Vilakazi Street

Today is the reveal for the Twelveby Twelve 20/12 Map theme quilts and you can see my quilt and another that followed on from it over on the blog. It is based on Vliakazi Street in Orlando West in Soweto and I have written the story that inspired the quilt all over it using a Pitt Artists pen. This photo marks the text sections which are reproduced below for anyone who wants to know the story. Sorry about the dodgy ipad photo with added  glare! The official blog photo is better!

1.

The Sowetan uprisng on n16th June 1976 began when, as part of the apartheid policy of giving black and coloured children poor education the Apartheid givernment issued a decree that certain school subjects should be taught in Afrikaans, a language with which the children were unfamiliar and which was associated with the opressive regime. the response to the decree was initially that some teachers resigned their posts and children began to boycott classes. The South African Student Movement (SASM) organised a march to the Orlando Stadium on 16th June 1976 as a peaceful protest. One of the gathering points was the Phfani Junior SecondarySchool in Vilakazi Street. the route from others schools to the stadium was baraccaided by Police and the leaders asked the crowd not to provoke the Police and took an alternative route ending up near the school in Orlando West. Here the Police shot at the children. Eyewitness accounts vary as to whether some children threw stones at the Police first. Over the next two days up to 600 were killed and 1000 injured.

2.

the iconic photograhic account of the 16th June 1976 uprising was takenby Sam Nzima of The World newspaper. He said, " I saw a child fall down. Under a shower of bullets I rushed forward and went fo rthe picture. It had been a peaceful march. The children were singing Nkosi Sikelele. The Police were ordered to shoot." His picture showed Hector Pieterson,who had been shot, being carried by Mbuyisa Makhuto, an eighteen year old student with Hector's sister Antoinette running along side. Sophie Tema, a journalist stopped her car and took them to the Phomalong clinic but he was pronounced dead on arrival. The photo was seen around the world and helped to fuel the subsequent international outrage and political pressure about apartheid. Hector Pieterson was shot on the corner of Vilakazi and Moema Street. However, he was in fact not the first student shot. That was Hastings Ndlovu who was shot on a bridge on the corner of Klipspruit Valley and Khumalo Road. He was taken to Baragwanath Hospital where he dies after being in a coma. Hector therefore probably died first.

3.

The Soweto uprising was but on event in the long struggles against apartheid but it was a significant one. Prior to June 1976 the black resistence had been stilled when, in June 1964 the top echelons of the SNC had been sent to Robben Island.

The uprising energised the black youth. Many left the country to join the military wing of the African National Congress or the Pan African Congress. The incident drew strong international condemnation including UN Resolution 392.

The protests of the school children were successful.A short time later the requirement to teach in Afrikaans was dropped and teachers training improved.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah retain their home in Vilakazi Street.

4.

Vilakazi Street is now a tourist destination, the redevelopment having beenoverseenby the Johannesburg Development Agency. Mandela House is the main attraction.Now a museum it has been restored to how it looked in 1946. The site of Hector Pieterson's shooting is marked with a memorial wall and a short walkaway on Kumalo Street is the Hector Pieterson museum where his sister Antionette works as a guide. There are several public works of art on Vilakazi Street as well as restaurants serving traditional food.

5.

Nelson Mandela lived at number 8115 Vilakazi Street from 1946 to 1961 when he went underground.nHe moved in with his first wife Evelyn Ntoko Mase. Winne Madizekele Mandela moved in in 1958.

6.

Nelson Mandela spent eleven days at Vilikazi Street after his release in 1990.

7.

The Soweto Uprising is depicted in Richard Attenborough's 1987 film Cry Freedom and inspired Andre Brinks novel A Dry White Season.

Matchstalk tears

I had a very odd experience today. I was on the way to yoga this afternoon, flicked on the radio to a show playing down the top twenty from this time in 1978 and this song came on. Within seconds I was in tears.

( This is my first attempt to embed a video using blosgy so just in case it doesnt work the link is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rczfvybq-2g&feature=youtube_gdata_player)


Please ignore Noel Edmonds and his apalling joke at the beginning!

 

Now I often do get an emotional response IN yoga classes. But not driving to them!

Some may say it is a natural reaction to the dreadfulness of the music. But it was not that. I am well known for not having highbrow musical taste and am well inured to such criticisms.

Later, hanging in Down Dog I decided it was one of two things. Or both maybe.

I have been spending time with someone close to me who is very excited about impending parenthood. This has got us talking about our childhood memories. Whilst we never discussed the paintings of LS Lowry I certainly remember the song and being shown some of the paintings. In hindsight that was probably because of this song which was number one when I was eight. It is possible this was the way I first learned about art. They originate from not far from where we live - Salford and Ancotes - are inner city areas of Manchester and places I have driven through to get to and from work on many occasions. So maybe it was a sort of flashback thing.

Two weeks ago I began to work in my home town again after years of working anywhere but. I have been feeling a strong sense of localism so, although Salford is maybe half and hour away maybe it was still close enough to touch a sense of belonging/memory that has been simmering underneath my consciousness?

But more, I think it was a sudden clarity about what can be the sheer simplicty of making art if we choose noto to complicate it.

"He took his brush and he waits, outside them factory gates and he waits to paint them matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs."

As the song tells, he was not exactly well received at the time but now there is a rather spectacular theatre complex and art gallery named after him and showing his work in Salford. And a five star hotel down the road also called The Lowry. And all because he perservered painting his matchstalk cats and dogs because he liked them.

The Lowry Theatre

I am curious... Did this song make it to the USA? If so, did it lead to the belief that we all wear cloth caps? And, Working Mum if you are reading... I have vague recollections that our school might have done something relating to Lowry about this time. Do you recall?

 

Overheard

At the Hockney Exhibition:

Two Irish ( I'm not stereotyping, they really were) Ladies looking at the large ( just over a metre by a metre and half) printouts of the ipad paintings he did.

Lady One: So what's special about these ones?

Lady Two: He did them on a really, really big Ipad.

At the Tate Modern Yayoi Kusama Exhibiton

There was an installation which consisted of a dark room full of furniture. Over the chairs, tables, TVs etc and over all the walls she had placed round flourescent stickers of various colours. A little girl was told by her Dad not to pick the stickers off. She looked up with a mixture of confusion and outrage and said, "At home, this would be naughty."

Bad restaurant day

1. We went to Lime Lounge in Bath, usually a favourtite of ours. it opens at nine for breakfast. At nine forty we arrive. The staff greet us at the door, let us sit down, let us examine the menu then come over.

" I'm sorry. The kitchen is nowhere near ready to serve breafasts yet."

Sigh. So why is the door open to customers then? We leave.

 

2. A couple of streets away the door to Cafe Lucca is open. Snother usual favourite. We walk in. Through the open door.

"Sorry. We are closed," the waitress says.

So why is the door open to cust.... Oh never mind.

 

3. We go to Same Same But Different. the door is open and so is the kitchen. but the teapot arrives with a chipped spout. i say, very nicely, in a very pleasant way, " Did you know the spout was chipped?"

" Oh," says the waitress," Sorry about that." and walzes off leaving me with a chipped spout. i rather meant her to change the pot.

4. Now in London and pre the Hockney exhibition I agreed to meet Dennis at Pontis. It is not there. There is a building site but thanks to mobile phones we find each other and go to Ristorante Biaggio which has an upstairs and a downstairs. Ŵe are seated downstairs and I see that, unlike all the other food I see coming from the back of the ground floor, our dishes are carried down from upstairs into the lobby which is open to the street and thus the rainy air and back inside to our table. My pasta is cold. So is D's pizza. We ask the waiter to reheat it. No he says. It is not cold, the plate is cold but the food is hot.

No. It. Is. Not. Quite possibly because you put it on cold plates.

He is persuaded to take it away and comes back suspiciously quickly with very hot plates. And barely luke warm pasta. I call him back. I tell him is is still luke warm. He tells me it is not. I tell him it is and I am happy if he just puts it in the microwave. He tells me it is not cold. I tell him he will give people food poisoning and I am not arguing with him, he should just microwave it. He says it is not cold.

We leave ( without paying for cold food or the drinks) and in the twenty minutes now available to us cross the road to Pret A Manger who CAN do a hot sandwich.

Is it just me?

 

 

Still no photos..

I am trying hard to solve my ipad blogging problems. I tried to explain the technical work arounds to Dennis who stared at me and said, "So there's all that carry on or you could pay £3". Put like that.... So I got my credit card out did the deal and was told it could take up to twenty four hours to upgrade the Google storage. Then the credit card company anti- fraud department started to text demandng that I ring them immediately. Despite the fraud department being based in India thay seem to have a problem wih me using this card on line for anything overseas.

So I rang. I told them that I knew that the Google payment had triggered this. I went politely through the usual rigmarole of confirming everything from my next door neighbours cats name to my sisters haircolour to confirm my identity and confirmed that yes it was me who bought shampoo in Boots and clothes from Spirit of the Andes and, yes, yes, yes it was me who was trying to spend all of £3 on Google. He said he was authorising that payment now. I was polite if formal throughout. My response may have been a little curt when he asked if there was anything else he could help me with today. What did he mean anything else? How had he helped in the first place?

And the result? I got home to a message saying that Spirit of The Andes had rung to say my payment had failed. So I did that all over again and now I come to blog and realise... The Google payment has not gone through either. Grrrrrr.

I did find a free app called Photopad which easily resizes photos to the size at which they are not supposed to count for your Picassa Slbum storage. App works fine. Blogsy still will not attach them. I give up for tonight.

The Queen and I

You may have noticed that this blog has been a little lacking lately. I skip a few days because life intervenes and then I look at my life and think, well what is interesting to blog about? Or alternatively, oh there is too much to blog about now, where to start? This is the disadvantage of being a lawyer...I can quite convincingly argue the diametrically opposing sides of an argument and make both sound credible!

Then there are the technical hurdles. Thanks to the nice people who run the help on the Blogsy ipad app I now know that my Picassa Web Album storeage is full. Who knew that could even happen? This means Blogsy would not upload pictures and we all know that Section 7(1) ( iii) Blogging Act 2005 prohibits posts without visuals save in certain proscribed circumstances. ( Blog posts without pictures which are about the inability to post pictures are covered by Schedule 2 Para 3 ( a) so I am fine today.)

It seems I have two options. First, pay a very small and entirely reasonable fee to upgrade my storage (which goes aganst the grain because I got on line when I only knew one other person with an email address and am thus of the generation that is used to everything online being free, even though I know it must cost somene somewhere something to produce all these services). Or it seems I could set up another web album account and link it to Blogsy. Or my blogs, or something. Which goes against the grain because that takes time and effort to figure out and the Internet is supposed to be fast and easy. Sigh.

So, I am going to have to align myself to the Queen who just rededicated herself to the service of the nation. And I assume the Commonwealth and any other country out there who might have had a little strop about some tea in a harbour but which still stays up all night to watch Royal Weddings.( You know who you are.)

I hereby rededicate myself to sorting out the technical problems and the motivational problems and coming back in a few days with a regular blog schedule and some interesting material. And photos.

Meanwhile, if you will excuse me I must go and walk these Corgis.

 I am delighted that my quilt The Things We Carry has been juried into the Beneath Southern Skies exhibition.

 You can see the other quilts in the exhibition and find the dates when it will be on view by clicking on this button.

                               

Can you guess....

...what this is a photo of?