The Start

I have begun to build a name as a watercolourist and this year is the next phase in the growth. This will require me to be more fanatical about preserving and using my time wisely – therefore the work I am putting into my plan is key – execution will also be critically important.

And an important component of all this is my life trajectory, the key events and what I want in my future.

1. Early family years

I began life thinking I would be a scientist.

I grew up in a family of artists. My parents were both world-class musicians and my siblings went to high schools focussed on developing artists. At a very early age my grandmother sat me on her knee and told me that I would be the scientist of the family. I took on this ill-fitting mantle – though of course at the time I had no clue.

My folks once gave me a rather arbitrary book on Marine Science that I convinced myself would be the direction to follow. And so I joined the Department of Sea Fisheries after school, taking a break for military service before working in Walvis Bay. I then returned to Cape Town to study for my career

A BSc in Geology and Chemistry, a Masters in Applied Science set up 15 years in corporate followed by 25 years in consulting. I learnt to find elegant solutions to business issues by creatively applying academic learning. As one may expect from any artist worth his salt. But I am getting ahead of the tale here. Back to the story.

When I left school I joined the Dept of Sea Fisheries in Cape Town, a government organisation set up to monitor the fishing industry in all of it’s forms around the coast of South Africa and what was then South West Africa.

Therefore a month out of school I found myself playing bar-dice for drinks next to the local cop who was totally scribbled in a bar in Lüderitz. I was on a trip to tag seal-pups to gain a reasonable count of the seal stocks.

After the obligatory term in the South African military I returned to the Sea Fisheries and was put on a train to join the team in Walvis Bay, then the working port for the West Coast pelagic fish Industry. I could write a book about this interlude where I met some very interesting characters and was first introduced to the quaint little town of Swakopmund.

I used to go through in the evenings after work to train in the Olympic sized pool in the town. After a while I found digs in the town with a lift to Walvis each morning.

The head of the local office was a guy called Bob, a marine mammal scientist who had studied seals on the Pribilof Islands by wearing a seal-skin and hanging out in the rookeries. Anyway Bob signed off on study leave for me to study Oceanography and Marine Science at UCT. On the strength of a card I received that the university had received my application I packed rucsac and hitchhiked down to Cape Town.

My parents had done some admin behind the scenes and I checked into a residence and got into the serious business of preparing to study.

Leaving Swakopmund

When worked in Walvis Bay [walvis by story] I received a letter from my mother who – amongst other things said “Steve – you must go to University”. She did not know but I had kind of resolved to do the Technicians programme for The Department of Sea Fisheries really because that was where I worked and that was what I supposed one did. This was all part of my aimless drift through life.

And so I went to Bob Rand [who wore a seal skin to observes seals on the Pribilof Islands] the head of the department in the lab in Walvis Bay. I put the idea to him and filled in the forms my mother had sent me. Bod said he would give me study leave to go to university to study Marine Science. It was all quite loose and informal. Though it was leave. The proviso that I forgot was that I was to come in and work for the department in my holidays. A few weeks later I received a card in the mail that The University of Cape Town had received my application. And on the strength of that, a week and a few days before the term began, I packed my rucsac and walked through the town to road to Windhoek. I remember being greeted by two of my friends as I stood on the road, And they took a photo of me in my hiking stance.

And that was goodbye to Swakopmund.

I was picked up by someone I knew. A corporal who was particularly fearsome in the Military Base Walvis bay where I had spent some time in my military service. And I remember how pleasant it was chatting with him. Who knew? But this was a real insight for me. I can’t recall much of that journey except being dropped at Grunau by someone who had turned East on his way to Johannesburg. There I met another young guy on his way to sTellenbosch. He had been there for a few hours. And as we stood I went across the road to look at the road sign for the T Junction. On the back of the sign someone had scratched “I have been waiting here for a whole day”. Then “Two days in this hell”. Then “three days”! It was rather unnerving. But as the sun was going down we were picked by a truck heading for Cape Town. Someone transporting furniture. So we each found a comfy chair and chatted through the night. Early in the morning the driver dropped me off on a turnoff to the industrial area near Pinelands. I walked a few kilometres to the house of an old girlfriend of mine who I had met durning military service [the sports trip]. We had connected briefly before the Sea Fisheries had put me on the train up to Walvis Bay.

Later that day I found my way to Fishhoek where I had lodged for eight months before catching the train to JHB to report for military service. I had a nght there I think then my friend Chris dropped me off at a residence at the university. Apparently my application had been successful.

I was resolved to get my head down to study hard.

Then I encountered a thing called “Freshers Week” where new students had a series of events to meet each other and the university and they had a four days to sign up for their courses. It was a lot of fun. I remember at breakfast on Thursday morning someone asked me if I had signed up for all my courses. I said I would do that tomorrow. But I was told, today was the last day for first years. So I headed up to campus.

On the way up I met some of my new friends coming down. They said they were planning to go to Muizenberg on the train at 10:00 and that I should join them if I was finished. I remember signing up for all the BSc courses required. Then I needed to sign up for a my Major Course. I stood at the back of this long queue for the Zoology I required for Marine Science. Each person took a long time with the Prof behind the desk. I looked at my watch. I was not going to make the 10:00 deadline. I looked around. I saw a queue to sign up for Earth Sciences. There were four people in the queue. I went over and signed up for my career in life.

I have never written this story down and have not told it for decades. But now as I write I feel a deep churning of shame and regret and sadness. How could it be that I was so rudderless? Why had it not occured to me why I was so different from the engineers, doctors and accountants? I shared a room with a very pleasant fellow who was studying Busienss Science, who later went on to become head of the The Bank of America in Canada. Why had I never stopped to think about life and how I was supposed tp live it?

Now I can see the hand of God in all of these things. And I have a long long list of many times in which I have been protected, sometimes through real danger. Though it would be years before I felt his calling.

2. Studying

I really did try my best at the studies and completed a degree in Geology and Chemistry. At the end of this time I was keen to extend my term and signed up for a Masters Degree in Applied Science. I completed a design project for our local Nuclear Power plant under another chap called Bob. And then completed a masters thesis on Abrasion in Agriculture – the wear of steel ripper blades. Another long and winding road.

During this time I had my first experience with Watercolour. I was sharing a flat with my sister Margie who was studying Architecture. One day I borrowed her watercolours and went down to Cape Point Reserve. I sat and painted two watercolours near the parking lot at Olifants Bos. I found the experience and little frustrating and the results less than satisfactory.

My supervisor leading me through a mini-thesis in preparation for a Masters in Applied Science once told me he was given a book of conversion factors and essential engineering equations for a birthday when he was a kid. I nodded approvingly but I remember thinking “that is the worst gift I can imagine”. This could have been an indicator that I was cut from different cloth I guess.

This time eventually drew to a close and I packed my XT 500, said farewell to my mate and his Girlfriend and hit the road to Swakopmund. Actually I had already accepted a job in Johannesburg when I was approached by the HR manager at Rössing Uranium who flew me up for an interview for a job for which I was utterly unqualified in so many ways.

The idea of working in Johannesburg was so depressing that I took the job in Swakop.

3. Moving to Swakopmund

I rode up on a route I had travelled many times before. I spent a night in Windhoek and a night in the desert on the route to Swakopmund. After 10 weeks working on the mine I flew down to Cape Town to marry Aura whom I had met in the Materials Engineering Department. And we made our way back to what was soon to become Namibia.

One Saturday afternoon Aura and I walked through the town when I was arrested by a wonderful watercolour in the window of a gallery. A fish-eagle doing a power-stroke with a fish in its talons. Each pinion feather captured by the single stroke of a broad-brush. I had never seen such a wonderful work. We went in and I was amazed at what I saw. It was a watercolour exhibition by a local artists; Nicholas Galloway. And he taught a watercolour class. I signed up and that Tuesday was introduced to a partner who has held me in a spell ever since.

After a while I chose to work on my own. Every now and then I would take my work to Nicholas for critique. He was always gracious. I would also take my work to Sharon and Don at the Hobby Horse, a craft shop and gallery in the town. Sharon was always so helpful, kind and direct. She also sold some of my work in the gallery. I decided that if ever I held an exhibition I would do it there.

 The lady in the other gallery – the Guinee foul story

But it was not all plain-sailing. As part of the process I started painting watercolours of pelicans. These interesting birds are ungainly on the ground and breathtakingly beautiful in the air. I took my paintings to Isabel and she was graciously positive about my work. And then in a moment in which my tongue raced far ahead of my brain I said “Yes, I am planning to do a whole series about pelicans. You know, everyone is painting guinea fowl and it is so kitsch!” As the words floated across the space I caught, in my peripheral vision lots of dark blobs with white spots. A wall full of guinea fowl paintings. All painted by the woman standing in front of me. I picked up my work and left. Later I went in and said how desperately sorry I was. I still am not sure what that was.

Namibia was a wonderful place. I loved all of the excursions into the desert and up the coast. But I began to miss the green forests of Cape Town. My work at the mine had also reached a ceiling. By then I was writing code and designing databases and systems for the mine. So I looked around for another avenue.

Heading back to Cape Town

The Oil Industry

At the start of 1991 I returned to Cape Town to work in the Oil Industry. It was great to be back in the Cape. I walked on the mountain and enjoyed the Cape beaches. I would regularly walk up Lions Head before work and up the India Venster Route on Table Mountain after work.

I set aside watercolour for about a year. I told myself that I needed to focus on my career in Data. However that was not for long as my passion for the medium just broke through. I would pin my watercolours on the partitions in my cubicle. Through each day I would consider how to improve the work.

After six years I was enticed to join a Software Engineering team in one of the giant insurance companies. Just before I left someone left a note in my hokkie saying that I should have an exhibition. This story is covered in the blog post about Animus and Anima.

 At the time it felt like my career and everything else had tanked. A friend showed me Julia Cameron’s book “The Aritists Way” and I would sit in my car in the parking lot each day and write my three pages. The process helped me emerge from a deep dark hole. I remember writing at the top of the page each morning, “what are you doing about an exhibition?” Just that. And in September that year I took 80 paintings to Swakopmund for my first ever exhibition. It was a life milestone.

Largely as a result of the same process I also shifted my focus from Software Engineering to team development and wroskshop facilitation. And at the end of the next year I joined a small consulting company facilitating project related workshops. It was intense.

During this time I also held an exhibition in our local nature reserve Helderberg Reserve., in the information centre.

 The pressure in the consulting company was onerous and I left towards the end of my second year to offer the same services on my own. Ages unfolds

4. A watercolour a day

In the first month of 2013 I heard someone talking about how artists do not need to adopt the ‘starving artist’ motif. She spoke about how a local artist had set up a business model based on her work in doing “one watercolour a day”. Well that was the part I heard. And so I started, that day, somewhere in mid January. I went down to The Pipe and did my first “Watercolour of The Day”. I maintained this cadence for just over five years in spite of an onerous consulting schedule. For the first three or four years I posted religiously on Instagram. What I missed however was the rest of the business model. But I certainly improved my skills in watercolour.

I remember flying in to Gaborone, meeting my client for the workshop I was to facilitate the next morning, preparing my materials and collapsing into bed just after midnight. Only to remember “watercolour!”! Getting up and doing a 6 minutes sketch of a strawberry from a fruit bowl left in my room. And the next night, in the midnight hour, painting a plumb. These two delightful little watercolours remain among my favourite pieces.

The Plan of the Story

In 2019

 In 2019 The Friends of Radloff Park

 The Global House Arrest

5. From Calendar to Collection – From Hobbyist to Professional

 Radloff Park – Two one-night exhibitions

 The Global House Arrest

 Patch HCA and the Basin Paintings -

 Lourens River

 False Bay

 Lanzerac

 How to maintain an income while I build a name as a watercolourist?

6. What the Future holds

 George Collection

 Lanzerac collection update

 West Coast collection

 More Lourens River Paintings

Output – end Part

I am writing this story to draw people into the context of my art. Rather than a string of boring events I want each component to describe an obstacle, what I did about it and how it shaped me as an artist.

Curriculum Vitae

Hobby Horse

WCWS

Animus and Anima

Helderberg Reserve

The Sculptors

SASA Winner – 2023

WCAS Winner 2023 and previous

Lanzerac 1

Lanzerac 2