The Sunday News
Bruce Chimani
ASSOCIATING Ngozi Mine with anything beautiful, for the ordinary Bulawayo resident is nothing short of a dichotomy of sorts.
The “mine”, which is located about 12km on the western outskirts of Bulawayo, is nothing but a slum settlement that sprouted in bushes around the Bulawayo City Council’s dump site near Cowdray Park.
While the place is rightly associated with dirt and squalor, a 53-year-old Gracious Nyoni, who is an all-round artist has worked hard although obscurely with Creative Arts and Education Development Association director Davy Ndlovu in the Dhlamini Cultural Village in Tsholotsho. Some of his pieces on display there.
From paintings, drawings and plastic artifacts, Nyoni’s craft strikes one as that of a fine craftsman.
In a tour of his quasi-art gallery with Sunday Leisure, Nyoni expressed his deep love for art and his desire to see the younger generation embrace originality and use art to preserve culture.
“I have done art all my life. I actually was trained at Mzilikazi Arts and Crafts Centre and I was trained in various forms of art. At that time, in the early 80s, a School of Arts was set up and it was a four-year programme. I passed with flying colours in figure drawing, sculpturing, commercial arts and a few other forms of art. I make art because it’s intrinsic in me — it’s like a feeling — I feel something inside and I am driven to make it.
“As you can see, I stay out here and it’s not the best of places but for an artiste like me, it’s actually useful. I have all this space and I have access to materials at the dump site,” said Nyoni.
Nyoni has been resident at his current location for the past 10 years.
“My family doesn’t stay with me — some of my boys are at school so they are at different places. I love what I do and I am out here doing it. Although there are some people who have access to us here, we would want a place for us to sell our products. The Environmental Management Agency said they liked how we use plastic which is an environmental problem to them and they facilitated for us to get a place in the city centre from the city council where we can sell our wares.
“We are, however, struggling to raise funds because we have to pay the municipality, so there is a need that we put our house in order. We are appealing for assistance from well-wishers so that we can at least make a living out of this. There are a number of us here who make different crafts,” he added.
Lamenting about the younger generation of artists, Nyoni said, “I just wish they would be more original. Some of them really are and we can’t take that away from them. However, I feel like a great number of these young artists are quickly rushing to make commercial art without deepening their crafts in the fine arts and also using it to preserve our culture. The world out there wants to experience us as a people through our craft and it serves no purpose if we just copy them and expect them to buy counterfeits of their own artistry. They just have to be original and be themselves — people will respect that,” he said.
