Testing the Waters in South Africa
Here in Cape Town, I’ve been attempting to grow the Visual Arts for Peace community, whilst also developing my own material to make into new paintings back in the UK studio.
Any take up – not much – has been slow, and the lack of money around to pay for any training or presentations I’ve managed to do, soul destroying.
This thing of value and respect for a lifetime of qualifications and work experience being inextricably bound with renumeration, has become my latest bugbear. How are artists and those busting guts to make some kind of positive difference in the world, expected to keep going! Morale and financial security are constantly challenged.
But the size and spread of our creative community – its gentle humility and stoicism in keeping going, despite the current noise of the power-hungry, abusive and violent – keeps things real and resilient, rooted in what really matters.
On a sunnier side, two Cape Town organisations appreciated my offer to open up deeper conversations around Art and Peace – at the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation – and the power of art as healer – showing another side of Cape Town at the Butterfly Art Project – unpaid.
Head to Healing Trauma Training in South Africa project to learn more.
Onwards …..
