If you thought Muizenberg was only about bronzed surfers catching the best waves – think again.
The Muizenberg Festival offered its Studio Art Tour this year again, and there were more than 20 participating artists who opened the doors to their studios and homes.
Among them was Sue Beattie who found a novel way to use the time in the stop-and-go traffic over the past year: she simply took her art materials with her and did sketches of her surroundings when traffic ground to a halt. Her exhibition features many iconic landmarks of the coastal towns and villages along the far south route. “Perhaps we can organise an exhibition for people even further south who have done the same thing, I know I wasn’t the only one who used the time creatively,” she said.
The art was a different as the artists: the range included paintings, ceramics, silk-screening, clothing, textiles, quirky pieces involving porcelain, writers and cartoonists, while fantasy and graphic narratives appeared cheek to jowl with sculpture, collages, metal work and skin – as in tattoo art. There were even fine art photographers showcasing their vision or interpretation of the world.
Grandmother Cynthia MacPherson, her daughter Angela and her grand-daughter Shona showed off their art of three generations along the tour, and the Blue Planet’s Koos de Wet and Anastasia Sarantinou were enthused by teaching art, creating their own art, and the role of art in healing, in a programme they are involved with which helps abused women rebuild themselves and learn how to sustain themselves through art.
The tour was a marvelous reminder of the depths of talent, in what can appear to be sleepy, seaside streets.
