Wednesday 28th January
Clear blue skies but quite a strong wind – so Table Mountain and Robben Island are off the agenda.
Visited Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens which are part of South Africa’s UNESCO World Heritage site – the first garden to achieve this status. The site is huge (528 hectares with 22,000 indigenous plants) and slopes up towards Table Mountain, so we took the tour in a golf buggy (appropriately) to see as much as possible in a short time. Stunning although not as colourful as in spring we understand. Also a panoramic view of Cape Town and beyond,
A light bite before we go on the family trail.
We are greeted at Jean’s (a cousin twice removed?) by her lifesize bronze sculpture of an African elephant! Her son Anton showed us round her galleries, the garden and exhibition area at the bottom of her garden. She specialises in celebrating the fuller female form in quirky ways (a la Beryl Cook) – absolutely amazing – she really pushes the limits and says she looks for the centre of gravity in a pose and then offsets it to give it the feeling of movement . She is very creative and skilled, with a dedicated team who work together to produce the final bronze castings. She has done commissions such as a 3 metre statue of Nelson Mandela which is at the entrance to the prison he spent the last two years before release, and an Angolan peace sculpture which is 9 metres high. A resin copy of Nelson is in her exhibition area. She researches her subjects thoroughly, so obviously met Nelson and lived with elephants for a while before doing the sculpture that first greeted us.
Anton does her marketing and promotional work and has just set up a gallery of her work in London near Tate Modern – Sussex Street. He also runs an activity company organising adrenalin adventures. He and his brother trained as priests, but Anton has since changed direction, while Dieter still practises in America.
We covered quite a lot of family history – I’ve been able to fill a few gaps – and exchanged family news. But most exciting – Jean is going to contact more relatives and try to arrange a get-together when we return to Cape Town for the weekend of 14/15th.
We got on really easily and also met her husband Mike who is in charge of the foundry, which was the first in South Africa.
Relaxing for a while before we prepare to meet up with Dave Fenton (retired GP from Southwell) who has a place out here. We’re going to Buitenverwachting Vineyard restaurant which is supposed to be ‘fine dining’.