Willem Boshoff : Épat

WILLEM BOSHOFF

MICHAEL STEVENSON Hill House De Smidt Street Green Point 8005 PO Box 616 Green Point 8051 Cape Town tel +27 (0)21 421 2575 fax +27 (0)21 421 2578 info@michaelstevenson.com www.michaelstevenson.com

Cover Épat, 2007 (detail)

WILLEM BOSHOFF

É PAT TEXTS BY THE ARTIST

25 OCTOBER - 24 NOVEMBER 20 07

H E A I N ’ T H E AV Y …

The Johannesburg suburb of Doornfontein was tragically, systematically demolished through the 1970s and into the 1980s. Its majestic homesteads were mostly around a hundred years old and had they survived the sad madness, most of them might have been national monuments today. In 1986 I salvaged some old doors and windows from the rubble and in all eagerness sanded off the many layers of paint that had accumulated on them over the years. Today, some of these beautiful old doors are in my home in Kensington.

I did rather well in long-distance athletics at school and remained an ardent runner for most of my life. I found walking tiring, but running came to me effortlessly. It was as if I lost weight when I ran. At the age of 31 I ran 32 kilometres in under two hours and in the early 1980s I got silver medals in ultra marathon races like the Comrades and the Korkie.

My times for the long runs dropped drastically in the mid-1980s. By 2000 my running had deteriorated to a troublesome shuffle. My feet and legs were heavy and sluggish, my times slow. My legs became unbearably numb and painful. I am a natural insomniac but my painful legs made sleeping without painkillers impossible. By 2005 I could not get up from my chair without excruciating pain, and my feet broke out in blisters and bloody sores. I could only walk with great difficulty. My immune system malfunctioned and I was constantly sick with flu and lung problems.

I tried all manner of treatments such as acupuncture, reflexology and homeopathy. Specialists took X-rays, prescribed strict diets and threatened me with hip replacements. I went from doctor to doctor. One old medical expert told me that this sort of thing happens to some people when they get older and that I had to reconcile with it.

In 2005 I visited Dr Derrick Wilton, a specialist physician in Germiston. He put me through a series of tests to try and find out what was wrong. One most unusual thing he did was to take a snippet of my hair. He phoned back with the results. I had been poisoned! I thought of all the people I knew and wondered who would do such a thing.

It turned out that I had an inordinate amount of lead poison in my system. All of us have very small amounts of heavy metal poison in our bodies. When these exceed level five we need to seek treatment. At level 15 the lead is lethal and begins to cripple limbs and neuropathic function. The legs and feet develop high levels of uric acid (gout/ rheumatism) and begin to give in. The tests on my lock of hair showed that I was on level 26. Significantly, one finds lead in very old paints and one gets it into one’s body by swallowing it or by inhaling it as one would do when sanding old doors and windows. For many years it has been against the law to use lead in commercial products and doctors don’t often test their patients for lead poisoning because hardly anyone contracts it. I cried I was so relieved to find out what was actually wrong and because my friends and relatives had nothing to do with it.

I spent much of 2006 and into 2007 undergoing chelation treatment to remove the lead. The substance administered is called EDTA (Ethylene Diamine Tetra Acetic). In 1994 I made a small sculpture for my Blind Alphabet

2

project entitled Chelate, showing two hooked pieces of wood that hinge in the way a crab’s pincers do, and I knew that chelation had something to do with pincers. It turned out that the doctors who developed this treatment found it to be so successful that they named it after the crab’s pincers. It reaches into the body, gets hold of the heavy metal and draws it out. Chelation treatment is given by injection in conjunction with pink hydrogen peroxide administered through a drip. Over some months poisonous metals are dissolved and secreted through the kidneys and liver. One has to take special medication to protect these organs – kidney stones can form from the poisonous traffic. One also takes a variety of other medicines and food supplements.

I had a torrid time of it. The weekly treatments leave one dizzy and groggy for days on end. The only effective manner to combat the pain and unease was through painkillers and work. The more I worked, the less I paid attention to my problem. In 2006 I made more artworks than ever before. This was made possible with expert help in the workshop from my son Martin and the graphic assistance of my daughter Karen. My wife Anél showed incredible understanding and put up with more than most can bear. Emma and Willem, my younger children, seemed to rise above it all.

In 2006 I made massive installations in various public venues. At the Origins Centre, Wits University, I made Signs of People two storeys up in the air. On the ceiling of the foyer of the Standard Bank Leadership Centre in Rivonia I put up an installation entitled Clavis Scriptorium, a work the size of a tennis court. On the main lawn of Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, and later at Lourensford estate, with the help of scores of producers, manufacturers and installers, I highlighted the problem of plant extinction by completing the commemorative Garden of Words III, consisting of 15 000 memorial flowers. At least my head and stubbornness seemed to be unaffected by the poison.

This year, I was granted an artist’s residency on beautiful rural lands by the Nirox foundation, located in the Cradle of Humankind near the Sterkfontein caves. The foundation was keen for me to make my own artworks, and also a massive installation on the grounds. I was the first resident artist and they did everything to make the project a great success.

For more than three months I enjoyed the healing benefits of this incredibly beautiful farm surrounded by fields with lakes, wetlands and miles of forests and natural bush. The area is also a natural game reserve and flocks of kudu, zebra, hartebeest and such roam freely. I often witnessed a pair of rhinos grazing on the lawn outside my front stoep. The short walks I undertook increased systematically in length and regularity. I slowly began to feel better.

With this exhibition at Michael Stevenson I wish to celebrate the removal of lead from my pipes – ‘… he ain’t heavy… he’s your brother’. All the works on show were completed this year and to my delight are ‘lead-free’.

Acheiropoietoi, Épat and Coprophemism are somewhat exuberant because I feel better than in a long, long time. In fact the name of the show, Épat (Wow), suggests this. The photographs of ‘undressed’ trees in Acheiropoietoi, taken on my walks during the Nirox residency, show that I was perking up considerably.

The exhibition is especially ‘blind-friendly’. Many of the works have something to do with touching wood and trees.

Blind visitors will be able to touch smooth and rough textures and listen to recitals from Kykafrikaans. The three Blind Fish have some well-known ‘fishy’ quotes in Braille. I hope that blind guides will be able to help sighted visitors to enjoy these fish and the new Blind Alphabet installation, and that renewed respect will spring forth for their special gifts.

3

Acheiropoietoi 2007 Archival Lambda prints 75 x 56.2cm each

I am awestruck by trees and, to a large extent, dependent on them, not only for their great wooden material but also for ideas. My father, a carpenter, supported us by working with wood. As an artist, I give preferential treatment to wood for most of my sculptures. Many of my works deal with paper as a sacrificial product of the slaughtered tree. In the 1980s I was chairman of the Dendrological Society, Southern Transvaal branch, where I spent numerous weekends studying trees scientifically. For the last 25 years, I have extended the study of trees and other plants to botanical venues all over the world and these activities led me to make three massive Gardens of Words.

Among my many books on trees there are some special ones that look at symbolic values and the myths and legends surrounding trees. The cross of Christ is often referred to as a tree and I have made works equating text on paper with Christ as the Word of God on a tree. I have written about the Yggdrasil, in Scandinavian mythology a tree of which the branches reach across the heavens and the roots extend throughout the world. The Yggdrasil is a ‘tree of life’ and in old Norse Yggr is a name for Odin and drasill ‘horse’. I was fascinated by the sephiroth in the Cabbala, the 10 principles or aspects of God. The sephiroth are often portrayed as 10 divine emanations or branches on the Ain Soph or tree of life. The Ain Soph is a ‘portal of light’ – a ‘tree of entry for the just’.

I am writing this text from the Nirox Art Residency, which is part of the world heritage site known as the Cradle of Humankind near the town of Krugersdorp. I spent the winter of 2007 in the Kgatlampi valley with free-roaming wild animals, undulating hills and prehistoric caves all around me. This special region marks the place where humankind is believed to have originated. The skeletal fossils of Mrs Ples, Eurydice and Little Foot were found nearby. My residency is housed in a rustic landscape with a number of streams and about 20 small lakes flowing by. Every day I go for extended walks to take pictures of the white stinkwood trees and spectacular royal oaks much larger and older than any oak trees in my home city of Johannesburg. The more I look, the more I find myself surrounded by myth and intrigue. The ancient history of this enigmatic place has somehow forced its way up through the roots of the trees to become visible on the surface of their bark as ‘body’, ‘flesh’ and ‘skin’.

I found untouched figurative elements on every tree. I have called my photographic series of ‘undressed’ trees Acheiropoietoi1. Their uncanny resemblances to human form made me think of the acheiropoietoi (‘images not made by hand’) usually encountered in a religious sense. I was helped by the fact that it was winter and that the canopy of leaves on the trees was not there to obstruct my view by casting unwelcome shadows over the images. The likenesses conjured up in the trees occur naturally – no trees were harmed in any way. I have used no artificial lighting, no

4

5

Photoshopping and no cropping or adjustments afterwards. The following elements speaking of the human condition were photographed because they were there: ‘belly buttons, sagging skin, stretch marks, cellulite, pustules, sutures, ribs, pubic areas, scarification of skin, nudity, coitus, anorexia, breasts anatomy and excoriation’.

My acheiropoietoi are not of biblical figures, but of dryads and hamadryads. The strange sacred reality of these tree nymphs appears to be more plausible than that of the controversial acheiropoietoi of orthodox religion. I located traces of the hamadryad in almost every tree. In Greek hama is ‘together’ and drus ‘tree’. The hamadryad, a nymph of the woods, lives her life with the tree of her choice as loving partner, in mutual protection. They are so close in spirit that, if one of them should die, the other would follow. Because of this gods and hamadryads punish any mortals who harm trees.

Important writers respected and were concerned for the hamadryad2 and I dedicate this series to the hamadryads3.

1 An acheiropoietos is any sacred image, pagan or Christian, created without human intervention. In Greek, the term means ‘made without hands’ – the plural is acheiropoietoi. Acheiropoietic images of Christ or the mother Mary are sometimes visible in misty clouds, in distortedly knotted wooden planks, or on old pieces of cloth such as the vernicle. The vernicle, also called veronica, is the imprint of Christ’s likeness on the sudarium, a cloth used to wipe sweat from His face on the way to Calvary; also, any other imprint of Christ’s face. The original vernicle belonged to St Veronica, but is now in St Peter’s, Rome.

Willem Boshoff, Dictionary of Perplexing English (1999)

2.1 Geoffrey Chaucer (c 1343-1400) writes in his Canterbury Tales (1386) about presences found in the forest: ‘In which they wonende in reste and pees Nymphus ffawnes, and Amadrides.’

2.2 Hamadryads are often at the mercy of cruel men. The author John Evelyn (1620-1706) wrote Sylva, a Discourse on Forest Trees (1664). In this practical work on arboriculture, which contained a plea for reforestation at a time when English industry was depleting forest reserves, he complains that the authorities are delivering: ‘The fittest sacrifice for the royal oaks and their hamadryads ...’

2.3 And Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English poet, critic, essayist and lexicographer, a major figure in 18th-century literature as an arbiter of taste, renowned for the force and balance of his prose style and witty conversation, wrote in his letter to a Mrs Thrale (1769) complaining that: ‘Nothing has deterred those audacious Aldermen from violating the hamadryads of George Lane.’

3 In Greek myth the Deipnosophistae (Banquet of the Learned belonging to Athenaeus) lists eight European Hamadryads, the daughters of Oxylos and Hamadryas.

Karya Balanos Kraneia Morea Aigeiros Ptelea Ampelos Syke

6

Nut tree Acorn tree Cornel tree Mulberry tree Black Poplar tree Elm tree Vines Fig tree

7

Blind Fish I

Blind Fish II

Blind Fish III

2007

2007

2007

Kiaat wood, Braille text in

Kiaat wood, Braille text in

Kiaat and Pau Marfim woods,

escutcheon pins

escutcheon pins

Braille text in escutcheon pins

22 x 113 x 22cm

33 x 125 x 18cm

106.5 x 15.4 x 18cm

Base: white-washed wood,

Base: white-washed wood ,

Base: white-washed wood,

7.7 x 140 x 62.3cm

7.7 x 140 x 62.3cm

7.7 x 62.3 x 62.3cm

In 1977 I sculpted 13 small metal objects from old bolts and other bits of steel. All 13 of these objects fitted into a large plastic peanut butter jar. I stashed them away and this year, 30 years later, I decided to remake two of them in large format. The 13 objects are somewhat fish-like or tool-like and also erotic. As tool-like objects they play on the adage that ‘man is the product of the tool’ – meaning that ‘we made our tools and thereafter our tools made us’. As sexually charged objects they propose the word ‘tool’ ambiguously as the procreative membrum virilum. They have now, as a group, been sold to a collector under the ironic title Fishy Tools. The two most fish-like objects among these were sculpted in larger form out of two solid stumps of kiaat left to me by my father, Martiens Boshoff, who died in 1985. My son Martin (24), his grandson, assisted with these pieces.

The 30 new Blind Alphabet sculptures that I made for this exhibition included one that, before finished, looked like the backbone of a fish without its fishbones. The original sculpture was entitled Echino-costate, suggesting that in its completed state it might have spine-like ribs. For Blind Fish III, I resculpted this unfinished piece, also with the help of my son Martin, in much larger format, still without the spines, and placed it erect on its base.

Because the three large wooden ‘fish’ are smooth to the touch and reminiscent of some of the sculptures I made for my Blind Alphabet project, I decided to put a line of Braille text on each. The title Blind Fish plays with the fact that they are tangible to blind people and that their texts can only be read by the blind. By exploring and ‘reading’ the works at their fingertips, blind visitors are encouraged to help sighted visitors take greater pleasure in such strange fish. The I, II and III simply reflect the order in which they were made.

The Braille text on Blind Fish I reads: ‘All men are equal before fish.’ – Herbert Hoover The Braille text on Blind Fish II reads: ‘A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.’ – Gloria Steinem The Braille text on Blind Fish III reads: ‘A feminist uses statistics like a fish uses a bicycle.’ – Christina Hoff Sommers

Facing page Blind Fish I and II

8

9

Blind Fish III Facing page Blind Fish I (detail)

10

11

Blind Alphabet D and E, installation view

12

13

Blind Alphabet Artist’s statement, 2001

I wish to explain some of the background to my Blind Alphabet project installations of artworks. In this work I am trying to get blind people to help visitors who have normal sight to discover certain philosophical aspects of their vision/ visionlessness. Art galleries are usually frequented by artists, art critics and art students. These individuals are ‘visually aware’ or ‘visually literate’ because they received special training in issues of visual appreciation. Among ordinary people, they are gifted and respected as champions of sight. Blind people, on the other hand, need constant guidance and attention to cope with the simple things that come easily to even the weakest among the sighted. Your average art gallery is, to put it bluntly, not exactly ‘blind-friendly’. My work turns on this and enables the English-speaking blind to guide the sighted in the privileged environment of the art gallery.

I am Afrikaans and both my grandmothers were in concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).

When I was still a small child they sometimes spoke to me about the unforgivable cruelties they experienced as young children in those camps. They infused in me a revulsion for anything to do with the English/British – a hatred that was boundless and destructive. During my second year at the Johannesburg College of Art (now the School of Art and Design of the Technikon Witwatersrand) in 1971, I experienced a serious about-turn in my life and I decided ‘to reconcile with the English’, as I put it. I also decided to try and live a charitable life.

But as things turned out, one cannot force reconciliation and charity. My attempts to be charitable were very often rather selfish and indulgent. To force oneself upon others, in an attempt to reconcile with them, when they don’t even care or sense the slightest need for making peace, is quite foolish In 1974 I realised that it would help a lot to acquire a decent command of the English language. I made certain drastic changes to my life in order to become very proficient in English. I studied at an English institution, and when I had qualified I taught at English high schools and an English-medium Technikon. I read incessantly and amassed a considerable library of books on philosophy, theology, art and music. I memorised the King James version of the New Testament off by heart, married an English girl and fathered two English-speaking children – and I decided to increase my vocabulary by filling in cryptic English crossword puzzles every day – something I still do.

But one can only change so far, and in spite of all that hard work on/with the English I still had a nagging AfrikaansEnglish accent. I suspected that my English-speaking colleagues viewed this as a limitation and a sure sign of stupidity – or perhaps they didn’t – at least not all of them? But some of them seemed to make a point of upstaging students and fellow staff by using clever words and quotations of abstruse philosophical origin. I decided that to reconcile with them I had to earn their respect – why should they pay attention to me, someone whom they suspected of being dim-witted? So, in the second half of the 1980s I began in earnest to extend my English vocabulary by compiling lists

14

Blind Alphabet (detail)

15

of perplexing English words. I had a great love for language which made this an inviting task. I also had a great love for Latin and Greek, had written a dictionary of colour terms in 1977 and had compiled lists of thousands of plants since 1982, and ‘dealing with (the) English’ seemed quite okay.

My lists of abstruse English words were meant as a diversion, to test and puzzle my ever-so-clever colleagues. Every night, like a monk praying, I pored over my dictionaries. By 1992 I had collected about 10 000 difficult words by reading through all the dictionaries I could find. This actually started a kind of obsession for dictionaries, and I now have a sizable collection of over 200 dictionaries.

Our staff-room polemic turned into great fun. Everyone began to notice an outrageous change in the turn of phrase that was bandied about. Impossible words were inserted into the conversation. I was laying traps, stunting and enjoying myself – yet I never let on that I was ‘lucubrating’ – that is, studying and working away by burning the midnight oil. My associates, too, tried to test me. A colleague, priding himself on his philosophical acumen and shrewdness, asked calculatingly if I knew the meaning of the word ‘maieutic’. “Yes, of course, ‘maieutic’ pertains to intellectual ‘midwifery’. Socrates used the ‘maieutic’ method on his students, to bring latent ideas to the surface – as if aiding childbirth,” I replied ... perhaps a little sheepishly, but ... “does he know meaning of the word ‘halieutic’” – it has a similar spelling to ‘maieutic’. Because of the philosophical direction our conversation was taking, my esteemed colleague tried to pin a philosophical meaning on the word ‘halieutic’. And then comes the upstage, the letdown.

The ‘halieutic’ art is in fact the art of fishing – nothing philosophical – it certainly has nothing to do with truth, the meaning of life and all that – or does it? ‘Halieutics’ concerns itself with tackle, nets, casting methods and the habits or habitats of fish.

Far into my lexicographical exploits I had lost a few friends – not surprisingly – and had learnt a few expensive lessons. No one likes to be upstaged – hardly the stuff reconciliation is made of. At the same time, at least some of my friends began to realise that intellectual proficiency and relevancy did not necessarily go hand in hand with accent, skin or nationality. This was a very valuable thing to learn if one wanted to respect the inherent gifts and values in people one does not understand very well – especially if, in some way, one feels threatened by ‘them’.

I wanted to extend my language game to other languages and to activities that included the artmaking process. I decided to relax the ‘competitive’ nature of the linguistic encounters of our staff room and to make an art installation in which blind people can function as luminaries and in which sighted people are disenfranchised. So, my crazy word-lists became the mother-work for the Blind Alphabet project. I realised that so many words, like ‘caducity’ (the tendency of things to fall), ‘bothrenchymatous’ (having a surface tissue that is pitted – full of dimples) and ‘coarctate’ (pressed together) had to do with form and texture – the very basic constituents of sculpture. From these obscure morphological terms I then prepared a morphological dictionary and made sculptures illustrating these complex morphological words.

To disempower sighted people I needed to impose upon them a sense of the disappointment blind people have when they are restricted. My way of ‘blinding’ sighted visitors to the artwork is to hide the sculptures in small boxes

16

under wire mesh. The art gallery with its silly signposts of ‘Don’t Touch’ will prevent them from opening the boxes so that they are overcome by frustration. Furthermore, the lid on every box is fitted with a text in Braille. This foreign text aggravates and obstructs the sighted visitor. Then, to cap everything, there are hundreds of these sculptures – row upon row, in close proximity – the sighted visitor feels denied, lost in what seems like a futile labyrinth, the solving of which might get you nowhere. As one blind guest said: ‘... you had it all – now it’s our turn to have it all – this is ours.’

When the blind liberator comes along, he or she does not know that there are hundreds of works and is thus not daunted by their continuous extent. The blind become aware of the Blind Alphabet installation by beginning to touch only one piece. They cannot read that damning art gallery sign that says ‘Don’t Touch’ and their uninhibited touch reveals a familiar Braille text. They discover that the text explains a sculptural object inside the box and they begin to enjoy the selfsame object. Then, when the blind guests are done with their first object, they don’t have to scout about in the dark for the second. It is right next to the first. They don’t get lost looking for the artworks. When the befuddled sighted visitors see the blind people enjoy themselves, they are prompted to ask for an explanation. ‘What have you got that I miss?’ Usually it is blind people who ask this question about everything visual. The blind people then begin to help the sighted people to experience the work.

My Blind Alphabet project is not trying to bestow charity upon blind people. It does not want to patronise the blind and is issued as a challenge to their sense of social responsibility, to rise to the occasion and to use their special gift for reading Braille to do something significant for the sighted in the valued art galleries of South Africa1.

The texts are not easy to read. They follow a typical dry-as-dust style that one might expect in the academic languages of old-fashioned galleries, archives and museums. The writing is full of difficult words, botanical names, Latin and Greek derivatives. The blind do not have an easy time but, from watching them, they seem to give an account of what they have to offer quite admirably. My blind friend Wellington Pike works as a proof-reader at Braille Services and he is capable of checking seven languages. His ability to read faster than he can speak and the abstruse nature of the text makes him appear somewhat like a prophet when he shares the strange things in the text with his bewildered attendants.

The Blind Alphabet was the first offspring of my word-lists. Since completing phase one of it I have read through the 25 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary and written a proper ‘user-friendly’ dictionary entry for every difficult word I managed to find. This updated dictionary was completed in 1999 and has 18 000 such entries. Inscriptions like ‘pognotrophy’ (growing a beard), ‘onolatry’ (the worship of donkeys), ‘cattilate’ (licking the plate clean after a meal) and ‘xerophagy’ (eating dry foods like biltong and popcorn) are the order of the day. From this endless work I have made several language installations that prompt conversation between people who find it difficult to talk to each other.

Like the Blind Alphabet project these installations serve as ice-breakers that encourage an exchange of ideas and sentiments. At the Rand Afrikaans University I installed Kring van Kennis, 11 large boulders of granite with texts from the 11 official languages of South Africa. There the Tswana or Venda knows he or she has something other speakers don’t have. At the Havana Biennale 2000 I tried to discombobulate the predominantly ‘European’ intelligentsia by writing

17

‘linguistic impossibilities from Africa’ in the sand. In my work/s it might not be uncommon to find the Zulu lady who sells fruit on the street corner explaining difficult English to the consummate professor of English at a respected English university – or to the high-minded ‘yuppie’ on his or her lunch break at the relocated stock-exchange in Sandton, Johannesburg. And Emma, my predominantly Afrikaans-speaking daughter (age 3), or Willempie (my predominantly Afrikaans-speaking son, age 9), both of whom have more practical experience of ‘difference’ than I do, might (still) ask – ‘... how’s that for reconciliation!?’

So, next time a brave Zulu pedestrian saves the day by catching a runaway bag-snatcher and is mistakenly apprehended himself, and tries to defend himself in English – the language of his captors and of the court that tries him - believe me, he is trying to help the new ‘liberated’ English-speaking order that can’t or refuses to know Zulu, to ‘see’, beyond doubt, that he is innocent. He is trying to help them understand – not they him, they could never begin to do that. Trouble is, I think they (unwittingly) will (always) presume him to be guilty because, to their ears, he speaks so damn funnya!

April 2001

1 I apologise to those blind people who cannot read Braille, who cannot even read English – or worse still, who cannot even read – next time!

18

Blind Alphabet (Dacryoid - Drusiform) 2007 20 wooden sculptures, wire baskets, Braille on aluminium, cloth, steel base Sculptures: dimensions variable; base and basket: 72 x 35 x 50.5cm

Dacryoid Tear-shaped. Drops of liquid and beads of sweat are dacryoid when they dangle or fall freely in space. Once they have fallen on the ground they splash to become runny and so lose their dacryoid appearance. Solid objects like small glass beads or fruits such as pears have attractively dacryoid appearances. Caricatures of Louis-Philippe, king of France (1773-1850), often depict him with the dacryoid head of a pear, perhaps because of a certain natural resemblance. In Greek dakryon is ‘tear’.

The piece, made in January 2007, is sculpted out of a solid block of Jacaranda wood inlaid with thin lines of dark Imbuia. The Imbuia has been sanded level with the smooth surface of the Jacaranda so that it may not be felt, only seen. It serves the purpose of accentuating the volubule curves of the large ‘teardrop’ without being detected by touch. This emphasises the dilemma of the blind who, in this instance, will be talking about something they must still rely on the sighted to verify the existence and nature of.

Dactyloid A dactyloid object is finger-shaped and a cluster of dactyloid things resemble fingers collectively – from the Greek daktylos ‘finger’. An individual carrot or individual banana is dactyloid and a whole bunch of carrots or bananas has a dactyloid appearance. The shape made for the Blind Alphabet resembles a cluster of fingers. The structure of Euphorbia esculenta, a strange succulent from the Karoo, was studied. The Afrikaans name of the plant is Vingerpol – ‘poll or head of fingers’. Esculenta means edible – the plant is eaten by sheep and goats. It can reach a diameter of close to a metre. It has many elongated finger-like leaves arranged around and above a central, head-like stump. The project’s object, made in September 2007, shows a central shaft of Imbuia and fingers grouped in three separate layers. On the plant there are actually many such layers. A strange word from dactylois dactylonomy, the art of counting on the fingers.

19

Daedalean In Greek mythology Daedalus is the architect and inventor of ingenious buildings and devices. He created an intricate, sinuous labyrinth for King Minos on the island of Crete. This building structure was so skilfully designed that no one who entered it could ever find their way out. To cap it all, the Minotaur, a fierce bull-like monster, guarded the inside of the labyrinth. Any intricate piece of architecture or other man-made contrivance is therefore daedalean. Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, revealed the secrets of Daedalus’s labyrinth to Theseus, her lover, and he conquered both the labyrinth and the Minotaur. Daedalus and his son Icarus were imprisoned by the angry king.

Daedalus, however, cleverly daedalized a pair of astonishing wax wings to help his son Icarus escape, but unfortunately Icarus flew so close to the sun that the wax melted and the escapee fell tragically to his death. The sculpture, made in June 2007, shows a number of small shapes clustered together in a daedalean futuristic city.

Dauciform Carrot-shaped – the botanical name for carrot is Daucus carota. The word dauciform is mostly applied to carrot-like vegetables or plants that have the same kind of roots as the carrot, for example the ‘white carrot’. A pointing finger, a long ice-cream lolly or a thin, fancy bottle can all be dauciform. For the Blind Alphabet the carrot was taken as a shape resembling an aedaegus, the male sexual organ of insects, similar to the penis of animals. The aedeagus intromits sperm into the female receptive organ or bursa – Latin for ‘purse’. The human male sexual organ, when extended, also becomes a dauciform entity. Such an imaginary intromitter for an imaginary being was forged out of African Rosewood and Imbuia in January 2007. The main body of the sculpted organ has the extended carrot shape, but underneath its base it is gently hollowed out to allude also to the bursa or female organ. In this way the work is bisexual.

Decacanthous In botany and zoology, the word decacanthous indicates the presence of ten thorns. The thorn is a small, pointed, relatively sharp protrusion emanating mostly from the branches or leaves of plants.

Although they share a likeness, thorns are nearly always smaller than horns. Horns and thorns do not seem to share the same etymology. In fact, on the leaves of the Bunny-ear Cactus, also called the Polka-dot Cactus, the thorns are so small that one needs a magnifying glass to see them clearly.

In contrast, horns are always clearly visible. Some fishes and sea-urchins also have small sharp and straight ‘thorns’. A decacanthous fish has ten straight spines fanning out from the fin on its back – in Greek akantha is ‘thorn’. A diacanthous plant part has two thorns. For the Blind Alphabet a decacanthous arrangement, made of two rows, five each, of black Zebrawood thorns, was grafted onto a thick branch-like base, carved out of Wild Seringa. It was made in May 2007.

20

Decacerous A decacerous structure has ten horns. Some sea-snails have strange feet that look like ten little horns moving along and it was suggested that they be called Decacera, from the Greek deka ‘ten’ and keras ‘horn’. After some debate, the snails were named Decapoda, indicating their ‘ten-footedness’.

Many thorns, especially the hooked ones on African Acacias, look like tiny ram’s horns. The most extraordinary case of a ten-horned creature is from the book of Daniel. In his visions Daniel saw four beasts and he describes the last one as exceeding dreadful, with teeth of iron, nails of brass and ten terrifying horns on his head. This decacerous beast smashed things to pieces in order to gulp them down, and should any leftovers accidentally fall from its mouth, his clumsiness made it hard for him to stoop to the ground, and he would angrily trample them to a pulp. The project’s ten horns, made in May 2007, resemble those of a goat and are made of two types of wood, Imbuia and Boekenhout.

Decahedron A solid figure having ten faces – in Greek deka- is ‘ten’ and hedron ‘face’ or ‘base’. A number of solid shapes have ten faces. The first is called a pentagonal dipyramid with two crystal-like pyramids placed base-to-base. The two pyramids each have five triangular faces tapering to two sharp points in opposite directions. This shape was not made for the project because a similar shape with two twelve-faced pyramids was already made. The second decahedron is called a Johnson solid. It has ten equilateral triangles forming a single solid shape. The third is the octagonal prism. It looks like a slice of an eight-sided pipe – the eight faces of the pipe, its top and bottom adding up to ten.

Other decahedrons are the ‘square antiprism’, the ‘pentagonal trapezohedron’ and the ‘square cupola’.

The shape for the project, made in May 2007, is a somewhat lozenge-like shape, made in honour of the Endless Column (1938), a 30 metre-high sculpture of 17 such decahedral shapes by the famous sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Oregon Pine, Imbuia and Meranti woods were used.

Decussation A decussation is a criss-crossing of lines or paths, or a crossing-over of design elements to describe the letter ‘X’ – ‘ten’ or deca- in Latin. In decussation as a figure of speech the word-order is inverted, for example: ‘The first one in is the last one out.’ For the Blind Alphabet project the decussate structure of a Cypress seed was closely studied. It has a number of pairs of small wooden shapes beginning in the centre of the seed and getting larger to the outside to form a beautiful, round ball, the size of a large coat button. The two curved segments of the first, inside wooden pair fuse together to face each other across the centre of the seed. The next pair of wooden segments is slightly larger and clasps the first pair at right angles. Although a little further apart, this pair is also decussate or related across the centre. More decussate, ever larger and larger, further apart, pairs of segments face each other across the little seed ball. Meranti and Kiaat woods were used. The sculpture was made in May 2007.

21

Delphinoid From Latin delphinus ‘dolphin’, an animal shape resembling the dolphin. Dolphins are quite special intelligent sea mammals that look like large fishes, but are in reality not fishes at all. There are 32 species of dolphin in the world. The two best-known ones are bottle-nosed dolphins, popular performers in sea aquariums, and the common dolphin, which inspired many Mediterranean folk legends. Dolphins are somewhat similar to humans in intelligence and it has been said that the delphinity of these creatures is quite close to our own humanity. A delphinestrian is someone riding a dolphin as if it were a horse. If a piece of driftwood or a strange fish resembles a real dolphin it can be said to be delphinoid. At one time, in some obscure British pubs, they even had beer mugs crudely shaped like dolphins, that were referred to as delphines. The Blind Alphabet’s delphinoid shape was pieced together in July 2007 from many small blocks of wood, almost like a Cubist painting, so that it might appear as if the dolphin swiftly turns through the water.

Dentato-costate Having ribs that stick out like teeth. A row made up of tooth-like bits is dentate – in Latin dentem is ‘tooth’ and a body lined with rib-like ridges is costate – in Latin costa is ‘rib’. The South African succulent Haworthia truncata was studied because it has rows of peculiar ‘teeth’ that crop up out of the ground like ‘ribs’ on a dead animal’s carcass. The succulent has such peculiar teeth- or rib-like leaves that it is commonly known as ‘horses’ teeth’. Structures of ships and buildings can have man-made ribs visible on the inside and outside. The inner ribs are part of their endoskeleton and ribs visible on the outside, like in the dentato-costate sculpture for the Blind Alphabet, are an exoskeleton. The project’s construction shows ‘ribs’ extending into ‘teeth’ in what looks like a piece of architecture or a cog-like machine part.

The ‘horses’ teeth’ of the succulent plant are treated in an extreme geometrical way – teeth in a gearbox.

The predominant wood is Imbuia, a dark wood, capped with small slabs of light oak. The solid dentatocostate piece rests on a loose slab of Sapele mahogany. This shape was made in September 2007.

Dentato-serrate In Latin serra is ‘saw’ and dentem ‘tooth’. A dentate item is teethed and a serrate one has teeth like a saw. If an animal or object is dentato-serrate it is fitted with teeth that look like those of a saw. The teeth on a saw are in a single row of sharp, recurved triangles, bent slightly and alternately to the left and right. The sideways deviation in these teeth makes for a row of teeth that is a little broader than than the metal plate from which they extend. This prevents the saw from getting stuck in the wood while cutting. The purpose of such teeth in a saw or an animal is to get a firm grip and then to rip. In making an object that looks like saw teeth, the jaws of sharks and crocodiles were studied. Electricians use clamps, called crocodile clamps, to make easy connections on items like radios, car batteries or even switchboards. For the Blind Alphabet, a hinged crocodile clamp, made in Imbuia, shows an upper row of saw teeth that slots exactly into a lower row. The teeth are fixed to a geometric jaw made of Ironwood. This object was made in September 2007.

22

Dibrachiate Two-armed or two-branched – in Latin brachium is ‘arm’. It might have been right for the Blind Alphabet project to sculpt two simple arm-like extensions and fix them to a central block – but that would have been too easy. Instead, a more complicated dibrachiate structure was made into a children’s toy called a ‘dancing button’. In the USA this toy is known as the buzzsaw and in Afrikaans it is called a woer-woer. Two very light but extremely tough arms were made for the toy by laminating four slats of Maple wood in a bending press. The curve in the arms has a high tensile strength and it is unlikely that they will ever snap. The arms are joined to two handles, made of African Ironwood and together the parts operate across a fulcrum like a pair of scissors. The button strung at the end between the arms is made of Cherry wood. It has four holes to give it a whirring sound when it spins.

The button needs to be wound up by flicking it round and round. The handles are then nudged to and fro to make it spin. The toy was made in September 2007.

Di-dodecahedron Two twelve-sided pyramids, attached base-to-base for a total of 24 facets. Each pyramid has twelve triangles that may vary in height in different objects but that all taper to the same two points. In Greek di- is ‘two’, duodeca- is ‘twelve’ and hedra ‘face’ or ‘base. The di-dodecahedron is a single object consisting of two solid pyramids with their two sets of twelve faced triangles tapering in opposite directions. A di-decahedral object looks very similar but has only ten faces on each of its two base-tobase pyramids. For this project an object with two twelve-sided pyramids was made. One pyramid consisting of twelve triangles that meet in a single point is called a dodecahedron. Incidentally there is an alternative music group from Puerto Rico by the name of Dodecahedron – reported to ‘break the boundaries between prejudice and ignorance’. The sculpture has bands of Imbuia, Meranti, Beech, Oregon Pine and tips of Saligna woods, and was made in May 2007.

Digitaliform Digital objects and issues are related to the finger – digitus in Latin. Fingers and toes on human beings and animals are referred to as digits. Closely related are digitaliform items – they are shaped like the flower of the foxglove plant. Foxglove flowers are elongated, like long trumpets that vaguely resemble human fingers. The botanical name of a foxglove is Digitalis purpurea and other flowers, like bellflowers, are digitaliform because they somehow resemble the foxglove. In German the foxglove is known as Fingerhut – a hat for the finger, or more precisely, a thimble. Germanic and English languages agree on the Foxglove – it is hollow on the inside like a glove without fingers or a thimble without a finger. Strangely, a doctor will digitalize a patient for nausea and even heart conditions, not by ‘fingering’ them, but by administering concoctions made from pulverised Digitalis parts. The Blind Alphabet’s digitalifom shape was made in September 2007 out of a reddish African hardwood, Sapele mahogany.

23

Discoid A discoid object is shaped like a disc. The disc has been a functional shape for a long time. Quoits are round disc-like objects made of stone or metal, thrown as an exercise of strength or skill by the ancients. In the 5th century the Greek sculptor Myron carved his famous discobolus, an athlete hurling a discus. Lentils and lenses in optical instruments or in the eye are discoid. The shape of the disc abounds in things like hats, watch faces, cooking pans, lids and compact disks for computers.

A discoglossid frog has a discoid tongue and discopodous snails have discoid feet. In medical science the condition Discoid lupus erythematosus shows an eruption of coin-like blemishes on the skin, and an undulating discoid meniscus within one’s knee causes it to pop out of joint. In May 2007 a rather floppy discoid shape was made out of a core of Imbuia capped with two pieces of Oregon pine.

Distegous An adjective describing things that have two roof-like ridges. In Greek di- is ‘two’ and stege ‘roof’ or ‘covering’. One finds distegous appearances in bone structures, prehistoric reptiles and unusual insects. The most notable case of a distegous formation of body parts is that of the plates on the back of the Stegosaurus dinosaur. Its name literally means ‘covered lizard’ or ‘roof lizard’. This massive, plant-eating monster was active 150 million years ago in many parts of the world. It is one of the best known dinosaurs of all time because of the 17 bony plates embedded in two rows on its back.

The plates are believed to act as heat-controls, giving off or taking on heat as the dinosaur needed it. The project’s distegous construction is based on the two plated ridges on the arched back of a Stegosaurus. They were made in April 2007 from Imbuia mounted on a base of Balau and set into position by small wooden brackets of Beech.

Dodecagon In Greek gonia is ‘angle’ and hedron ‘facet’ or ‘shape’. A hexagon, for example, is a flat disc with six sides – like the outline of a single cell in a honey comb – and a hexahedron is a solid ball-like shape, like a soccer ball, that has six faces. Twice this amount is dodeka or twelve, literally do- ‘two’ plus deka- ‘ten’.

A dodecagon is thus a twelve-sided shape with twelve corners. Many coins, like the Mexican 20 cent coin, are dodecagons. The dodecagon is not restricted to flat, coin-like discs. Many other regular and irregular flat shapes have twelve sides and twelve corners. If the letters H and E are written in simple block-like shapes with no serifs or fancy bits sticking out, then they will have exactly twelve sides and twelve corners each. For the Blind Alphabet a simple twelve-sided coin-like shape was made in May 2007 out of Blackwood, Balau, Imbuia, and Beech. A dodecagonal letter H was nearly glued onto this disk, but it would have spoiled it.

24

Doliiform Barrel-shaped, jar-shaped. In Latin a dolium is a large jar, shaped like a barrel with a large mouth for pouring. This large dolium jar or vat is impractical for pouring drinks into glasses, but is good for storing wines within easy reach. The doliolum (plural doliola) is the diminutive of the dolium and it is the more practically used of the two, decanting small amounts of wines and spirits, a diminutive cask container placed on the table near guests. Some translations name the small doliolum as a ‘calyx’, a wine cup or goblet – but this is considered too small for the real thing. A doliiform object looks like a small cask. For a drum or container to be doliiform it has to be like a small wine barrel from which spirits can easily be decanted. The doliiform shape made in February 2007 for the Blind Alphabet was made close to life-size for a useful table barrel, and in order to make it more barrel-like, it has ribs of different kinds of wood.

Drumlinoid Resembling a drumlin, a long, narrow, whale-shaped hill. A true drumlin, from Irish droimnín, ‘little hill ridge’, is a hill formed by the moving ice of glaciers in colder parts. A drumlin looks like the oblong ellipse of a beached whale, and a number of drumlins in an area resemble a field of beached whales that are facing in the same direction, the direction in which the ice once moved. The lengthwise body of the drumlin is parallel with the movement of the ice, with the blunter end, the ‘head of the whale’, called the stoss, facing into the oncoming glacial movement. Drumlins can be as high as a twenty-storey building and are generally as long as ten football fields. Their layers of soil or rock material were repeatedly added over time to a core by the moving ice. Rock formations and hills can look much like a typical drumlin, but these may only be drumlinoid in appearance, not true drumlins formed by ice. Our simple drumlinoid shape, made in April 2007, has a few types of tightly glued and smoothly finished wood.

Drusiform In mineralogy a druse is a crust of crystals lining a hollow rock-formation. The name exists in English since 1750. Small areas of crystals, such as those formed by clear rock crystal, pyrites crystals or beautiful purple amethyst crystals, are often arranged as druses in rock cavities. Although the pomegranate is not filled with crystals, its shiny, slightly angular red fruits look very much so and are therefore quite drusiform. A field of plastic or glass crystals might be drusiformly arranged on a dress, but the ladies will always prefer to call it diamanté. In May 2007 a simple curve suggesting the inside of a rock surface was carved out of pine wood and laced with different kinds of carbuncular bits of wood that vaguely resemble crystals. If this drusiform area of wooden nodules were to be made on the outside of a smaller curved block of wood, and given some kind of a handle, it might become an excellent massaging tool.

25

Blind Alphabet (Echinoid - Evection) 2007 10 wooden sculptures, wire baskets, Braille on aluminium, cloth, steel base Sculptures: dimensions variable; base and basket: 72 x 35 x 50.5cm

Echinoid Resembling a sea urchin, or belonging to their family – properly called Echinus. Sea urchins are called echinids or echinoids. In Latin, an echinatus is a ‘sea urchin’, named after echinus, the hedgehog. The word urchin itself was first applied to porcupines and hedgehogs and later described the urchins – those small, round, spiky, pumpkin-shaped sea-creatures. The word urchin is also used for a goblin or elf because it was believed that these mischievous demons can change into hedgehogs to avoid detection. In echinology scientists study the Echinoidea or sea urchins. The pansy shells of South Africa are also urchins. Echinologists have a vast task with the 950 living species and about 5 000 recognised fossil species of Echinoidea. The echinoid shape for the Blind Alphabet, made in June 2007, shows the sea urchin without its spines, as a kind of sea shell commonly known as a little pumpkin.

Note how the segments accentuate the annual rings of the Oregon Pine. The base is of Imbuia.

Echino-costate For this object the spines of the sea-urchin were studied. They appear to be in a random, untidy bundle on top of the small segments from which they sprout – much like the spines on a hedgehog, A chestnut, for example, because of its outward likeness to these, is truly echinuliform. In fact, the sea urchin gets its Latin name echinatus, from that of the hedgehog, echinus. The prickles, spines and teeth of many animals, fishes and plants have been compared to the prickles of urchins and hedgehogs. A surface with striations of prickles is echinulato-striate. An echino-dentate arrangement of teeth or fish bones occur in a row, or many rows, like teeth. The structure for the Blind Alphabet was made in June 2007. A long ridge of sharp spines were arranged like fish bones in the backbone of a fish – and in that sense the structure is echino-costate – in Latin costa is ‘rib’. The centre of the main body of the backbone is of Imbuia and its sides are Beech. Fourteen pairs of pine ‘ribs’, tipped with Saligna wood, are grafted into the Beech.

26

Elytriform Shaped like a sheath – elytron in Greek. An elytron functions much like an envelope that simply contains things inserted into it, and it usually conforms closely to the shape of the object it contains – originally a sword or knife. All common beetles are classified as coleoptera, a name meaning ‘sheath-winged’. One often wonders what happens to the wings of beetles when they sit still – they don’t seem to have any. When they stop flying, they fold their wings back into a hard, protective cover, the elytra, on their backs. When the beetle is not flying, its wings are invisible, protected. Their wings and sheaths are totally aligned and conform fully in shape. Insects capable of growing new elytra on their bodies in place of the old ones are referred to as elytrigerous. Some sea-creatures, like crustaceans, have a hard carapace or elytra for a shell. The empty, holster-type sheath of the Blind Alphabet project was made out of Imbuia in June 2007.

Enantiomorphic In enantiosis we express ourselves in irony – we say exactly the opposite of what we mean, often in sarcastic fashion – in Greek enantios is ‘contrary’ or ‘opposite’. In looking at certain objects we might find that their appearances are opposite or enantiomorphic of one another. The image we see in the mirror is enantiomorphic of our own real image and we cannot easily read a written sentence reflected in a mirror because it is enantiomorphically displayed – everything is similar, yet backwards and opposite. An enantiomorphic item is not a repeat of itself – it is the exact opposite of itself. One will find enantiomorphism when one compare one’s left hand, thumb-to-thumb, to one’s right hand.

Two left hands are not enantiomorphic of each other because they are identical in every way. The enantiomorphic shapes made in June 2007 for the Blind Alphabet are two twists of Tambotie wood that, at face value, look exactly the same, but actually contradict each other if placed in mirrored geometry.

Enhendee An heraldic term that describes a cross as having its arms shaped like staffs fitted with handles to lean on – in old French enheundée is ‘having a handle’. Each arm of the cross enhendee ends in two curved handles with a spear-point between them. Another cross that has arms shaped like a crutch or walking stick is the cross potentee. In old French a potence is a ‘staff fitted with a cross-piece to lean upon’. The words potent and potence also mean ‘crutch’ or ‘walking stick’ in English, but are hardly ever used. The arms of the cross potentee end in simple cross-bars like the letter ‘T’, while the endings of the arms of the cross enhendee split up in a more complex and ornate design. The cross enhendee is often the proud symbol of pilgrims who travel on foot – the implication being that the cross of Christ provides support and comfort in one’s journey through life. The staff-like elements of the cross enhendee in the Blind Alphabet were made in August 2007 of Imbuia. Inlaid between all the recurved staff handles are short spear points of Sapele Mahogany.

27

Enneahedral If a crystal is cut and polished to have nine faces it is enneahedral – in Greek ennea is ‘nine’ and hedra ‘face’. An enneacontahedral precious stone like a diamond or sapphire has ninety facets. A flat, coin-like shape that has nine angles on it is called enneagonal. An enneatic event will take place once every nine years. So, if one has enneatic visits from an uncle for the rest of one’s life, one would have seen him only nine times by the time one turns ninety. When a pyramid on a flat base has nine triangles meeting at the same point, it is called an enneaedral pyramid. The shape made in July 2007 for the Blind Alphabet is not a pyramid; rather, it alludes to a very simple kind of stone that might be found mounted on a ring. Note the difference in spelling of enneaedral and enneahedral. The configuration consists of nine different shapes that fit together in a kind of puzzle with nine faces like a polished crystal. The white and dark brown contrasts of the Tambotie wood are there to put sighted people off from finding the pieces.

Ensiform Centuries ago it was fashionable to call a sword-bearing person enisferous, from Latin ensis ‘sword’. The sword lily or gladiola, for example, has decidedly ensiform leaves, and its name, gladiola, comes from gladius, another Latin name for sword. Sword fighters are gladiators. An ensiform or ensate item has the shape of a sword. The lower breastbone or sternum is aptly named the ensiform cartilage because it ends like a straight-pointed broad-sword. The word is most commonly used to describe the shapes of certain leaves, especially the leaves of lilies, pineapples and reeds. One curious ensiform structure is located at the war memorial Wars of America in Military Park, Newark, New Jersey. The walkway in front of the statues is so large one can only see its ensiform profile from the air. The main shaft of the ensiform shape of the Blind Alphabet project was made of Imbuia and clad with Beech in June 2007.

Ephippoid Shaped like a horse’s saddle – in Greek ephippium is ‘saddle’ from epi- ‘upon’ and hippos ‘horse’. To ephippiate a horse is to put a saddle on its back. The ephippium process is a little saddle-shaped dimple in a bone at the base of the human skull. One British breed of pig noted for its striking colour marking of a single white belt, of varying thickness, on a black body, is called the saddleback pig.

A species of New Zealand wattlebird, now found only on a few small islands, is known locally as the saddleback, named after the chestnut ‘saddle’ of colour on its otherwise black back. The most common ephippoid form in nature is that of saddleback mountains and hills, although they are never really referred to as ephippoid. Many towns, churches, farms and other places carry the name ‘Saddleback’ because they are on or near such a saddleback mountain. One can only appreciate the distinctive saddle-like shape of such mountains from a fair distance. The ephippoid shape for the Blind Alphabet project, made in September 2007, has a base of Imbuia, a body of African rosewood and a saddle-knob to the front of Beech.

28

Estoilée In modern French a star is an étoile. The commonly accepted term for a heraldic star is estoile or estoil. All stars, whether they have many rays or few, are estoiles. It is common practice in heraldry to draw some estoiles with five or six wavy rays. The star selected for the Blind Alphabet is the starshaped symbol of the cross called crux estoilée. Unlike most other heraldic stars, the star of the cross has only four wavy rays and is broad in the centre. The southern cross is not a crux estoilée because it is a configuration formed by various stars rather than a single star. Many believed that the wise men in the second chapter of Saint Matthew saw the sign of the cross in the star that led them to the new-born Christ. Thus the symbolism of the crux estoilée came about. In August 2007 the project’s crux estoilée was stylised out of eight different layers of wood with the individual pieces on each of the legs fragmented into small jagged and geometric shapes. The height of this star decreases step by step from its centre towards its points.

Evection A lifting up, a divergence or a veering away from the direction in which movement takes place – in Latin evehere is ‘to carry out’, from vehere ‘to carry’. A tube is evected when its front edge is turned outwards so that its shape begins to resemble the opening up of a trumpet. In an open book evection takes place when the pages lift up and fold away on either side of the central spine. Planets show an evection in their orbit when they veer away from their predicted path; likewise bullets undergo an evection when they swerve off course. A graph showing the steady financial progress of a company follows an evection in its ascending curve and an aeroplane takes off in an evection that describes the safest possible gradient. The sculpture for the Blind Alphabet, made in August 2007, has a firm square base made of oak upon which a curved piece of Sapele Mahogany is mounted to describe an upward evection, away from the base, much like the trajectory of an aeroplane leaving a runway.

29

Blind Dots 2007 30 industrial block brushes 152 x 77cm

In 1981 I made an artwork entitled Vroetelmat. The work looks similar to Blind Dots but it has only 24 brushes and the centres of each brush are not dotted with white dots. I showed Vroetelmat at my Johannesburg Art Gallery exhibition that same year. After the exhibition I gave Vroetelmat and another work called Chaos to Markus de Jong to say thank you to him for publishing my anthology of visual poetry, Kykafrikaans. A few years later Markus moved to the Netherlands and took the works with him. I haven’t seen these two works for more than 27 years and I therefore decided to revive Vroetelmat as a new, different work.

Blind Dots is so titled because the tactile brushes appear to invite light stroking with the hand, almost as if the visitor is blind. The dots were formed when the handle at the centre of each brush left a small round gap when it was unscrewed. These gaps were filled by the same white bristle that surrounds each brush. The dots are very slightly raised to make them noticeable to blind people.

30

31

Coprophemism 2007 Pine wood – discarded cutting boards 164 x 325cm

I often visit the granite processing plant of Frans Haarhoff on his farm Boschpoort in the mountains near the town of Belfast, Mpumalanga province. There they cut up many slabs of granite into kitchen and bathroom working surfaces.

The granite is laid out on wooden cutting blocks to help them cut through a slab without damaging the floor underneath. In the process the pine planks are scarred in a criss-cross pattern with the marks of grinders and cutting tools. Old cutting blocks are discarded as fire wood. Early in 2007 I took a whole batch of brand new pine planks to Frans and he was glad to swap them for his pile of badly damaged ones.

I kept the cutting blocks in my workshop for a while and the first person to see them, an old friend, thought I had made the patterns on them deliberately. He was really taken with their beauty and exclaimed that these were ‘fucking beautiful’.

For a while I could not work with the pile of planks because I was afraid that their obvious attractiveness might turn out too kitschy in an artwork. The use of the coprophemism1 uttered by my friend became the self-referential leading theme in the work and is intended to jolt it out of being innocently and sentimentally pleasant. A blatantly vulgar tone is known as turpiloquence.2

1 dysphemism The use of unpleasant or derogatory words to express pleasant and agreeable ideas. A dysphemism, also sometimes called a cacophemism or coprophemism, is the opposite of a euphemism. In Greek pheme is ‘speaking’ and both dys- and kakos denote something as ‘bad’ or ‘evil’. Kopros is ‘dung’.

Willem Boshoff, Dictionary of Perplexing English (1999) Coprophemisms rely heavily on the use of the bigsix, a euphemistic term for the six four-letter English swear words the media do not broadcast or print. Editors and reporters always avoid the bigsix: piss, fart, shit, fuck, cock and cunt.

2 turpiloquence Foul, sordid speech. Turpitude is a baseness of character or a depravity of any social graces. The turpid individual is vulgar and has an inherent vileness or lack of morals. In Latin turpis is ‘shameful’, ‘base’ and ‘ugly’.

Willem Boshoff, Dictionary of Perplexing English (1999)

32

33

34

35

Walking Stick Jig 2007 Zebrawood, Sapele mahogany 138 x 223cm

Zebrawood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) fascinates me. The strong contrast between the black heartwood and the white sapwood has a graphic appeal. During my December holiday in 2006, I managed to obtain a bundle of 13 walking sticks made in Zebrawood from the local crafters around the town of Graskop in Mpumalanga. The walking sticks were clumsily made, full of lumps, too heavy and not worth keeping at all. I was after the stunning wood and plotted a scheme where I might uncover as much of individual bits of contrast and quirkiness of design within small pieces of wood – walking sticks made into drum sticks.

Jewel-like bits of wood that flitter about, similar to musical notes on sheet music, came to mind. I experimented with the wooden ‘drumbeats’ by stringing them along a simple linear background, much like a musical score on lined paper but decided to change the rectilinear format of the page into a zigzag shuffle. Instead of a purely musical symphony, I wanted an optophonetical composition in which one would ‘see’ percussive sounds. By looking at the ‘notes’ one might then imagine hearing them. A jagged acoustic matrix, developed from lined sheet-music, became my ‘dancing floor’ of wooden planks on which the musical notes could ‘jig’ about1. The bars were increased to nine and arranged like the letter ‘W’ with one extra leg to form a ‘W’ with a twist – ‘W’ for Walking stick, and for Willem, also, a bit like the ‘Z’ and ‘W’ in Zebrawood.

Small bars of Zebrawood were dispersed on the zigzag ‘dancing floor’ like autumn leaves scattered around a tree.

The minimal music produced by Steve Reich has a clarity and charm because its meter, although it appears to be unremitting and similar, becomes palatable when one notices the almost imperceptible shift of the notes over time.

The metronomically recurring sounds in his work 18 Musicians (vinyl 1978) celebrate a percussive connection to each other and I dedicate Walking Stick Jig to him.

1 Jig, a lively folk dance, a step dance in which one or two soloists perform rapid, intricate, hopping steps to music in ½ time or (a ‘slip-jig’) in ¾ time. Surviving most strongly in Irish folk tradition, jigs were also popular in Scotland and England in the 1500s and 1600s. Related to modern English clog dances, they were often used as stage dances. The English Bacca Pipes Jig, danced over two crossed clay pipes, closely resembles the Gillie Callum sword dance of Scotland. The jig was adopted in France at the court of Louis XIV, where, as the gigue, it became a more subdued dance for couples. In the Baroque suite by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, the gigue is the final movement. Jig also refers to any country dance tune in jig time and to any set dance (a country dance for a group of couples) to a jig tune.

36

37

City Book 2006 Various kinds of wood, cotton cloth, glue Closed: 10.5 x 24 x 22.5cm; open: 24 x 33.3 x 22.5cm Edition of 21

City Book was commissioned by the students of the Department of Building Sciences, Pretoria University, in April 2006 as a parting gift for Professor Schalk le Roux who retired from teaching architecture at their institution. The artwork was made possible because it was undertaken as one of an edition of 21 multiples. To celebrate the idea of a professor who devoted his life to teaching, research and academic matters, the outside format of City Book is that of a book; the content of the book, once opened, suggests the architecture of a city and its buildings. About 20 species of wood are used to allude to the appeal and fascination that materials have for architects.

List of wood species: Kiaat Pierocarpus angolensis; Apricot Prunus armeniaca; Imbuia Ocotea porosa; Marula Sclerocarya marula; Partridge Wood Milettia stuhlmannii; Oregon Pine Pseudoisuga menziesii; Zimbabwe Teak Baikiaea plurijuga; Mahogany Swietiena mahogani; Stinkwood Ocotea aubl; Pau Marfim Balfourrodendron riedellianu; Beech Fagus sylvatica; American Red Oak Quercus palustris; European Oak Quercus robur; Cherry Prunus avium; Tamboti Pyrostchys africana; Willowleaf Hakea Hakea saligna; Maple Acer saccharum; Red Balau Shorea kunstleri; Iroko Chlorophora exelsa; Rosewood Dalbergia stevensonii; Jacaranda Jacaranda mimosifolia; Wild Seringa Burkea africana

38

39

40

41

Épat 2007 Plastic cassette tapes and cassette boxes, paper 105 x 227cm

I began collecting music seriously when I bought my first record/tape player in the 1970s. I still have my vinyls and I learned how to tape records. Music and sound began to bolster my fine art classes and I developed a series of four lectures in which I showed slides of paintings, artworks and even architecture with corresponding music and audile experiences. At first I played vinyl records and tapes and later added CDs. In years to come I added systematically to these lectures and they became the basis for my preferences in sound performances and music.

A series of mishaps forced me to reconsider how I must store and use my music. Every time the horse threw me off or simply died, I had to find new ways to get back to the thrill of riding. Today I have a massive collection of music on my computer with lecture notes and loads of information and images that are easily accessible. I trust that something bad does not happen as has so often been the case: • Vinyl went out of fashion when CDs became popular.

• My own sound system was stolen out of my office and the Technikon refused funds for a decent replacement.

• The speakers of my new systems were blown periodically at my children’s teenage parties.

• My car was stolen with my collection of CDs in the boot.

• My old tapes began to sound like howling winds of the universe.

I could not throw away my overstretched tapes. They were too important and the memories of them too great. In the artwork Épat I celebrate and salute them. In colloquial French épatant is fabulous or marvellous. Épat is the shortened version – something like ‘fab’ or ‘marv’. In the display I pushed the music titles to the back of the cases – although in the distance, they are a great memory of grand things. The word épat is of course also the word ‘tape’ backwards.1

1 Épat is colloquial French and backwards, in French, it is tape, ‘a slap’ or ‘blow’; tapée is ‘smart answer’.

42

43

44

45

Nice Guys 2007 52 neckties, engraved silver plates, metal clips, cloth, softboard, wood 121.5 x 231.5cm

What luck for rulers that men do not think – Adolf Hitler The neckties in Nice Guys are all my own. The oldest one dates back to my high school days in the 1960s. I used to wear them to work and to special occasions like marriages, church services and formal meetings. I had no reason to wear them for the last 11 years. They lay dormant since the day I left the teaching profession in order to dedicate more of my time to the making of artworks. As flamboyant items ‘close to the heart’ I decided to dedicate them to the artwork Nice Guys.

Each tie represents a personality who has featured significantly in international news. The ‘personalities’ are featured in two lines of ties, one above the other – individuals standing in two rows. Under each tie is a small engraved silver plate with a name and a number.

I withhold comment on what the numbers might signify and, in spite of comprehensive research done for Nice Guys, I realise that the numbers can only be estimates.

46

47

48

49

Vexillator1 2007 Old British map, cloth, mapping pins, softboard, wood 122 x 232cm

I worked as a teacher at Park Town Boys’ High School from 1975 to 1977. The headmaster of the school, Jimmy Cameron, gave me permission to teach extramural wood-carving classes and I found a suitable room underneath my classroom.

This room was used as a general dumping place for coal, bits of wood and loads of junk – the pupils called it the dungeon.

It took me a week to clean out the room. In a box under the rubble I found an old British flag. It was badly damaged from years of usage. Mr Cameron told me that the flag went back to before the school was founded and that it was already in use at the turn of the century. The school appreciated all the hard work I was doing and Mr Cameron said I could keep the flag. The wood-carving classes were so successful I later began my own sculpture school.

I looked after the flag well and 30 years later, in 2007, I took it out again. I reasoned that, since I found it at a school with lots of pupils, I should try and see what happened to children when the flag was flying, at the turn of the century, in 1899 and 1901. Those were the years of the Anglo-Boer War, also called the South African War. The war actually ended in May 1902. During this time the British armed forces coerced all ‘enemy’ children, their mothers, sisters and elderly people into concentration camps that were kept for the last 15 months of the war. There was a treaty in place, signed in 1875 by Great Britain, that forbade the capture of woman, children and the elderly. The British military commander, Lord Horatio Kitchener, said that the treaty did not apply to the Anglo-Boer war because it was only agreed to by European countries. Through misunderstanding or ignorance of the harsh camp conditions, the British caused the deaths of about 32 000 black and white children under the age of 15 in those last few months.

I value the old British flag I have, and I decided to make it into an artwork without causing it the slightest physical damage. Its scarred appearance told a story. I could therefore not glue, paint or cut it. I mounted it on softboard with a sombre black background. To keep the flag down without damaging the material, I stuck close to 32 000 small black mapping pins into it – one pin for each child that died needlessly. The 32 000 pins are arranged in 32 blocks, each containing very nearly a thousand pins. The blocks are formatted to bring to mind the memorial gardens for the First and Second World Wars in Europe.

1 The title plays on the word ‘vexation’, but far from it – vexillology is the study of flags or a flag. The vexillum is a military flag or a group of men fighting under a banner. A vexillator is a flag bearer – from Latin vehere ‘to carry’. A vexillum is also a conspicuous flag-like petal on some flowers.

Willem Boshoff, Beyond the Epiglottis

50

51

52

53

Kykafrikaans – Poetry Recitals Kykafrikaans anthology of concrete and visual poetry published 1980 Kykafrikaans recordings of recitals 2007 Recording studio: Wounded Buffalo, Johannesburg Voice artists: Marcel van Heerden, Jane Rademeyer, Lochner de Kock, Hermien de Vos

Kykafrikaans is an anthology of concrete poetry published in 1980 by Uitgewery Pannevis. This publishing house was founded by Markus de Jong and, during its short existence, focused on the publication of alternative Afrikaans literature.

Originally a thousand copies were printed, but Kykafrikaans has been out of print for 20 years. Few conceptual poems have ever been written in Afrikaans and Kykafrikaans is arguably the only full anthology of such divergent poetry to have been published in this beleaguered ‘modern’ South African language. Until the beginning of the 1990s it was never afforded a place in the literary and art circles of South Africa. Today, however, there is a great demand for information about Kykafrikaans and it occupies a respected place in the history of art and literature, in South Africa and internationally.

Simplistically one can say that in Kykafrikaans the typewriter is posed as an instrument for processing text in the same manner that a brush or pencil functions in drawing or painting. At face value the poems have been approached in a lettrist way, similar to the way many fine artists approach a canvas or drawing. However, at closer inspection these eccentric poems are at odds with writing and interpretation. At times they take issue with literary prejudices such as coherence and economy of writing. They frequently subvert orthodoxy and venerate triviality or ambiguity in the guise of being meticulously and assiduously composed themselves.

Many of the poems are optophonetic – in Greek optos is ‘see’ or ‘visible’ and phonein ‘to utter vocally’ or ‘to speak’.

The ingredient of sound functions on two levels in poetry. On the one hand the sound may be absent in that no actual vocal experience is forthcoming, but one might look at poems and imagine one can hear sounds emanating from their graphic templates. These sounds are visualised only. On the other hand, in many poems the sounds may be imagined but they can also be recited audibly. Format, composition and redering give diagrammatic clues as to how actual performing voices might interact with the visual aspect of poems.

The first Kykafrikaans recitals were made in 1980. These were done spontaneously by students in the fine art course under my guidance. Since 1980 the recitals were done annually by students and this performance was eventually extended to more public venues. The first public recital took place at the KKNK art festival in Oudtshoorn and thereafter in many other places, often as part of workshops. The most distinguished performance to date took place at the White Box Gallery, New York, in 2000. It was most entertaining to see an American audience enjoy reciting Afrikaans sounds.

In 2006 and 2007 I and a small team of dedicated performers and a recording studio produced nearly 30 poems on CD. The recitals of these poems are projected here, accompanied by the images that engender the sounds.

54

55

56

Page 55 Min of meer Facing page Gejaag na wind This page Ydele herhaling van woorde

57

58

Facing page Verdraaide stuiwers in die armbeurs This page TikreĂŤn

59

Willem Boshoff Born Vereeniging, 1951. Lives and works in Johannesburg Graduated from Technikon Witwatersrand with a National Higher Diploma in Fine Art (Printmaking), 1981, and a Master’s Diploma in Technology in Fine Art (Sculpture), 1984

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2007 Word Forms and Language Shapes 1975-2007 (solo), Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg Cape ‘07, US Art Museum, Stellenbosch Aardklop Festival, Potchefstroom 2005 TEXTures, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington 2004 Nonplussed (solo), Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg God Save the Queen (solo), Constitutional Court Gallery, Johannesburg 2003 Coexistence, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Boston, and SA National Gallery, Cape Town Sted/Place, Galerie Asbaek, Copenhagen, and Kastrupgårdsamlingen, Kastrup Licked (solo), Michael Stevenson, Cape Town Kykafrikaans, SA National Gallery, Cape Town Déchirures de l’histoire, Musée departemental de la Haute-Saune Albert Demard, Champlitte, France 2002 Vandskel, Kunstcentret, Silkeborg Bad, Denmark Mission Antarctica, 2002 World Summit, Johannesburg 2001 The Short Century, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Authentic/Ex-centric, 49th Venice Biennale The Writing in the Sand (solo), Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg Unpacking Europe, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam 2000 Memórias Intimas Marcas, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp Translation/Seduction/Displacement, White Box Gallery, New York Mnemosyne, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Urban Futures, MuseumAfrica, Johannesburg Havana Biennale, Cuba

60

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995 1994 1985 1981

Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Via Cesare Correnti, Milan Visiones del Sur, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s, Queens Museum of Art, New York and Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis 8th Floralies Internationales, Nantes Blind Alphabet C, permanent exhibition, National Library for the Blind, Birmingham, England Memórias Intimas Marcas, Museu da Cidade, Pavilhao Branco, Lisbon, and subsequently in Brussels Dreams and Clouds, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, and subsequently in Göteborg, Sweden Triennale der Kleinplastik, Stuttgart, Germany Important and Exportant, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg Art Gallery Purple and Green, Pretoria Art Museum.

Common and Uncommon Ground, Atlanta Don’t Mess with Mister In-between, Culturgest, Lisbon 23rd São Paulo Biennale Inside/Outside, 1st Johannesburg Biennale Siyawela, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham State of the Art, Everard Read Contemporary Gallery, Johannesburg Tributaries, Africana Museum, Johannesburg Guest artist, Johannesburg Art Gallery

SELECTED AWARDS 2001 SA Academy for Science and Art honorary medal for Visual Arts, Sculpture Helgard Steyn Award for Sculpture 2000 Aardvark prize as top artist at Aardklop arts festival, Potchefstroom 1999 Gauteng Arts, Culture and Heritage Award for Visual Art 1998 Ludwig Giess Preis fur Klein-plastik, Cologne, Germany 1997 FNB Vita Award for Art

Catalogue no 31 October 2007 Editor Sophie Perryer Design Gabrielle Guy Installation photography Mario Todeschini Image repro Ray du Toit Printing Hansa Print, Cape Town

MICHAEL STEVENSON www.michaelstevenson.com