~ Africa ~

There’s a man I know and yet...I don’t know him.1

He uses his skilled worn hands fashioning soapstone into sculpture.
His statue whispers to me about Africa. That beautiful, wild wonderland. He has learnt the skill from his father and grandfather. Passed down from generation to generation so we can admire such beauty.2

My sculpture is an African version of Rodin’s Thinker. It’s made of soapstone, honed and chipped away piece by piece to reveal a masterpiece. He’s made the body and the limbs appear as fragile as ribbons. The limbs looped round to encompass his body. He sits with his legs bent in front of him, curved fluidly, effortlessly like his arms. One rests on his knee, the other adopts the classic thinkers pose, chin in hand. His face is a marvel, full of expression from his big staring eyes to his pointed concave head. His brow is marked with furrows as if in deep thought. I wonder what he is thinking!3

Perhaps he’s is looking at my home, and thinking, yes, I like it here. Or is he debating some conundrum in his head, working out the meaning of life. Maybe he’s just lost in thoughts, his mind far away in a place he doesn’t know exists. Or pondering about days of yore, or a way of life in Africa? That magical place that takes hold of your heart and never lets go, whose sunrises and sunsets can be so vividly recalled in an instant. The warm summer rain falling on the road running along the culverts, instantly turning warm as it hits the hot sticky tarmac exposed to the sun. The place where children are barefoot and paddle along the sides of the road, kicking their feet with glee at this warm summer rain, embracing the day and holding their arms up to the sun.4

Ah Africa, where the feeling of wild animals is ever near, where the beat of drums resonates through your soul and the smiles of the people light up their faces, and in turn yours. Ah Africa, where simplicity and basic values matter, not technology and the latest possessions, but family and love and togetherness, where in even the poorest of families, riches abound from their hearts and soul.5

You can take a rock from Africa and like a seashell, cup it in your hands and listen to the beat of a tribal rhythm. You can be transported from a mundane existence to a place where magic still exists in everyday life, where life has more meaning and the songs of the natives fill your mind with melody and joy bursting from every sound. The beat and rhythm that is Africa, the spirit of Africa. May the beat and tribal rhythm never end!6

I just have to look at my African soapstone Thinker and I am transported back to a place where time is of no importance. This man has given me this gift of love and craftsmanship fashioned by his own hands, handed down from generation to generation. This art will not die. Africa will not die.7

At least not while we can hold these precious statues in our hands and touch the core of what this wonderful land is about. This man has bestowed on me a priceless treasure that I shall give my children and they to theirs and Africa will be remembered and loved for what it is : My Home.
There’s a man who made this, there’s a man I know and yet ...I don’t know him.
There’s a man who I thank from the bottom of my heart and I feel he knows this because I have his gift of art in my home and it takes me to Africa every time I see it. It is Africa. It is the land of my birth.8

There’s a man I know and yet...I don’t know him.9

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