kennedy, C. and Mdluli, S. (2018). Interview with Dr Same Mdluli, Johannesburg. Kennedy, C. and Meredith, A. (2018). Telephonic interview with Dr Alastair Meredith. Kennedy, C. and Ramaite-Mafadza, E. (2018) Telephonic interview with Dr Elelwani Ramaite-Mafadza. Kennedy, C. and Van Rensburg, W. (2018). Interview with Wilhelm van Rensburg, Johannesburg. Kennedy, C. and Witelson, T. (2018). Interview with Tracy Witelson, Johannesburg.

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Luonde. (2019). Noria Mabasa. [online] Available at: https://luonde.co.za/heroes-heroines/noria_mabasa/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018]. Luonde. (2019). Ngano - Fairytales. [online] Available at: https://luonde.co.za/culture-religion/ngano/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018]. Luvhengo, T. and Mabasa. N. (2018). Follow-up telephonic interview with Noria Mabasa. Loots, A. (2004). Noria Mabasa (Art: South African Virtual Art Gallery). [online] Vgallery.co.za. Available at: https://www.vgallery.co.za/2004article6/vzine.htm [Accessed 20 Nov. 2018]. Louw, E., Beukes, M. and Van Wyk, L. (2018). Visual Arts Grade 12 Learner's Guide. [online] Scribd. Available at: https://www.scribd.com/doc/143176140/Visual-Arts-Grade-12-Learner-s-Guide [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018]. Mdluli, S. (2018). From State of Emergency to the Dawn of Democracy: Revisiting Exhibitions of South African Art Held in South Africa (1984–1997). [online] Wiredspace.wits.ac.za. Available at: http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/ bitstream/handle/10539/20772/SS_Mdluli_295723_PhD_Thesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018]. Mukwevho, T. (2018). Revival of home for artists in Vhembe. [online] Limpopo Mirror. Available at: https://www. limpopomirror.co.za/articles/news/47500/2018-06-19/revival-of-home-for-artists-in-vhembe [Accessed 22 Nov. 2018]. Nettleton, A. (2000). Home Is Where the Art Is: Six South African Rural Artists. African Arts, [online] 33(4), pp.26-39. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3337790 [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018]. Parliament.gov.za. (2018). Copyright Amendment Bill [B 13B—2017]. [online] Available at: https://www. parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Docs/bill/336b1af9-2ed6-4239-8002-f899df189969.pdf [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018]. Pmg.org.za. (2018). ATC110331: Report on Oversight Visit to Gauteng, Limpopo & Mpumalanga from 29 to 31 March 2011 | PMG. [online] Available at: https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/1918/ [Accessed 14 Nov. 2018]. Seager, C. (2018). Outsider art: what students can learn from self-taught artists. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/mar/08/outsider-art-why-a-degree-isnt-essentialfor-creative-success [Accessed 13 Nov. 2018]. South African History Online. (2019). New Generation Sculpture. [online] Available at: https://www.sahistory.org. za/archive/new-generation-sculpture [Accessed 13 Feb. 2019]. Straussart.co.za. (2018). Results (Inclusive) | 12 November 2018, Johannesburg | Strauss & Co - Fine Art Auctioneers | Consultants. [online] Available at: https://www.straussart.co.za/auctions/results/12-nov-2018 [Accessed 24 Nov. 2018]. Van Rensburg, W. (2003). Educational Supplement: Noria Mabasa. TAXI Art Book Series (TAXI-007). Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing, pp.1-14. Williamson, S. (1989). Resistance Art in South Africa. Cape Town & Johannesburg: David Philip, pp.9-10, 50-51.

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Noria Mabasa is a pioneering clay sculptor and woodcarver from Limpopo who has sidestepped convention to confront patriarchy and highlight pressing social issues in her work. Drawing inspiration from her Venda culture and guided by her ancestors through dreams, she weaves ancient mythology and present-day topicality into her art, which has been fêted around the world. For generously passing on indigenous wisdom while redefining the parameters of African contemporary art, she can truly be regarded as one of South Africa’s living human treasures.