Kin Bentley In Line: Fettered freedom

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Fettered freedom

Liberation. In July, 1981, I experienced a brief period of bliss. I had completed two years of military conscription. I had no plans, a little money, and my widowed mother was able to continue supporting a 24-year-old son for a while longer as he pondered his future. Happily ensconced back at home in Bonza Bay, I set about readjusting to civilian life, always aware that within a year or so I could expect to be called up again for a "camp". I developed a phobia for any registered mail.

One of the places I took myself to was the local Bonza Bay Hotel pub, a men-only, whites-only place where mainly old toppies discussed endlessly the issues of the day over much alcohol. The Hobnob "ladies' bar" was another place people still frequented, and I did this imagined self-portrait of myself in one of the cubicles there. Unable to get the Adobe photomerge programme to work, the picture is presented in two parts, with the black guys behind the bar shown in the picture below.

One of the unforeseen paradoxes of having black people work in "whites-only" places of recreation like this under apartheid was that one got to chat to such people and to know them as human beings. One of the barmen, Richard Tshawe, became a good friend to all the Bentleys and their mates. We even took him on occasion to his ancestral home in Cofimvaba, of which more later. Sadly, due to scanner constraints, I won't be showing the remaining contents of two large drawing books I worked in at this time.

Being back in Bonza Bay meant I was able to while away time beside the river and sea. This seems to be a drawing, done around 1981, of two people pumping mud prawns.

Bonza Bay is marked by the high sand dunes which stretch from the usually blind river mouth east towards Gonubie and west towards Nahoon. This is a view from up one of the dunes towards Nahoon Reef, a world-famous surfing spot.

A delightful reeded corner of the Bonza Bay (Qhinerha) River was "reclaimed" for use as a parking area around the late 1970s, early 1980s. This is a drawing of an old toppie and his Citroen, which was parked on the at-the-time gravel parking area, which was subsequently expanded and tarred. The oke on the right I think is an old mate from my primary school days who I've not seen in donkeys - Julian Jackson, or JJ.

As I did in so many sketches from my army stint, shown on previous postings, in this you have a face somehow emerging alongside a pair of guys fishing on the Bonzies coastline. Other pictures from the drawing books I shan't be able to scan show old toppies on the Bonza Bay Bowling Club green and a couple of other atmospheric pencil drawings of the lagoon. Ah, the peacefulness of it all. Yet life, of course, never stays still for a moment.

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About this blog

This blog has morphed from one thing to the next, and will continue to do so.

The latest offerings are of a political nature, though the main role of the blog is to put online scanned versions of my sketches, which make up the bulk of the first part.

* Earlier, I returned to a project I suspended on September 12, 2011, namely posting clilppings from my writings in the Herald newspaper in Port Elizabeth. From those you'll have gleaned that I was first prevented from writing political letters and articles critical of the ANC government.

Then my art reviews came under fire - from the hallowed halls of academia, no less.

* Before this, I posted a series of book reviews and an account of recent travels.

* There is also a short autobiographical novel, Little K and the Big World.

Below is a summary of what was posted before that. (NB. To view pictures larger, hold down "shift" and left click on the mouse. Click again to see it even larger.)

* During the 27 years I have worked as a journalist, I have kept random samples of my work. Initially, when I joined the Evening Post in Port Elizabeth in 1984, I kept a scrapbook, so those first years – when the anti-apartheid struggle really started hotting up – are fairly well covered.

By the time I joined the Eastern Province Herald in about 1988, I’d stopped collecting my stories, but I have one article I wrote that year which I think captures the mood of those dark times.

During two years in the UK – 1990 and 1991– when I worked as a correspondent for the SA Morning Newspaper group, I kept no cuttings. The same applies to the early 1990s when, back on the Herald, I covered the gradual transition to democracy. After the April 27, 1994, first non-racial elections, I moved to the sub-editing department, where I have been ever since.

When Robert Mugabe started his crackdown in 2000, I took up the pen again in a big way – and was lucky to have been given space by then editor Ric Wilson to vent my spleen in the Herald. In between, I wrote numerous book reviews and art crits, which balance out the offerings. I began this section with the more recent stuff, from 2000 onwards, and will take up this project again in 2012.

* Having all but exhausted my sketches on this blog - though I have yet to post pictures of my paintings and a few carvings - I thought I would digress into other areas of interest, and use a few of my photographs to illustrate them.

As Thabo Mbeki and the ANC set about rubbishing everything to do with our colonial past, I found myself rather cherishing what our ancestors had done here, notwithstanding my obvious detestation of the apartheid system which, had Jannie Hofmeyr lived to succeed Smuts after the Second World War, may not have happened. It is interesting to note that the National Party came to power in 1948 despite polling 100 000 fewer votes than the United Party. This was the effect of "loading" the urban constituencies.

Anyway, the East Cape has seen a fair share of interesting history down the centuries, some of which is covered here.

There is also history in stamps and envelopes. A few years back I went to a Port Elizabeth antique shop in the hopes I could acquire some old SA stamps from my youth. At first things looked bleak. The dealer only had posh albums of expensive stamps. But wait, he said, I do have a couple of black bin bags cluttering up the place somewhere, full of useless old stamps and envelopes. He gave them to me for about R100, if I recall correctly.

From these I have made several postage stamp-based artworks, photos of which I'll be posting, eventually. I also discovered a treasure trove of envelopes which had been posted to the City Treasurer of the PE Municipality as well as to the Divisional Council and another whole batch sent by dealers around South Africa to the Ford Motor Company in PE. These all date from the early 1960s, so we're talking 50 odd years ago. Each envelope tells a story.

* Initially I started this blog to illustrate how I learnt the art of drawing, after many years of toil, and how, once learnt, this skill has accompanied me throughout my life.

At each step, since about the mid-1970s, I have, where possible, made drawings that are often a more telling record than any photographs.

You will find a plethora of styles and techniques, but the bottom line – forgive the pun – is an attempt to get at the visual truth. As we go along, I explain each work and how I came to do it – that is, where I remember precisely when they were made.

* Remember, as this is a blog, the story starts from the first post and works its way upwards, as it were.

Click on the images to see them in a larger format. If you want an image to fill your computer screen, press F11. Press the same key to escape.

My thanks, again, go to my son, Douglas, who was just 16 when he helped me put together the header for this blog. Most of the more creative ideas - and all the technical expertise - in this regard were his.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Fettered freedom

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