The other day I emailed my hero. 

I was thinking about Jono and my vision for Hilton, BOOMTOWN, the gallery, and storytelling. Who’s the landmark writer that I want to attach to a mural? 

Only one name came to mind. A writer who can capture a space, bottle it, shake it around, make it fizz, and then pass it to an unsuspecting human as the ultimate thirst quencher. 

Ivan Vladislavic. 

Open the bottle. I dare you. 

I’d been avoiding writing to him, because we’re told to never reach out to heroes. 

Apparently they’re always a hot mess of disappointment.

Or they ignore you. 

Or worse, they provide a short perfunctory response. The kind of response where you don’t have to be part of the Bletchley Circle to read between the lines. They’re not actually delighted you’ve reached out. Fans are an annoying and necessary evil. And the “luck with future endeavours” they bestow upon you is about as genuine as Balenciaga’s socio-political statement.    

Anyway, luckily for you, and the purposes of this story, “throw caution to the wind” I do not. So taking a note out of my hero’s book I began writing…

Dear Prof Vladislavic… 

It takes only a few words to start something. The spotlight shines brightly, you’re alone on the stage. Self doubt over sounding like an asshole starts to creep in. It’s best to continue and go with it. Wit is there in the background to make a cameo appearance. Reflection settles down the nervous audience. The chorus is there to bring it back when you lose direction. Soon it’s an effortless dance with only a few miss-steps here and there. 

The curtain closes. You press send. You hope the audience is forgiving. 

You wait for the review.  

I expected a long wait. The forgotten ghosts of unresponsive emails egging me on.

And then, five days later, from his private email address, his reply brought the walls of my laptop to life. A voice from amongst the row of lonely silent open tabs.

A landmark.

A reminder to write. A reminder to be patient. A reminder that landmarks are created out of nothing. Every space has the potential to become something more. To become a place.

Stories create paths through the clutter towards landmarks. Landmarks that are created by artists. And if you’re lucky, the community provides the soft landing and believes in, and traverses towards these places.

Welcome to BOOMTOWN. 

PS: Ivan (we’re on a first name basis now) says once he’s finished his new book he might be compelled to write a mural. Luckily, for this developing story, “throw caution to the wind” I do not. Watch these walls.

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.’

Maybe you think I’m one of those hipster coffee shop lurkers because of my hair and thrift shop sweater? The type who take over the best table and charge every device they own, assault the free wifi, and pretend their lingering presence is because of how ‘mmmm that’s really good coffee’ it is. Hanging on every word.

Coffee is sexy, coffee is reassuringly expensive, coffee is no longer just black or white. Coffee is suggestive. It’s something you come up for, if you’re up for it. But be careful, because coffee also has the habit of kicking you out in the morning. 

And sure, coffee may be a culture, but tea is a lifestyle. It’s an affordable lifestyle, or an ostentatious one. It’s the same brew, it’s just dressed differently. 

The first cup in the morning, the late night natter, afternoon tea with grandparents, Birthday Tea, tea and a biscuit, Christmas Morning Tea, post-breakup tea, celebration tea, apology tea, tea delivered on a tray to a sick bed, school tea out of an urn with the faint glow of burnt milk, the quick chug it down while locating miscreant car keys tea. ‘Quick cup of tea?’ Tea break. ‘Fancy a tea?’ Tea will help. ‘Let’s discuss this over tea.’

‘Ooo I’d love a cup.’ 

Tea is what Cosmo might refer to as the “perfect little black dress”. You can dress it up, or dress it down depending on your mood. Throw in a lovely pair of scones, accessorise with some sugar cubes, ‘How about this understated cucumber sandwich?’ ‘Oh go on and splash out on that slice of Victoria sponge.’ You can’t go wrong with a chic retro teapot, or how about something more boho with a vintage set of cups and saucers? Or just embrace the simplicity and chug it out of a mug while avoiding dropping biscuit crumbs on the floor.

Yes. Perfect for every occasion.

Arguments about milk first or after. Is sugar sacrilege? How long to brew? What brand is best? Is rooibos even tea? Do you squeeze the bag? ‘You use teabags and not leaves?’ ‘Oh my god he squeezes the bag!’ Cup and saucer? Mug? And does anyone own a tea cosy that hasn’t been worn as a hat? 

My paternal grandmother never pretended to be posh but she took tea as seriously as she took the television guide. ‘Albert there’s no way that’s Morse, the television guide says it’s Only Fools and Horses now!’ Tea arrived in a metal teapot, with Dutch white and blue striped tea cups (mostly chipped), saucers, and a matching milk jug. Cake was offered randomly and understated. ‘Who’s for some stale cake?’ On the other hand, my maternal grandmother reckons she’s lank posh, and we don’t argue because she showed us the grape scissors that she pretends she inherited (she bought them). She’s the reason I drink my tea with a whisper of milk so that it looks close enough to coffee to get away with using a mug. Tea is never served in a mug. Never. When grandmother comes to visit we put out a universal call to borrow a tea set, so she can be lulled into a false sense of security that we’re not foul heathens.

Speaking of grannies, in Hilton in the 1980s Five Roses had what they aptly named the “Five Roses Tea Party”. It was hosted at the Hilton Hotel and there was great excitement because Scot Scott arrived in a helicopter. The big show piece was that a bunch of grannies had to do something in order to win the grand prize of their weight in R1 coins. Just before the weigh-in the winning granny went absolutely gangbusters over a black forest gateaux. It wasn’t quite the rumpus of the Boston Tea Party, but it did put Hilton firmly on the map, and on M-Net.

And on that note, is there anywhere you can get a decent cup of tea around here?

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!

I’m a fly by the seat of my pantalone’s kind of a betty so I was fucking stoked when my trip to Hilton coincided with the breaking news story that the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was in my “home” town. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not wishing the virus on anyone (enemies excluded), but I’m a dirty ho-bag for a good story, and this is a helluva story. The prodigal daughter was coming home- the red carpet was rolled out- my father had found hand sanitiser and for once he wasn’t moaning about the toilet paper s(h)ituation. My dad has a thing about toilet paper… as a family we “go through far too much of the stuff”. I had hand sanitiser, toilet paper, and I was itching to get into the hub of Hilton Village to check out the vibe.

I’m not sure what I expected to be honest. Actually, that’s a lie. I expected a Hollywood Blockbuster. I wanted the scene from ET where the government agents are all hazmat-suited and booted and the danger zones are all tented in a massive quarantine bubble. Where was my quarantine bubble? And where was the tumbleweed rolling down the streets. Where was the Ennio Morricone soundtrack? It was in my head.

Despite this, I’m not the type of pantalone wearing lunatic to be deterred from telling a good story. ‘Persistence’, I remember, is something I tell my students. And, if all else fails there’s my go-to exaggeration. There’s a fucking story here and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the lack of hazmat suits and face masks influence this narrative.

The Quarry Shopping Centre is, on any given day, a fucking nightmare. To put you in the picture, there’s one way in, and one way out. Parking is so valuable that the “Moms and Tots’” bays are often invaded by non-moms and then the Internet goes fucking crazy and pitchforks are sharpened. One day someone will lose their shit completely and the Mombies will revolt! Cries of “the Mombies are revolting!” will rain down on the village. But not today. Where are the Mombies?

I mean there are moms here. They’re just not the ones who wear the uniform- the leggings/skinny jeans, white blouse/t-shirt, scarf that goes “pop”, gilet if it’s a bit nippy, and cute little canvas takkies (usually Superga). The out-and-about-moms, the Normoms, are just going about their day, and I’m waiting for them to pull out face masks from their handbags to add a litter glitter to my story. Where are all the face masks? They’re not in the pharmacies I’ll tell you that for free. My pharmacist friends tell me that they were the first casualty of the Coronavirus. Maybe Spar will have some answers?

Spar is busy. I mean sure it’s not filled to the brim with those damn pensioners who insist on smashing into the back of your ankles with a trolley wheel, but it’s certainly vibey. Ronan Keating is playing in the background so I’m reassured that the winds of change haven’t moved in to destroy everything sacred about village life. People aren’t stockpiling canned food. There’s a massive pallet of antibacterial soap. Expectant. There is fuck all hand sanitiser. Hilton residents will have to “make do” with soap.

The lack of Mombies, hand sanitiser, and face masks are the only clues that things are a bit rough in the village. I decide that I deserve a glass of wine. I need to think.

My head isn’t as sharp as I’d like it to be after a night of ‘Nana always used to say the best thing for germs is whisky’. Nonetheless I decide to accompany my dad on his errands because I need one more crack at this story. We go to the pharmacy that services the “Garlington side” of Hilton- my dad says he’s never seen it so empty on a Saturday morning. It’s eerie. Visions of tumbleweed. Ennio don’t tell the orchestra to pack up just yet.

It’s a Saturday morning and it’s the quietest I’ve ever seen Hilton. We hit the bottle store; a few parents seem to be self-medicating as usual, ‘virus or no virus I need my wine Wayne!’. Dave is clearly having a braai (for one?). Edwin is clutching a bottle of Old Brown and a bottle of Gordon’s. There’s that fucking Ronan Keating again. ‘There’s no story here’, I tell my father. ‘Let’s go! Hilton is so weird!’

I’m feeling disappointed. Where is all the hyperbole I’ve read online? Where are those pesky Whatsappers and their vitriol and histrionics? And where the fuck are those damn Mombies? I want my apocalypse dammit. And then it happens… as we drive past Grace College we see a bonanza. The Jesus Makro, as I like to call it, or Hilton Christian Fellowship, as the attendees call it, is fucking packed to capacity. The signage says it’s some kind of leadership thing but I’m almost sure they’re discussing the Coronavirus with Jesus in there. Is that a craft beer van? In any event it’s telling that the Jesus Makro is clearly protected by some invisible, almost 100% effective antiviral agent. Okes have flocked there. Fortuner by Fortuner.

As for the Mombies and their spawn? I eventually find out that they’re in “self-quarantine”- probably watching Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP Lab on Netflix while chugging down glasses of Haute Cabriere Chardonnay Pinot Noir. After all they must be pooped out; they’ve had an exhausting week of bidding over hand sanitiser at the local pharmacies, auctioning off face masks, and Googling Coronavirus. My brother actually said it best (sorry Ronan Keating), ‘Jaqs, no virus spreads as fast as gossip’. Mass outbreak of the Hyperbole Virus, the only cure is to self-quarantine yourself.