When I was asked to participate in African Gold Exhibition, I was intrigued. African gold. What does this even mean for me? The concept of African Gold conjures up images of historical African artifacts, masks, rock art, bright colourful textiles, traditional pottery or wild African animals. 

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This work is dedicated to my Grandmother, who raised me. She is my role model, a brave, strong and generous Boer woman.

I remember the early mornings on the farm, as an infant, waking at dawn, always finding my grandmother outside feeding the chickens. It was my task to collect the eggs so that we could feast on dubbeldoor eggs for breakfast. I loved and hated this job as the rooster would chase me from the chicken hutch, back to the farmhouse. Once, the rooster caught me and injured me. This prompted my gran to serve him up for Sunday lunch! When you live so close with the land, you see things a bit differently.

I learned many things from my gran. We would spend hours walking around on our farm, and she would show me where the best soil is to plant the corn, or where the cows love to graze. We would wash our hair with stream water because it made my hair feel like silk. She taught me how to knit, cook bobotie and tomato bredie, bake Christmas cookies and taught me how to fish. We spend hours at the Marico dam because the old folks loved to fish and where the children were never allowed to be noisy because you would chase away the fish. It was during these times, when we would walk for miles and miles on the river edge looking for the best clay to play with, initiating a life-long love of clay.  My grandfather loved boere music, and even played the trek klavier, he was not really good, but he loved it. I had a simple happy childhood on the farm. 

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The vessels are made from wild foraged farm clay, which I harvested, coiled and coloured with natural ochres and then pit fired. They are fragile and the large one is cracked. The ensemble, for me, represent the current fragility of farmers.