transforming african modernism: 25 years of zimbabwe stone sculpture

Transforming African Modernism
25 Years of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture (1980–2005)
Transforming African Modernism
25 Years of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture (1980–2005)
September 20–November 3, 2013
Opening Reception: September 20, 6–8 pm
SOUTH SHORE ART CENTER
Cohasset, MA, www.ssac.org
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EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Major support for this exhbition was generously provided by:
Susan Dickie
BJ and Steve Andrus
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
About the Exhibition
4 Transforming African Modernism: 25 Years of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture (1980–2005)
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A Short History of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture
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About the Art Form
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Art in the Exhibition
About the Stones
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11 – 24
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Sculpture on cover and title page: Women, Nicholas Mukomberanwa, The Tonga Spirit, Joseph Muzondo
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
South Shore Art Center is pleased to present Transforming African Modernism: 25
Years of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture (1980-2005). When Russell Schneider proposed
the exhibition, the Art Center’s exhibition committee was unanimous in its decision
to bring such outstanding international work to the South Shore community. As an
educational organization, we are particularly pleased to show work from another
country and continent; enabling our students, members, and visitors to learn about
these artists who work in stone sculpture, as well as the tools and methods they use.
After Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980, the doors of the new country were
flung wide open to the art world. The First Generation artists (1940s and 1950s)
(those who were instrumental in the early development of the art form) became
‘discovered’, subjected to critical acclaim, and thrust into art careers, some highly
successful. The “Second Generation” artists, inspired by the artworks and early successes of their predecessors, continued to move the art form into new and exciting directions that captivated art lovers and critics internationally. This exhibition
features works from artists of the first, second, and third generation of Zimbabwean
Stone Sculptors.
Russell Schneider, Curator
We are grateful to Russell who has spent years collecting the work and is eager to
share his knowledge of the craft and we are indebted to Brenda Danilowitz for her
fine scholarship in writing the catalog text.
Transforming African Modernism: 25 years of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture (19802005) posed several curatorial challenges. First, twenty-five years is a long time.
The challenge was not so much what to include, but what to leave out. It is inevitable,
given the physical limitations of the display space, that some artists and artworks
that should have been included in the show are not. Second, much of the distribution
of the artists’ works over the years was done by diverse individuals with little record
keeping by the artists themselves. Exhibition histories and artist biographies are
therefore woefully incomplete.
We thank the SSAC Board of Directors and exhibition committee for their enthusiastic
support of this exhibition and also our exhibition sponsors: Panopticon Imaging,
Susan Dickie, and BJ & Steve Andrus for their dedication to our mission and their
generosity.
It is our great privilege to share the work of these Zimbabwean artists with you.
Sarah Hannan
Executive Director
South Shore Art Center
No Looking Back, 2002, Joseph Mutasa
Black serpentine, 32 x 16 x 10 in
140 lbs
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The works of over two dozen artists are represented here. The exhibition has been
selected and organized to show a timeline in the development of the art form. Therefore, although some artists have several works in the exhibition, there has been no
intention to feature any one artist or artist style. Some of the artists have simple
styles and some complex. Some of the artists are inspired by nature, human emotion, or family motifs, while others are politically inspired. Although the artists were
at the time of the artwork’s creation all living or working in Zimbabwe, they represent
a diverse group of people with different artistic goals.
Sculpture Artists
Fanizani Akuda
Dominic Benhura
Lameck Bonjisi
Arthur Fata
Tapfuma Gutsa
Chituwa Jemali
Colleen Madamombe
Damian Manuhwa
Bernard Manyandure
Eddie Masaya
Bernard Matemara
Bryn Mteki
Sylvester Mubayi
Cosmos Muchenje
Nicholas Mukomberanwa
Henry Munyaradzi
Joseph Mutasa
Joseph Muzondo
Joseph Ndandarika
Bernard Takawira
John Takawira
Ndale Wilo
Works on Paper Artists
Chikonzero Chazunguza
Peter Clarke
Azaria Mbatha
John Muafangejo
Joseph Muzondo
Richard Rhode
Peter Sibeko
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TRANSFORMING AFRICAN MODERNISM:
25 YEARS OF ZIMBABWE STONE SCULPTURE (1980-2005)
Brenda Danilowitz
“Modern art in Africa is vital, marked by its movement. It will not stop still so that we
can attempt to place it in categories.”
—Philip Ravenhill
1980, the year Zimbabwe was born as an independent post-colonial state, marked
a milestone for the country’s contemporary art. Independence brought new opportunities and wider horizons as the western art world began to turn its gaze on newly
emerging countries around the globe. This exhibition, Transforming African Modernism: 25 years of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture (1980-2005), covers the twenty-five
years that followed independence. It presents Zimbabwean sculptors in a new light,
juxtaposing works by the “masters” of the 1960s generation with those of younger
artists. Rooted in the artists’ worlds, the works, especially those created from the
1990s on, show how the artists’ worlds expanded in terms of form, technique, and
subject, moving beyond local references to mirror the events of their times.
While it’s hardly news that cultural products—books, movies, television, music and
art—have been widely available in most of Africa for decades, the construct of an
untainted “primal Africa” in the art of the continent lingers on. But as culture has
become increasingly portable and transportable, everybody’s parameters have been
expanded. In the twenty-first century there are many Zimbabwean sculptors working
beyond the traditional monolith and often in provocative ways.
Nicholas Mukomberanwa (1940–2002), a pioneer, and eventual doyen of the socalled “first generation” of Zimbabwean sculptors, epitomizes this move. By the late
1990s when he created the monumental “Chief’s Messenger” his work shows a shift
away from anecdotal detail and towards simplification and iconic presentation. In
“Chief’s Messenger” the focus shifts from an emphasis on smooth and pure surfaces to the exploration of the ruggedness and uneven coloration revealed within
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the stone. The top heavy configuration of this piece sets up a condition of fragility
within the monumentality of the stone—the notion that the power within can easily
be undone and toppled. What is ultimately most significant about Mukomberanwa’s
achievement and that of many of the younger artists who followed him, is that he
was able to combine the modernist ideas of pure form and truth to materials—first
presented to him in European examples—with the core of his own experience, to produce a new tradition of African art. More important than the example of Western
artists’ work, Mukomberanwa’s mentor, Frank McEwen instilled in him the notion of
the unique work of art. Later the artist would recall the importance of this lesson in
innovation and creativity—the injunction “never to repeat.”
It was an idea that gained ground with a new generation of artists, born in the 1950s
and the 1960s, who came of age as the newly independent Zimbabwe was coming into existence. Joseph Muzondo, who was born in 1953, told an interviewer: “I
thought of coming up with something different—something that would challenge
what they call Shona* sculpture. People ended up calling it “Muzondo” sculpture.
By the early 1980s Muzondo’s studies in Zimbabwe and abroad in Great Britain and
Austria led to experiments in printmaking, textile design, and painting, as well as
in sculpture. Taking their cue from the textural richness of those two-dimensional
media the sculptural surfaces became more diverse as Muzondo exploited the colors
and textures that lay within the stone. “The deeper you go, the darker it becomes,”
he observed.
Muzondo’s close contemporary, Tapfuma Gutsa, arguably today’s most prominent
Zimbabwean artist, discovered that moving his work forward involved removing himself temporarily from Zimbabwe. In 1982 he received a British Council scholarship
to London’s City and Guilds School of Art where he remained until 1985 when he returned to Zimbabwe. Gutsa wanted to strike out on a path that diverged from the high
modernist works of the Zimbabwean artists of the 1960s and 70s with their emphasis
on form, truth to materials, and the seductive beauty of highly polished stone. “Over
the years I’ve been trying, even consciously, to move out of the mainstream of the
stone sculpture movement … I would like my work to be seen as an attempt to break
new ground,” he said in 1998.
In 1989 Tapfuma Gutsa was one of a handful of artists from Africa whom curator Grace
Stanislaus selected to exemplify the theme of a major exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem—“Contemporary African Art: Changing Traditions.” Since then, Gutsa’s
work has fulfilled its promise of artistic toughness and invention that was presaged
in the works shown at the Studio Museum, which accepted, and simultaneously set
out to challenge, conventions of Zimbabwe sculpture.
In the mid-1990s Gutsa began to push his challenge to the pureness and integrity of
stone beyond what others could imagine. Working a single piece of stone to produce
differentiations in textures and color was one thing, but creating assemblages of
multiple stones and combining these with other materials both natural and manmade—wood, bones, and metals was entirely another. His aim was to create work that
engaged and challenged, rather than simply pleased and delighted, his audience.
“Beautiful stones don’t speak back …I think if you want to get to people’s hearts and
minds you don’t want to dole out the whole thing in one sitting. You need somebody
to look at the thing and come back to it again and get engaged with the work. The
work is about engagement. One-to-one. The viewer must think.”
Gutsa harbors few illusions that art can intervene politically. It was in full view of the
horror of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that he produced one of his richest pieces,
a ritualistic work about death perversely titled “African Genesis.” He believes that
a work of art “is a gadget of influence” a gesture that the artist puts into the world
to provoke a reaction. “It grips you, or it shocks you... and sometimes even the artist is shocked.” Like the finest artist-provocateurs, Gutsa uses his work to shake his
audience into paying attention to history. “African Genesis” came out of the Genesis Program, an intercultural collaborative exhibition between three German and
three Zimbabwean artists. Gutsa had made some cone-shaped metal forms, about
a meter in diameter, which echoed the shapes of the thatched roofs of the round
stone buildings on his property. He covered these with a film of cow dung, commonly
used as mortar and floor covering in African domestic construction, and remarked
to gallery owner Derek Huggins that these forms were “volcanoes….there are some
in Africa. The cow dung is for the crap of Africa, and for fertility.” “African Genesis”
consisted of three “volcanoes” set out on the ground. Around them Gutsa assembled
five life-size forms wrapped in fabric and bound with strips of bark. “The spectacle
of death in Africa,” he told Huggins. “Ethiopian famine and the Rwanda genocide…
the forms are corpses…or they are sleeping forms waiting for life. There is genesis
… death and recreation and regeneration all the time, at every moment.” Thus Gutsa
acknowledges the universal cycle of death and rebirth within which the specific African experience of life and death is located, by drawing attention to the paradoxes
that coexist in his reality—the crap and the fertility.
In the tall stately figure titled “The Cathedral,” Gutsa juxtaposes a blue gray stone
with roughly carved wooden spires. In one view, perhaps the front of the figure, the
stone appears as the fusion of two figures with the wood attachments seeming to be
two heads. A couple? Perhaps. Seen from the opposite side, the couple fuses into a
single figure, its full curved “hips” suggesting decidedly female outlines. Here the
smooth almost lyrical gray stone has been hacked away, exposing the interior—like a
flayed body, exposing a powerful duality of gender and emotion.
Cosmos Muchenje, working on a smaller scale in the piece “Torso,” achieves a fluidity
of form and dappled color that embodies the universal ideal of the female nude. Like
Joseph Muzondo, Muchenje worked as a painter in two-dimensions, before turning
to sculpture. This contributes to the sensitivity to color and texture apparent in his
work. Because it has neither head, nor complete limbs,” Torso “ remains a fragment.
Hewing closely to the abstract vocabulary inherited from such predecessors as Bernard Takawira (1946–2006) Muchenje and other younger artists convey the inherent
qualities of their material in a completely contemporary idiom.
While the evolution of contemporary Zimbabwean art can be investigated according
to several different milestones, none is more significant than the period in which
Rhodesia emerged from the grips of colonialism and the destructions of the civil war
that followed, as the independent nation of Zimbabwe. Transforming African Modernism: 25 years of Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture (1980-2005) is exceptional in that
all the works on display were collected directly from the artists over an extended
time period. It thus presents a capsule of selected works of unusual range and quality that documents a key period of recent southern African history.
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A SHORT HISTORY OF ZIMBABWEAN STONE SCULPTURE
Brenda Danilowitz
The story of how Zimbabwean stone sculptors came to occupy a firmly established
position in the international world of art museums and galleries goes back many
years­—some observers claim as far back as the fourteenth century and the construction of a series of architecturally complex stone villages, the zimbabwes or “ruler’s
places” from which the newly independent country (the former British colony of
Southern Rhodesia) took its name in 1980. The ruined remains of these settlements
were discovered in the 19th century, and the largest became known as “Great Zimbabwe.” Along with what remained of the architecture of “Great Zimbabwe” were small
artifacts, impressively carved totems, and imposing bird-like figures fashioned
from the stone that is an abundant resource in mineral-rich Zimbabwe.
The discovery mystified Western archaeologists for years. Their prejudices, combined with the political agenda of the colonial government, would not allow them
to admit that such sophisticated productions were the work of the uneducated, and
to them, primitive and uncivilized, local black peoples. Today there is no longer any
doubt that the early inhabitants and creators of these settlements were the ancestors of present day Zimbabweans.
Although there is no evidence at all for a direct link between the stone birds and
figures of “Great Zimbabwe” and the renaissance in stone carving that began in the
early 1960s, the resonances are tantalizing. As Celia Winter-Irving has pointed out,
the shared material and methods indicate that the present day sculpture is not “a
totally isolated phenomenon” but a new occurrence of creative expression which has
existed for centuries.
In 1952 Frank McEwen, artist, critic and exhibition organizer, who was born in
Mexico, brought up in England, and educated in France, was invited by the
Southern Rhodesia government to advise on the planning and construction of a new
art museum in Salisbury (now Harare). When the Rhodes National Gallery, a model
of mid-century modernism, was opened in 1955, McEwen was made the first director.
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Rejoice, 2002, Joseph Mutasa
Black serpentine, 76 x 8 x 6 in
280 lbs
With his wide connections in the international art world, he was a natural choice to
oversee this permanent collection of European painting and sculpture and to bring
European-style culture to this “apathetic and reluctant” colonial outpost.
But McEwen had other ideas, chief among them the nurturing of local African artists. Taking counsel from a museum employee, Thomas Mukarobgwa, he informed
himself about the local African culture. In 1957 he started a painting workshop at the
museum, and in 1965 sculpture was added. McEwen was thoroughly schooled in the
mainstream modernist ideas of the French art world of the 1930s. These included a
return to classical forms which affected even such radical movements as Cubism. The
previously fractured surfaces of Cubist painting and sculpture became more controlled and smoothed over, and issues of formal beauty and purity took precedence
over the mundane subject matter of early Cubism. In sculpture, a belief in truth of
materials and the integrity of direct carving was linked to a reverence for the direct
appeal of “primitive art” and the notion of the unschooled artist whose innocent
vision was unclouded by the traumas of the two massive wars from which Europe, at
mid-century, was struggling to recover.
This background, and his knowledge and understanding of modern sculptors like
Moore, Brancusi, and Lipschitz is a key to understanding both McEwen’s excitement
at the opportunity to develop an art workshop in Africa, and the methods he employed: “Instead of cramming the unformed mind with foreign information, example
and imposed subject matter, it is accepted from the start that the sensitive latent
artist possesses the spirit of art, to be brought out, respected and nurtured” (McEwen quoted in “Frank McEwen Returns to Origins: New Directions for African Arts”
African Arts 1:2, 1967). While McEwen desired to avoid imposing European ideas on
the artists who attended his workshop (he deliberately did not call it a “school”), it
was inevitable that his artistic predilections showed up in their work.
Horse Stool, 2004, Joseph Muzondo
Springstone, 12 x 14 x 6 in
50 lbs
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ABOUT THE ARTFORM
Nicholas Mukomberanwa
Russell Schneider, Curator
Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture has gained world-wide recognition since it first emerged
as a distinctive new art practice in the late 1950s. The large varieties and abundant supplies of naturally occurring rock formations of the Zimbabwe landscape
provided artists with a medium unique to their country. Starting out as a small and
eager group of students at a newly established painting and sculpture workshop at
Harare’s National Gallery (now the National Gallery of Zimbabwe) in 1957, artists soon mastered the technical skills required to make their impression on the
resistant stone boulders and began to create forms of great sculptural variety and
complexity.
selves, obtaining art supplies is relatively simple for these artists.
Prominent Zimbabwean artists like Nicholas Mukomberanwa, Henry Munyaradzi
and Tapfuma Gutsa have been featured in major international art shows, such as the
groundbreaking 1990 exhibition Contemporary African Artists: Changing Tradition
at New York’s Studio Museum in Harlem, the 1991 Venice Biennale,the Africa95 Arts
festival in London, and Genesis—an intercultural collaboration between Germany
and Zimbabwe in 1995–1997.
Soon the work was receiving attention outside of Zimbabwe, in Great Britain,
Europe and the United States where exhibitions drew the attention of the media,
including Newsweek, which in September 1987 hailed it as “perhaps the most
important new art form to emerge from Africa in this century.” As art historians,
museum directors and curators, gallery owners, collectors and the public at large
began to recognize that the art of Africa was not confined to time bound age-old
traditional works mainly carved from wood, but that the tradition was alive and
growing, a new audience for this contemporary art developed.
The best of Zimbabwe stone sculpture combines the splendor and solidity of the
stone medium with imagery drawn from reality and abstracted into symbolic form.
Figures and features that are reminiscent of, yet not quite like, animal and human
forms suggest the creatures and mythological beings that inhabit the realms of
the religions and folklore of the Zimbabwean people. The inherent character of the
stone is used both in its rough cut and textured state or heated and burnished to
a high gloss to reveal rich greens,browns, blacks and grays. The hardness, mass,
shape and volume of the serpentine, quartz, sandstone, verdite, granite, steatite
and other stones define the formal characteristics of the completed works. In addition to their weightiness, the polished surface gives a quality of classic refinement.
Because the stone is quarried locally, often on land owned by the artists them10
Young Woman, 2005, Chituwa Jemali
Dolomite, 24 x 18 x 9 in
95 lbs
Women, 1996, Nicholas Mukomberanwa
Brown serpentine, 28 x 12 x 16 in
320 lbs
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Tapfuma Gutsa
Chief’s Messenger, 1997, Nicholas Mukomberanwa
Brown serpentine, 32 x 12 x 10 in
185 lbs
Nicholas Mukomberanwa
Graphite on paper, 11 x 8 in
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The Poet, 1994, Tapfuma Gutsa
Serpentine, 61 x 18 x 12 in
900 lbs
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Joseph Mutasa
Cathedral, 1995, Tapfuma Gutsa
Wood, serpentine, 76 x 23 x 10 in
525 lbs
Lunar Woman, 1996, Tapfuma Gutsa
Wood, serpentine, eggshells, 24 x 30 x 14 in
165 lbs
Guinea Fowl, 2005, Joseph Mutasa
Lepidolite, 9 x 14 x 7 in
40 lbs
Heavy Thoughts, 1995, Tapfuma Gutsa
Wood, 29 x 15 x 10 in
45 lbs
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Herd Boy, 2005, Joseph Mutasa
Leopard rock, 11 x 8 x 4 in
42 lbs
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Chikonzero Chazunguza
Joseph Muzondo
The Tonga Spirit, 2000, Joseph Muzondo
Springstone and steel bar, 24 x 14 x 26 in
158 lbs
Muza, 1996, Chikonzero Chazunguza
Silkscreen, 5 x 4 in
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Head of the Guru, 2005, Joseph Muzondo
Springstone, 30 x 14 x 12 in
165 lbs
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Chituwa Jemali Bernard Manyandure
John Takawira
Simply Beautiful, 1981, John Takawira
Springstone, 15 x 7 x 8 in
28 lbs
Troop Leader, 1983, Bernard Manyandure
Serpentine, 19 x 8 x 11 in
70 lbs
Facing the Future, 2005, Chituwa Jemali
Serpentine, 66 x 16 x 11 in
475 lbs
Stork Bird, 1985, John Takawira
Springstone, 12 x 38 x 10 in
135 lbs
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Henry Munyaradzi
Cosmos Muchenje
Dung Beetle, 1992, Henry Munyaradzi
Opal stone, 11 x 12 x 14 in
46 lbs
Night Ape, 1983, Henry Munyaradzi
Serpentine, 23 x 8 x 6 in
43 lbs
Two Faces, 2005, Cosmos Muchenje
Fruit serpentine, 20 x 6 x 3 in
25 lbs
Spirit Hare, 1984, Henry Munyaradzi
Serpentine, 28 x 11 x 6 in
78 lbs
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Torso, 2002, Cosmos Muchenje
Fruit serpentine, 22 x 5 x 3 in
45 lbs
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Dominic Benhura
Lameck Bonjisi
Wise Man,2003, Lameck Bonjisi
Serpentine, 24 x 4 x 9 in
40 lbs
Father & Son, 1995, Lameck Bonjisi
Black serpentine, 45 x 22 x 10 in
275 lbs
Playing with Mom, 2005, Dominic Benhura
Serpentine, 11 x 17 x 3 in
30 lbs
Party Dress, 2005, Dominic Benhura
Serpentine inlaid with white dolomite, 24 x 20 x 4 in
95 lbs
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Fanizani Akuda
ABOUT THE STONES
Leopard Rock
It is similar to serpentine; having a creamy yellow color with black blotches. The
only known deposit of leopard rock is in Zimbabwe. It is very difficult stone to
carve, only skilled sculptors will attempt this rock. leopard rock when polished has
a beautiful glazed finish.
Lepidolite
Lepidolite is a semi-precious stone with various shades of purple. It can be an extremely hard stone. Only skilled sculptors attempt to carve lepidolite. The stone is a
quartz with lithium giving it its color. It has been used as a source for the extraction
of lithium.
Photo taken at Nicholas Mukomberanwa’s farm in Ruwa, Zimbabwe
Cobalt
Cobalt is a brittle, relatively rare hard metal, closely resembling iron and nickel in
appearance. It has a hardness of between 5 and 6 on the Mohs scale.
Dolomite
Two Families, 1992, Fanizani Akuda
Dolomite, 20 x 14 x 12 in
160 lbs
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Dolomite is often pink or a pinkish white but can also be white, grey or even brown
or black depending on whether iron is present in the crystal. Dolomite in its common form is made up of group of small rhombohedron crystals with curved saddlelike faces. Dolomite is a common sedimentary rock where iron and manganese
deposits are sometimes present.
Opal Stone (Opaline)
A harder stone (4–5 on the Mohs scale), opal stone is known for its extremely close
grain texture. The color green is predominate, from milky light colored green with
orangey iron deposits, browns, fire-reds, blacks, sometimes mottled or specked
with red, orange and bluish dots or patches. A favorite stone with carvers, opal
stone is not as hard as springstone and some serpentines and can be rather brittle,
will be polished to a high gloss finish.
Pyrophyllite (Wonderstone)
Pyrophyllite is commonly known as “Wonderstone.” Its grey color is from deposits
found in South Africa and mottled from deposits found in Namibia. Not many artists
carve this medium. It has a very fine grain construction and is measured between
2–3 on the Mohs scale. The composition of the stone is compressed volcanic ash
and is inert and is famous for not being a conductor of heat or electricity.
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Ottosdal is the only place in South Africa where the unique “Wonderstone” pyrophyllite is mined. The color of the stone found there is grey. Brandberg in Namibia
is where this stone is found. The color of the stone found there has a variety of colors due to mineral inclusions. It is extensively used in nuclear power stations and
was used for making tiles for rocket re-entry shields so that rockets could re-enter
the earth atmosphere. Once this stone has been polished, it has a beautiful high
gloss finish and turns from grey to black with the application of wax.
Ruby Verdite
Ruby verdite is a relatively soft stone (rated 3–4 on the Mohs scale) at certain
places due to the ruby corundum inclusions, it can be very hard. Corundum is the
second hardest stone on earth behind a diamond; only the more experienced sculptor will attempt to carve this semi-precious stone. It has a unique mottled emerald
green color with brown and green striations, changing patterns with changing
colors shades ranging from golden browns to rich emerald greens and blues.
Zimbabwe’s ruby verdite contains corundum and is a by-product of the extraction of
the corundum mineral. Corundum is a member of the ruby family and ruby verdite
was declared a semi-precious stone by the British Geological Society back in about
1985. So besides being beautiful it also has an intrinsic value and is becoming rare.
Ruby verdite is only found in Zimbabwe where it is known as “Green Gold.” The only
other known deposit of verdite in the world is found in South Africa and it does not
contain corundum and therefore is not deemed to be a semi-precious stone.
Serpentine
Many of the patterns and colors seen in these rock deposits throughout Zimbabwe
are similar to those seen in some snake skins, which is why the term “serpentine”
has come to be used to describe them. There are no scientific categories that
perfectly match the names and meanings that sculptors use, but springstone, opal
stone, leopard rock, lepidolite, cobolt and golden serpentine are all names that varieties (there are more than 200 of them) of this stone are given. The colors range
from brown to black to green, and are sometimes variegated. Serpentine stone is
2.6 billion years old.
Soapstone
Soapstone is a natural soft stone, with a “soapy” texture when wet. Although somewhat soft, soapstone is a very dense stone, denser than marble, slate, limestone
and even granite, making it naturally waterproof-liquid spilled onto the stone´s
surface is not absorbed. Soapstone is found on every continent and has been used
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by countries’ native people for thousands of years. Pieces of soapstone have been
found in igloos in the Arctic, tombs of Pharaohs, Chinese and Indian palaces and
the mountains and valleys of Africa.
Springstone
Springstone, the hardest stone generally carved (5–6 on the Mohs scale), Springstone is a very fine grained hard stone that polishes to an amazing very dark brown
or black lustrous finish—not surprisingly its extremely fine finish and excellent
durability is highly sought after. A regular feature of this black stone is to have a
layer of chrome ore running through the sculpture. This vein of ore is extremely
hard. During the polishing of the sculpture the softer stone adjacent to the vein
wears away faster than the chrome vein, leaving the vein standing out proud. A
further feature of springstone is it may be covered with a thick layer of reddish/
brown material. This is the oxidization of the iron in the stone. Many of the artists
use this additional feature of the stone to give a sculpture a two-tone effect. This
ferrous oxide is softer than the heart of the stone.
Verdite
Verdite is an exotic and wonderful stone of rare quality. It captures the mysterious
and beautiful colors of an age-old area of Africa. Like the ever-changing sea, it is
infinite in its variety of lovely shades and patterns, usually in green with inclusions
of blues, golds, reds and browns.
Verdite occurs amongst the oldest rock in the world, dating back over 3500 million
years. The only known deposits are found in areas where gold was first discovered
in Africa many centuries ago. It is related to the serpentinites and occurs in various
lens-shaped pods dotted over a 25-kilometer range. The material has no cleavage
and is riddled with intrusions of corundum (ruby) crystals (hence the name ruby
verdite), quarts, calcite and mica. Chromium is the mineral, which gives Verdite its
distinctive rich green color—ruby verdite can be extremely hard, corundum is the
second hardest stone on earth.
Amongst the African people, verdite takes precedence in their traditions, a basis for
ancient craftsmanship and tribal love. In powdered form, it has been used by witch
doctors as a mystical preparation for inducing fertility.
Where does the stone come from?
The majority of the stones used for carving originate from the Eastern Highlands
area commonly known as “Nyanga Serpentine” or “The Great Dyke”, a volcanic
ridge running for 1300 kilometers across the center of the country in the direction
south west to north east. It is the longest linear mass of volcanic rock in the world.
For millions of years, heat and pressure concentrated on this ancient rock mass
have created a unique mineral fusion, which can now be seen in all the different
colors, shadings and combinations of hard and soft stones.
sculpture is cold, can the final shining process be completed. Since stone, being a
natural product, it will absorb wax readily.
Sculptors in Zimbabwe carve a variety of stone from the hardest springstone to the
softest of soapstone. The stone range includes verdite, many types of serpentine,
opaline, dolomite, leopard rock, various steatite and soapstones. This gives the artists a wide range of textures and colors to choose and work from. The stone colors
are formed by trace elements and minerals included in the molten stone million of
years ago. The main inclusions are chrome, copper, and ruby corundum, all forming
part of the magic and mystique of this magnificent, exquisite contemporary art
form.
Serpentine and springstone are the stones preferred by the artists. They have
an extensive range of hardness and color. The color or combination of colors has
left the artists with over 200 different color stone variations from which to carve.
Verdite is an ancient brilliant green semi-precious stone over 3.6 billion years old.
Verdite can be an extremely hard stone as it may have areas where ruby corundum,
the second hardest stone on earth, is included. Zimbabwean verdite, commonly
known as ruby verdite, is unique to Zimbabwe because of these ruby corundum
inclusions. The only other deposit of verdite is found in South Africa.
Due to their ability to read the stones, many of the artists do not mark or draw on
the stone surface but follow the stone’s natural form and contours when sculpting. The stone itself dictates to the artist the subject hidden within it. Once the
hammering and chiseling are completed, the artist then starts to smooth the
nearly completed rough sculpture’s surface with various diamond studded and high
carbon steel files to achieve a finer smoother finished surface. In the next step the
sculpture is honed (polished) using various grades of wet/dry water paper. The last
grade to be used is either a 1200 or a 1500 grit. This will give a very fine smooth
surface ready to absorb the final clear waxing process. The sculpture is then placed
near a fire or left in the sun (similar artificial methods of heating can also be used)
to be heated before applying coats of beeswax or clear wax polish to draw out
the colors of the stone. The sculpture is then left to cool down and only once the
Sculpture tools
Nicholas Mukomberanwa
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Board of Directors
President President-Elect Treasurer Secretary Lauren Farrell
William Wenzel
Richard Horn
Sara Holbrook
Kimberley M. Albanese
Elizabeth Allard
Tanya Bodell
Bruce Cameron
Lilly Cleveland
Craig Coffey
Sean Cunning
Matthew Cunningham
Susan Dickie
Anthony DiPaolo
Andrea Hillier
William Houser
Frank Neer
Barbara Sheehan
Josiah Stevenson
Mark Tosi
Laurie Wimberly
Rhythmic Jazz, 1994, Chikonzero Chazunguza
Silkscreen, 19 x 24 in
SSAC Staff
Kim Alemian, Graphic Designer/Webmaster
Cheryl Cole, Office Manager
Heather Collins, Director of Community Programs
Candace Cramer, Chief Development Officer
Pat Frederickson, Membership Coordinator
Sarah Hannan, Executive Director
Virginia Holloway, Reception/Gallery Sitter
Gary Najarian, Facility Manager
Anthony Pilla, Education Coordinator
Tim Waite, Festival Coordinator
Catalogue Design: Kimberlee Alemian
Photography:
Patrick Wiseman
Roland Hejdstrom
John Brewer
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SOUTH SHORE ART CENTER
119 Ripley Road, Cohasset, MA 02025
Gallery Hours: M–S 10–4, Sun 12–4
781 383 2787 > www.ssac.org