When I lived, laughed and walked with some of the world’s best sculptors
In 1993-1994, between our departure from old Europe and until we moved to Canada, my best friend and partner, Lindy Amato, and I spent a little over six months in Austral Africa, traveling throughout Zimbabwe, Lindy’s motherland, but also neighbouring Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.
During many of these glorious African days I had the unique privilege to meet some of Zimbabwe’s best artists of the time, visiting them in their workshops around Harare with my old Land Rover Series III, sometime helping them as best as I could with carrying heavy carving stones or giving them lifts around the city. These were insouciant and joyful times of endless discoveries, spent enjoying their charming company and gradually building many friendships along the way, an indelible supply of souvenirs and an extraordinary collection of some of the best sculptures ever produced, which now keep me company on more solitary days.
This long overdue post is a brief recollection of unforgettable memories from these glorious days spent with some of the very best first- and second-generation Shona artists I once had the fleeting privilege to call “my friends”.
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michelbotman 