by Ruth Hartley
“You can be taught skills and techniques, but learning doesn’t make you an artist. Making art goes on inside the artist. It’s for you to search inside yourself – to question yourself. To make art that is true for you. It is your personal journey and your exploration. When you show your work to an audience you are exposing your own entrails for people to feed on.”
Here in Chambeshi, if she was to be useful to artists, if they were to share their work with her, then she would have to be open and share equally with them.
Chapter Two
London 1997 Gillian
It is years later that Lara tells her friend Gillian at the Art Factory studio about her fellow artists in Chambeshi and how much she learnt from them.
“They turned all my ideas upside down. It didn’t happen immediately because at first I did think that my art degree must amount to more than what they had taught themselves. It wasn’t what they said that changed me but what I gradually began to see as we worked together.
“I started to reconsider my preoccupation with two-dimensional easel art. Why did art have to be in that form? It does have to be like that to sell easily, I know. All the Chambeshians wanted to sell their art so they made it that way just as I did. What they believed in, however, was making art. For them that was most important – much more important than selling art.”
Gillian looks sideways at Lara.
“Sure, making art is the most important thing,” she agrees, “but what do we do with art when it’s all stacked up here in the studio and nobody even looks at it? Shall we burn it?”
“Maybe we should burn it to make space.” Lara answers more than half-seriously, “I think that’s what I began to grasp – the spirit of the art, which is what we are really making, can only come into existence when the art is looked at – when its seen – art is an interaction – a communication. For the Chambeshian artists the survival of the art form itself isn’t essential – it can always be made again – and again if necessary – but it absolutely has to be used.”
Then Lara laughs. “And it was made again and again. Some Chambeshians made many copies of their art and plagiarised and imitated other artists unashamedly. Copyright wasn’t understood exactly. I guess that’s how art was before printmaking changed everything?”
“Jee-sus!” Gillian shakes her head. “That’s fucking marvellous! It devalues art though, doesn’t it? But then I suppose nothing makes more nonsense of art than collectors hoarding art from a few stinking rich artists -”
“ – or loads of impoverished dead ones!” Lara interrupts.
“ – for a futures market that is of no use to most artists like us.”
Lara and Gillian look at each other and recite in singsong unison.
“And how are we going to market this year’s studio show?”
They had just attended their studio’s monthly planning meeting and the artist who chaired the meeting had spoken in a rather stilted way in her effort to enlist the studio members.
“Pascal was fascinating to work with.” Lara goes on. “He came with me when I went to the city markets to take photos. That was Helen’s idea. She said otherwise the marketeers might get rather aggressive with me and demand money when I used my camera. Without Pascal I would never have been able to do the visual research for my paintings for the Sakala Bank.
“Pascal is also a traditional healer. He explained to me how the spirit exists in some essential linkage between the mask, the dancer and the dance performance. When the dancer takes off the mask, the spirit departs. The dancer becomes an ordinary person, the mask is just discarded clothing, the dance has worked its magic and is over.
“When an art collector buys an African mask he buys worthless rubbish – just detritus left behind after a performance – litter after the show.”
Lara adds, smiling at the memory. “At exactly the same moment Pascal offered to sell me a mask – “just like the real antiques,” he said. “They make very good masks in the Congo today. Tradition is something new we make every day in our art. It’s always changing.”
“Pascal must be some helluva person to know.” Gillian says. “Lucky you, Lara!”
Lara nods in agreement.
“Yup!” she says.
Chapter Three
Preview
The preview of the ‘New Perspectives: Art of Chambeshi’ exhibition was very successful. It was also Lara’s first group exhibition since her degree show at the end of her final year at art school. That 1981 degree show had been a silent and serious affair which felt as if it was scripted with only a walk on part for Lara. A couple of agents did appear but only looked at the work of one or two students they already seemed to know. Gillian, her girlfriend Poppy, and her artwork attracted a lot of unsmiling stares.
“My work is funny! Laugh – damn you!” Gillian hissed loudly.
Ajay at an early point in the evening threw a half-empty can of strong brew at his tutor’s head but missed him by such a wide margin that the tutor didn’t flinch. Ajay scowled at Lara and left the venue.
“I thought you’d come to the pub with me,” he said.
“How was I supposed to work that out?” she said affronted.
By contrast the Umodzi threw a noisy party.
Everyone was there to meet everyone else and prepared to do it at the same moment. This was done by standing in a tight circle, talking to the person facing you, while glancing constantly over your shoulders to see who had just arrived. No one appeared to look at the art on the walls but round red sold stickers went up by every painting and the woodcuts acquired long tails of red dots as every print was bought.
Someone was smoking marijuana, probably Pascal. Lara wasn’t sure if she was pissed or high but she did know she and Chimunya couldn’t stop laughing. She had sold most of her paintings. So had each one of the artists. It would be good to have credit in her bank account on her return to the National Park. Towards the end of the evening Helen came up behind her and took her firmly by the arm.
“Lara, do meet Mr Jeff Sakala. He’s managing director of the new bank here. He is interested in getting you to do some large paintings for the lobby of the new main branch.”
“Why did he choose me?” Lara asked Helen in disbelief next day.
“I recommended you Lara, especially.” Helen said, “Not entirely for flattering reasons though. Mr Sakala feels a modern bank needs a more sophisticated style of art that he would get from a Chambeshian artist. He thinks you have that extra polish. I also know that I can rely on you to both deliver the work on time and be consistent in style. You have less financial pressure on you than Pascal and Chimunya. The bank won’t pay for six months and the work must be completed first. I’ll work on Mr Sakala later to support Chambeshian artists, but now we’ll give him what he wants. Okay?”
Lara, nodded, smiled and pulled a face.
“You mean that my drawings are representational enough for him?”
“That’s part of it, Lara – but you are good too – you know.”
Helen reached up to pat Lara’s shoulder, “It’s a start, you know!”
Chapter Four
The Poachers
Lara returned to Bill and Maria’s camp filled with enthusiasm and self-confidence. Jason had arrived a week before her and was busy setting up the summer camp inside the National Park.
“Things don’t look good this year.” It was unusual for Bill to look tired at the start of the season but the day was unseasonably hot and the dusty wind irritating. “The rains were very poor. River levels are much too low. The best water holes are drying up. Bush cover is sparse. We are going to have to go further afield before our clients see any game. It is going to be hard work.”
Bill stomped off to see his mechanics service the Cruisers. Lara turned to Maria, who shrugged and sighed.
“There’s
a big increase in poaching this year. We found elephant carcases everywhere. Machine gunned indiscriminately. They haven’t only killed the tuskers – they take out whole families and juveniles. Threatened elephants are dangerous. When we did come across a big herd they were aggressive and we had to drive away very fast.”
She smiled at Lara.
“Well I’m glad to see you – that bad boy Jason will be, too.”
Jason, however, didn’t seem as pleased to see Lara as she was to see him. While she was bursting to tell him about her exhibition, Jason was more reticent about his summer. He had learnt a great deal at Hluhluwe with the rhino project but it seemed to have congealed in him rather than opened him up. He said he was pleased that Lara had done well at the exhibition but he didn’t want to talk about her commission at the bank.
“How are you going to manage to paint and do the work we need you to do here?”
His words made Lara’s chest constrict.
Jason’s not my boss – she thought angrily, Bill is okay with how I arrange my time. Besides I am a painter – it’s what I do! It’s what I am.
A dull sense told her that Jason didn’t much care what she was or did. With that realisation a hard ridge of resistance grew inside her just as, outside the camp in the shrinking river, a band of rocks was being exposed.
Lara and Jason still made love or, as it was beginning to feel to Lara, they had sex. It was more businesslike, over sooner and less satisfying. Lara began to understand that without love and consideration the sexual act didn’t amount to much and was quickly forgotten. It was jarring to hear a noisy drunken group of men and women guests at the camp bar laughing and teasing each other about ‘ball-breaking nymphomaniacs’ and men with ‘little dicks’. Lara was quite certain that, as a woman and a lover, she did not fit into any category.
A plump white envelope arrived at the camp for Jason.
“Stuff about Hluhluwe,” he said casually and took it away to read it.
Another one, fat as a small pillow followed.
“Pwah! Something here is a bit scented!” Bill said, handing it over.
The grass had died away on the nearest plains and the mupane trees had suffered heavy depredation by elephants. The antelope had moved on in search of new pastures. Bill called in a pilot who made a reconnaissance flight over the park and located more antelope further to the north-east. After consultation with the camp team, Bill sent Jason and Lara out together to explore new game trips that might make it possible to take clients closer to the ever-diminishing game herds. The weather was unpleasant and cold, the sky concreted over with stiff grey clouds, a spiteful wind flapped about, blowing spirals of dust and grit into their eyes. The wind and the Cruiser with Jason and Lara in it were the only things moving in an empty and deserted landscape. There wasn’t even sufficient fresh animal dung to attract dung beetles. Without insects there were fewer birds. It was a dismal trip. Jason and Lara hardly spoke to each other. Their words would make too much noise in such an empty world. Soon after midday they parked out of the wind in a sheltered gully to brew some tea and eat sandwiches.
“Let’s take a walk – I need to stretch.” Jason said after half-an-hour. “We’ll have a look around from the hilltop.”
Leaving their vehicle they walked up onto the crest of the hill above and raised their binoculars.
“That’s a vicious east wind – nothing is likely to scent us from that direction – or hear us either.” Lara said pulling her jacket shut.
There was a sudden rigid alertness in Jason.
“Quick, Lara!” he hissed, “Get down flat on the ground,” and he too dropped down beside her.
“It’s poachers, Lara! I swear to God there’s a least fifty of them all loaded up with meat and ivory. They are trekking south-east. If they see us we’re dead. We can outrun them in the Cruiser but they’ll have long-range bullets and AK 47s so it will be a risk.”
Supporting themselves on their elbows, they looked out at the distant line of men. Against the dull sky, a long line of misshapen black silhouettes trailed slowly across the high ground to their east, some 50 metres distant. They humped great burdens on their shoulders. Some carried loaded litters between them.
“They’re moving away from us, thank God!” Jason said.
“You’re right – there’s forty-three that I can count.” said Lara, “but some of them are very small – just children – I think. There are about six men with elephant tusks. The guys at the front and back of the line have guns and aren’t carrying anything.”
“Bastards! They go into isolated villages and get the old men and the young children to porter for them. Sometimes the villagers benefit from the poaching – get some meat maybe – but these kids and old men will walk 100s of kilometres and then have to walk home again. I expect there will be lorries waiting for this meat where the road enters the south-east of the National Park.”
The poachers moved very slowly. They were not expecting to be seen and fortunately for Jason and Lara did not bother to look around themselves at all.
“We’re bloody lucky!” Jason said, “They’re not doing any more poaching so they haven’t sent out scouts to check out the bush.”
“I expect they know they’ve driven everything away that they haven’t killed.” Lara said.
Lara admitted to herself that she was afraid and fear was enervating. It was strange how fear felt like boredom. She would remember this time years later when boredom and fear seemed the total of her experience.
The poachers trudged on. It was an hour before they vanished from view and another half-hour before Jason risked driving their vehicle out of the gully and turning it for home. They had to race back to arrive at the Park Gate before sunset. The Cruiser jolted and bumped. Lara and Jason did not speak. They both had to concentrate on the road. Jason, in order to not damage the Cruiser, and Lara, so not to be flung about and be herself damaged.
Bill was stony-faced when he heard their news. The camp guests, nervous and thrilled. The necessary action was taken and the poachers were met by Game Guards when they reached the South-Eastern Park Gate. The haul totalled twenty boys, nine old men, some rotting game-meat, three poachers and the six ivory tusks. A number of the poachers had escaped. Most of those caught would hang around the Gate under police guard for some weeks and then be allowed to drift home when there was no more food.
The whole business took up time and energy. It was several days later than scheduled that Bill and Maria sat down with their camp staff to discuss their plans for the coming month.
“Ah, Jason.” Bill said, putting on his reading glasses and taking his pen from behind his ear. “We’ve received this application for work from um – from Leone Cilliers, your friend from Hluhluwe Game Park. She wants to come here next summer to work.” Bill looked at Jason over the top of his reading glasses. “You know we have a full team complement at the moment, don’t you?”
“That’s okay, Bill,” Lara said and coughed to clear her throat. “I’ll be painting full time next year so I won’t be coming back -” She looked at Maria. “I don’t think so anyway – sorry Maria.”
Part Six
Chambeshi City 1985
Chapter One
The Bank
It was a hot evening. The huge entrance lobby of the bank was solid with round-faced, smiling black businessmen packed into tight dark wool suits and with discreet unsmiling grey diplomats in loose light-weight suits. The plump appetisers piled sweating and gleaming on large tin trays were carried round by ample waitresses who had squeezed themselves into tight white shirts and very short skirts. All the guests laughed and talked, ate and drank, so did the men serving at the two bars which had been set up for the occasion in front of the manager’s office.
Lara and her parents arrived together.
“Everybody is here,” Jane said, bright-eye
d with excitement. “Lots of people have asked me where they can buy your paintings.”
“At the Umodzi Gallery, like I said, Mum, Helen’s acting as my agent. It’s such a relief. She has asked me out for dinner after this, you know.”
“Brian and I are invited to the Chambeshi International Hotel by Mr Sakala – so that’s fine, Lara,” Jane said. Then she made a little pout of disgust. “Oh God! Oscar Mynhardt’s here! Oh God! Lara – do not let that man buy any of your art!”
Lara, distracted by the whistling screech of a microphone, had stopped listening to her.
The Managing Director of the new bank, Jeff Sakala, made a speech which was surprisingly short. He praised his bank, the new building, joked about the architect’s fees and then, very briefly, he introduced Lara and her paintings.
“We hope,” he said, “when Miss Lara Kingston is famous, to sell these works of art for many more dollars than we paid for them.”
“We have paid you haven’t we, Miss Kingston? You know what our African banks are like with money. We are waiting for the value of our currency to drop and for the value of your art to go up before we pay you! ”
There was a roar of laughter and then the guests returned to their drinks and their friends. Lara, flushed with heat and embarrassment, was able to step down from the platform. She had yet to receive the final cheque for her work. Helen, acting as her agent, had insisted on a down-payment for Lara when she was commissioned to do the work and Lara had seen her heavy eyebrows twitch at Jeff Sakala’s joke.
Bill and Maria were smiling at her from across the reception hall. Bill gestured with an inviting glass of white wine. Lara’s parents were occupied with a British diplomat, so she wriggled, wangled and excused her way through the crowd to join her friends. They had cornered a space by the French doors that opened onto a central courtyard. A fountain splashed and gurgled in its half-finished garden next to a stack of cement and scaffolding under plastic sheeting. Maria, dressed in a white kaftan with a bead-worked yoke, looked by contrast thinner and more sunburnt than when she was in the bush. Bill was wearing a new safari suit that had become rumpled and stained with grease in the short journey from their town flat to the bank. Lara thought they looked out of place in the air-conditioned metal and glass environment but they appeared not to mind and were enjoying an animated conversation with two men whom Lara had not seen before. The group of four stood out, an eccentric group, noticeable by their lighter skins and informal attire among the dark suits, richly embroidered African outfits and glittering jewelled cocktail dresses. The younger man was curiously attired in a casual jacket over jeans, together with a bush shirt and tie. His nose and wide mouth were rather too large for his thin face and he had a small red graze on one side of his temple. One earpiece of his spectacles had been fastened back onto the frame with a piece of sticking plaster. Lara noticed that, while he had none of Jason’s physical beauty, his expression, alive with interest in his companions and in the surroundings, gave him an attractive gracefulness of manner.