MUTAPO POTTERY, HARARE
Within two weeks of landing in Harare, Zimbabwe, I met three clay, art, and culture guides who shaped an exotic year’s adventure into an intense participation in Shona, African culture.
Seeking a working clay artist in Harare, led me fortuitously to one with the same name, Marjorie Wallace. Her friend, a gallery owner in the City, wrote down Marj and her phone# out of his head. I was a bit confused, as I had not told him my name. (never met another Marj using J rather than G!) He urged me to call her, which wasn’t easy as a phone was not included in our apartment. When I called from a public phone, Marjorie invited me to visit her anytime at her studio. Wow, my first adventure, driving (on the ‘wrong’ side of the road) through town and then turning into the jungle, bush driveway with just a number on it. That first day there were several other artists visiting – Marjorie’s friends from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, England. The visitors were all interested in my story and talked a lot. Marjorie worked intently on her glaze drawings on bisque ceramics and listened. When I started to say good-bye and thanks for the visit, Marjorie very quietly said, I hope you will come back. Mutapo Pottery became my studio for working in clay and sharing an artist life in Zimbabwe. Marjorie Wallace - Bowls 1997
Sculptures created at Mutapo Pottery were my excited response to seeing some of the magnificent rock drawings in secluded sights in Zimbabwe. The recordings of nature and dreams and maybe imagination by the Ancients, 2,000-20,000 years ago often reflected the unity of animal and human in the same figure. There were repetitions in iconography within a cave and then similar many kilometers distant. It was so surprising that the sculptures I made five years before used the features of these ancient drawings. I did not know they existed until I saw them in 1997. Ah-Ha! For twenty years I had been trying to sort out the connections between indigenous cultures. Here in Zimbabwe all my collective unconscious was gathered into an African basket. I felt at home.
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THE ANCIENTS
ZIMBABWE, 1997 Cultural Safari
ZIMBABWE, AFRICA 1997 Cultural Safari
Shown at Gallery Delta, Harare "Pottery is the oldest and most natural art form of Zimbabwe. It has a long history with many fine examples of both decorative and sculptural value. Visiting American artist Marjie Fries, who has been working with the Nyanga Craft Village, has produced spiky pots influenced by the sharp thorns of acacia bushes and cactus. Her uses of hand-moulding, coiling, markings and colour to produce strong surface texturing on her strange figures such as 'Ancient Dancer' have not been employed by local potters." From ‘The Herald’, November 28, 1997, by Barbara Murray |