Heritage Day

 It was Heritage Day on the 24th September, when South Africans celebrate their very many different histories, traditions and cultural backgrounds. With my English, Scottish and Swedish ancestry long jumbled up in the past, I would have quite liked to potter around in the garden at home with a good old South African braai to finish off the holiday - but a sketchcrawl had been called, so off I went to the Constitution Hill venue, expecting to draw some of the buildings as I did nearly three years ago.

Well, it was a very busy place, with a 'Light the Way' event planned to coincide with the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York just getting into gear. I had started sketching one of the stair towers housing the 'Flame of Democracy', of the old awaiting-trial blocks which have been preserved as a reminder of the Concourt's grim past - but when some very loud thudding music and dancers started getting into action in the square, I turned my attention to them. (perhaps that distraction was why I put the leaning fellow's hand on the tree in the foreground :-o)
After some frantic drawing, eventually there were too many people blocking my view, with quite a crowd gathered around watching every move of my pen I decided it was time to escape the heat and noise and return to my corner of suburbia, and a relaxed braai with my family.

Kidsweek at Concourt

 I found an email in my blog inbox last week from the Director of the Constitutional Court Educational Programme, Paula Rainha - just in time to take up her invitation to come and sketch at the Constitutional Court with some children from Hillbrow. It was the last day of their Kidsweek, a holiday programme (coincidentally started years ago by a friend, Monique Dalka) where they came to learn and draw some of the aspects of the court. This was a sketch of a group of the kids who were drawing portraits from a wall of photographs of past and present judges.

They first went into the courtroom, to ask and hear about human rights, our constitution and the history and significance of the buildings. Constitutional Hill used to be the notorious Old Fort Prison Complex where many political activists, including Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Walter Sisulu were detained. Every detail of the court has been thoughtfully and beautifully designed by architects and artists. Two whole books have been published on the buildings and art here: A Light on the Hill and Art and Justice, I won't try and explain it all here...

...but for a start, the angled and mosaiced columns and wire leaf chandeliers in the foyer represent the tree under which African justice has traditionally taken place, transparent, participatory and accessible - which also appears in the Concourt logo. Long may its principles last...

Below is a sketch I did last year on a visit with a friend, of the outside entrance, with the long wooden doors carved by artists and Dumile Feni's 'History' sculpture. One of my very first, nervous urban sketches was done at a book launch here, back in 2008!

Art & Justice

I have been snowed under with little necessary jobs for the Fair, and for Advent, which starts on Sunday, but last night we went to the launch of 'Art & Justice', a beautiful book (that MY husband printed :-) produced by David Krut Publishing, about the art collection of the Constitutional Court. We went to a similiar book launch a year or two ago, and went on the court tour given by Judge Albie Sachs - it was a total eye-opener and the first time I really felt absolute hope for this country, and real pride in how it's overcome it's past, where it is now (full of faults and problems as it still is!) and especially in our unique, accessible and unconventionally beautiful Constitutional Court. Anyway, I took the chance of being off my home/studio/school-run treadmill that I've been stuck on for weeks (I don't normally regard my studio as a treadmill, but it has been just pure slog lately!) to do some sketches of fresh new figures. Above is Chief Justice Pius Langa with listeners. (I've forgotten who that figure on the left page is - oh I remember, he was a student at my son's school, standing on top of the wall waiting for a lift)

On the left is Albie Sachs, who lost an arm and an eye in a car-bomb attack in the 80's, and is the main mover behind the wonderful art collection - much of which is donated by artists such as William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas and Karel Nel, as they have a very limited budget to buy art.

Workers at the court - cooks, cleaners, secretaries - and Judge Yvonne Mokgoro - form a talented group of swaying, swinging singers that entertained us in between speeches. Justice Sachs gesticulates wildly with what's left of his arm, as he introduces some of the artists that could make it to the launch - Karel Nel, and I'm not sure who that is with the baby - I was too engrossed in capturing the scene. Bongi is Albie's P.A., who wore a wig resplendant with the colours of the SA flag.

I'm still not comfortable with sketching in public - though I was very discreetly at the back - my heart was thumping throughout and the sketches are very, well, sketchy.