Today these two gorgeous young whipper snappers came into the gallery and “found it really interesting”. For context when they first arrived it was like they’d just been listening to Eye of the Tiger on repeat for premium ampage. There was a lot of running around and I was dubious about the “30 minute immersive audio-visual experience pitched at the older crowd,” and how long it would be before their frazzled mom packed it up and called Time of Death on Culture. 

I got down to some editing, thinking, “any minute now”. 

The minute didn’t come.

I love being surprised. These kids were magical. Afterwards, we had a chat and it turns out they love art and are en route to buy canvases and art supplies from, let’s call it “Bonkers Bazaar of Plastic Shit”. Apparently, they’re going to “buy the whole shop”. It made me think back to my school holidays and that feeling of being able to hunker down with Judy Blume and a cold glass of Clifton (because it’s holidays).   

Kids just look happier when they’re not in school uniform. It’s a fact. Or maybe it’s just that they feed off my happiness and can’t be threatened by my resting bitch face? 

And it’s not that I didn’t love school. Laddsworth was the best. Things just started to get a bit ropey in high school. Which is kind of where this story comes from. It also comes from Hilton Chat. 

Yesterday a rad dad posted this absolute cracker… Photos of his two girls going science befok. Apparently, their holiday pursuit is fixing broken electronics. Judy Blume and heaped teaspoons of Clifton just don’t cut it anymore. Rad dad says they have a 50% success rate, which I find astonishing. I’ve had maintenance work done and it’s a helluva mixed bag of Bertie Botts… I mean, when my mum accidentally programmed her dishwasher into Lithuanian or Latvian or whatever it was, she basically had to install Duolingo to fix the problem. Honestly, learning a new language was more straightforward than dealing with the hoards of “Mr Fix-Its” who crossed the iron curtain into her kitchen.

So there I was, 38 years old, looking at Facebook and thinking, “Jeez Dorothy we are not in Kansas anymore;” I’m Toto in case you’re wondering. Here are these two young girls buzzing off their collective nerdery/genius, and I reckon they’re between 9 and 11 going on height. I understand height is a stupid measure of age because I’ve been the same height since I was 14. But, my poor measure of height is by no means the dumbest thing about me. I’m loaded with stupidity. I call left and right “up and down”, and I constantly dazzle Jono with my inability to name colours correctly. His blue jumper is actually green, or maybe it’s the other way round, and today I told him to take the red pills. They’re pink. You can imagine how my colour deficit annoys an artist? Not to mention the real danger he has of killing himself accidentally by taking red pills instead of pink ones.

Which leads me neatly to one of my favourite stories about how thick I can be for a nerd. It’s 1998 and I’m in Grade 9, or Std 7 as I call it because no amount of Judy Blume could make me adopt the American system. I’m in “General Science” and the word “project” gets thrown into the ether. At this stage of my life, I’m terrified of Science and my creative brain just thinks it’s all connected to magic, and there’s no explaining that shit no matter how assertive your Science teacher is. This was before I listened to podcasts on magic and learned how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Anyway, I can’t remember what the assignment details were, but it involved a poster (yay!) and research (not so yay). Sadly my poster-making skills were not enough to save this absolute car crash of a shitshow.

The research question I carefully cooked up: Are Ants Colourblind?

I can still imagine my poor Science teacher’s face, as she looked at the calendar towards her now-early retirement vision. 

Here’s how my rigorous research went down, in case any of you would like to replicate this study at home. 

First, you will need sheets of coloured paper (number of sheets and colours not specified).

OK, so you know I was bossies for making posters? Well, I had shit loads of colourful paper. I had rainbow-coloured pads busting with pastels and neons and good old primary colours. It really is a fucking wonder I can’t tell pink from red, or green from blue. Oh yes, cream is a universal colour for anything from beige to light brown. 

You will also need sugar (I used granulated white, the amount left in the Huletts bag)

So get out your best colourful paper, and go straight to the kitchen to grab the sugar. 

Identify a popular ant zone. 

Then make your way to the pool area because this has a “high incidence of ant activity”. Sadly, my proficiency in English and adopting the “bullshit baffles brains approach,” was not enough to save me from this horror show of quantitative research. Armed with paper and sugar I began. 

Randomly place sheets of coloured paper all around the pool. 

Place an unmeasured amount of sugar on each piece of paper. 

Return to the lounge to watch Echo Point and wait for ants to gather. 

After a few hours of K-TV, it was time to record my results. A few pieces of paper were in the pool, and the red, or was it pink, paper had the most ants from what I could gather. Green also had a lot of ants, which makes sense because nature is green, and ants like nature. I didn’t count the ants because I was on an advert break and the results… well this was hardcore academic rigour. The results spoke for themselves.

Or did they?

Obviously I didn’t have Google in those days, but this will blow your mind… ‘Ants do not have color vision and are red-green blind (able to detect only yellow and blue). However, their ability to distinguish between contrast levels is greater than that of humans. They can also differentiate ultraviolet light which helps them find food.’ (misfitanimals.com)

If you’re looking for a Science tutor for your struggling child, my Science teacher described me as “original,” I’m that good. 

At Gallery ZAZA, it’s about more than just the art on the walls, it’s about what the walls say – whether it’s gallery walls, or public walls festooned with the imaginings of a street artist or young upstart. This is important, because we’re about to empty the gallery walls for our second exhibition. We’re starting afresh. Wiping the slate clean. And if I’m honest, it’s really difficult to say goodbye to what have become the best work colleagues I’ve ever had (sorry Ron Irwin).

On the mistiest of Hilton days, sodden and a bit miffed, opening the gallery doors to Hussein Salim’s aptly named “Sunny Day” and “Longing,” has been more powerful than my first mug of tea for the day (for those of you who have encountered me sans tea will understand). I’m so attached to “Longing” that I get genuine separation anxiety thinking about saying goodbye. And so I was eternally grateful when Hussein said we could keep this absolutely ravishing canvas in our foyer. Longing.

And then bit by bit, Siyabonga Sikosana’s canvases have started exiting the gallery for what some (not me) would call their “forever homes”. Paintings literally being hugged by their new owners beaming with smiles as if holding a new excitable puppy. I pause to imagine how much colour and joy these artefacts will bring. How they’ll pass between generations, echoing stories of their first home.

Sakhile Mhlongo’s two troublemakers have been “most excellent” colleagues. They’re so badass. These paintings are alive and stare at me every day, as if threatening me that I’m not working hard enough. They’re constant reminders of the beautiful juxtapositions in my life, and they always draw a crowd. I often catch myself looking at “the dude’s” jeans and then feel completely inadequate in my craft. They bring balance, and longing.

Then there’s the absolute joy and terror of being a temporary home to Logan Woolfson’s Rubik’s cube family. “Lucky Star” started to show his rebellious side, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t dig Hilton weather and wants to adios back to Joburg STAT? In contrast, Logan’s other pieces have adjusted well to their temporary home. But Lucky Star just refused to comply from the get go. And then, one morning, the damp weather proved too much, and instead of opening the doors to an expectant Longing, I was greeted by the gallery floor, completely scattered with kamikaze Rubik’s cube shrapnel. Taking a leaf out of Tracey Emin’s book we improvised, and adopted “art installation,” and it’s amazing how many people haven’t even balked at this. “Lucky Star”, now affectionately known as “Unlucky Star” has become a metaphor for 2021… It really is how you frame it.

The gallery walls are ephemeral, ever changing, and we love that, because nothing lasts forever. It makes us want to live in the moment and to cherish what we have. To stop when we see something beautiful, and to soak it in. The other day Jono and I spent about half an hour watching a troop of monkeys use the parking lot carport netting as a trampoline. We witnessed a baby monkey steal a plastic bag from the alpha male and tease him with it. It was completely magic, and a reminder that there is so much beauty in the world. If you just stop. 

Which leads me to one of those juxtapositions I was banging on about earlier. If you have driven down Chief Albert Luthuli Road recently you would have seen the end of an era. Burczak’s Picture Framers has moved to their new and magnificent site in Victoria Road, and the old building is under construction. All of this seems like progress, except that the Basquiat mural has vanished.

It started with a red tag, blood was drawn. Then a few markings were made on the wall. Scars. Then a few pre-emptive holes were bashed in. Now I’m what some would call a “romantic pessimist”, so I went deep down the path of “no worries, nothing to see here, they’re going to work around it”.

‘Hi my name’s Jaqui, and I’m in denial.’

The thing is, I did actually know what was coming, I just refused to believe that I had to start adhering to all of my ideologies about public art… and ditch the hypocrisy. Street art is by its very nature, temporary. I know this.

But what if you really love it? I am, after all, the child who clapped her way through Peter Pan when Tinkerbell needed reviving, so I’m all on board for a bit of a “if you really believe” chumbawumba. And my internal dialogue was in overdrive thinking, ‘Absolutely some street art is ephemeral, unless you really love it, in which case you can save it by just believing that other people love it as much as you.’ Turns out this doesn’t work. Where the elegant Basquiat once was, is now a white wall and a couple of generic steel doors. Longing.

Ron English is a dude who theorises street art. He explains that street art is a cultural phenomenon, it’s not an art movement. This distinction is important because the very nature of phenomena is that they are beautifully transient, they are the fabric of our memories. They are what Abraham Lincoln would describe as, “the mystic chords of memory”. They form part of those spaces we look back on, they form part of the dialogue of, “remember when that used to be…” or, “there used to be something magical there.” We engage, and we remember, because they’re gone. They remind us not to take what we have for granted. They activate the “better angels of our nature”.

What a dazzling reminder of how to live and how to experience the world. And what a great way to engage, and to share our stories and lived histories. And I really should give you this banger of a Lincoln quote because it’s bloody lovely, ‘The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’

By now you’ll know that there are no prizes for sitting in the corner, and if anyone loves a public platform it’s me. I don’t just volunteer to do speeches, I actively push myself into the programme. So it was a no brainer, I was going to haul ass to the microphone come hell or high water. And boy did we have both. Saturday was the Grand Opening of Gallery ZAZA, and I kind of knew what was on the cards for the weather (in some circles they call me Jaqstradamus). 

I was the child who never got to have a pool party because every single birthday of mine was an absolute fucking rotter of a day. Fortunately, I was the type of child who was more into the food table, and less into the swimming pool, but it would have been nice to have the option.

Typically, Saturday morning rolled in a bit wet, and as each hour towards 10am approached it got steadily more like the “vicious cycle” on the washing machine.

At some point you resign yourself to these things and just open a beer. The breakfast beer helped to settle the nerves and things started to look up. However, Murphy was having a whale of a time, and so, as if by magic, things started to snowball spectacularly. The only thing keeping my sense of perspective intact was the wedding we had at the Hilton Hotel where the marquee literally blew away, tables ended up in the pool, and a tree split the best man’s car in half. The bride and groom ended up having their wedding in the Mist & Drizzle pub because every other venue was occupied. Turns out it was the best wedding ever.

I’d like to maintain the illusion that everything went according to plan on Saturday, but when the hail started and the generator flooded my adrenaline decided it was going to go into hyperdrive. Jono suggested cancelling speeches altogether, and for a few seconds I agreed. Then I reassessed, and decided I was completely keen to get up there and do my shit. Sadly there are times when the body and the mind have what some would call an “unconscious uncoupling” and others would call a cataclysmic divorce. My brain, it turns out, has still not grasped that “mind over matter” thing. Cue Uncontrollable Shaking from stage right. Of course the more I tried to control it, the worse it got. It’ll be chalked up as one of those performances that I’d sooner forget, but I guess I can reframe it and say it was special because it was so shit.

Anyway, here’s what I said. (For authenticity, if you read it out loud I suggest sitting on your washing machine and setting it to take off mode.) 

I remember when David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear, it was pretty dope. My question was, what’s next David? Get better David, do more! 

Magic in this context is about instant gratification and constantly seeking to amaze an increasingly unfocused and overstimulated audience. 

Perhaps it’s time to reframe. To slow down. To bask. 

As a child, magic was the recesses of imagination, it was the slow and lingering anticipation of the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas, and the Tooth Mouse. It was waking up on Christmas morning to the crumbs of a mince pie, an empty glass of brandy, and a nibbled carrot. It was that first pair of ballet shoes, putting Dubbin on a first soccer ball, watching a movie on the big screen for the very first time. Smelling the birthday cake fresh from the oven. 

For me, magic is about finding stories in strange places, but it’s also the ability to create them out of banal familiarity. Magic is painting pictures from nothing, from procuring sounds and smells from a string of small words, it’s the art of making a world out of nothing. Magic takes effort. 

Magic is home. Magic is place. Magic is community. It’s quite literally the stories we share. 

So allow me to share a story. 

My very first home was the cottage at the Hilton Hotel, further up the road from there is the Shell garage which was the only petrol station in the village. In those days Hilton was a village. Opposite the Shell, the Hilton Town Board Hall. This is where I’d spend Tuesday and Thursdays at Ros Nicholson’s School of Ballet. Here I proved my inability to live up to the expectation of Jaqualina Ballerina. The Town Board Hall was also where our folks went to pretend to look at our kak art, while they drank beer at the annual Hilton Lion’s Fair. Where every skottel braai in Hilton met once a year to play host to lashings of frying onions and sweaty wors. Carry on over the bridge, now festooned with flowers… If you were to sneak under that bridge you might happen upon me, in my later years doing rebellious things. If you take a right, you get to Laddsworth, a place that forged me into who I am. A school filled with the Sally Kellys, Pete Liddles, and Flick Wrights of the world. Humans who inspired magic from within the linear face brick architecture. 

Not far from Laddsworth is Hilton PrePrimary, the biggest most magnificent place on earth. Sandpits the size of Olympic swimming pools, a race track like Monza, a woodworking table fit for Santa’s elves, jungle gyms, and a crown for when it’s your birthday.

After school, if we were lucky, we went straight to the Fruit Basket, since demolished, or the Spar owned by the Footselars (I’ve used bad phonetics here) for a Super Moo. Sometimes Dave Hansmeyer would give us biltong. Often we’d have to hang around in Hilton Drapers waiting for our mums to have hour long “quick chats” and buy fabric to turn into matching tracksuits. All the kids in Hilton were dressed the same. Primary coloured tracksuits, gumboots, or Bata takkies from the Aladdin’s cave that is Kubela Stores. On Sundays we’d head to the Hilton Tea room clutching R1 coins to buy our candy cigarettes and other contraband sugar laden guilty pleasures. Terry the Greek would know which kids’ parents gave permission to buy the Benson and Hedges Special Milds for the dad in the car rushing to get to Opstal to blast clay pigeons out of the sky.

We had to make our own fun. Kid friendly bars and restaurants were basically those that allowed parents to push two bar stools together for small bodies to nap on. Communal parenting was everything. Wherever you were at 4pm is where you bathed. BMXs zooted down every road, pizza came out of a freezer and into an oven. We ate polony sandwiches by the dozen. Juice was red, green, or orange. It was an adventure to open the post box at the Post Office and see if there was anything exciting. Tupperware parties and book clubs were touted as these mysterious and magical events for our slippered feet to peek in on. 

Hiltonians have a history of seeing potential, as if looking through the mist and imagining what lies beyond it. And it’s up to us to create, to build, to explore, to play, and to throw glitter, confetti, and magic markers at every single problem.

Gallery ZAZA was an empty blank corporate office. It was the ultimate blank canvas. Now it’s the product of the passion and vision that only Jono Hornby could have cooked up. Even the starlings are dazzled. It’s home, and now things are appearing, not disappearing, as if by utter magic. It’s up to us, we can appear, or we can disappear. 

Special thanks to the amazing Hilton community for the awesome turn out, we had the best day sharing the space with you, and making it a place. There’s so much more to come, and I’m super jazzed!