Discovering the sublimity of chaos

Writer Hedda Mittner

One of the many pleasures of having grown-up children is being able to observe them (from a safe distance) negotiating life as independent adults. I often marvel (and admittedly, sometimes despair) at the surprising choices they have made, the habits and interests they have developed and pursued, and the people they have become. This is true not only of my own offspring, but also of their friends.

One such individual is Kosie Thiart, who I got to know as an endearing boy with mischievous eyes and a mop of unruly dark hair. Both a rebel intent on bucking the system and a beloved member of a tightly-knit group of friends, Kosie marched to his own drum throughout his high school years – and it was almost impossible to predict the direction his life would take.

Kosie, whose parents have lived in Hermanus for four decades, is as local as they come. He grew up here, attended Babbel & Krabbel, Hermanus Primary, Hermanus High School. Never much interested in artistic endeavours, that all changed when Kosie was knocked over by a car while dashing across the road to the primary school. He sustained serious injuries, including a fractured pelvis, and was bedridden for many weeks. Thoroughly bored – he was after all only eight years old – he started drawing to pass the time.

Art became one of his favourite subjects (with wellknown local artist, Shelley Adams as his teacher) and after matriculating, he studied Fine Arts at the Free State University in Bloemfontein. Here Kosie made a whole new set of friends and he readily admits that they not only worked hard but partied hard. During the four years he was away, his occasional visits were always a highlight.

Returning to Hermanus after his graduation, Kosie’s life started to unravel in a rather alarming fashion. He was battling alcohol and drug abuse, depression, anxiety, paranoia, OCD and, finally, psychosis. “When I came back to Hermanus, I felt like a complete outsider,” he recalls. “It struck me what an insular community this is and I didn’t feel that I fitted in with any of the ‘clicks’.” Yearning for a sense of belonging, of purpose and direction, it was only after a stint in a psychiatric hospital in Cape Town that Kosie started to turn his life around.

Click below to read more.