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Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre is a center for arts and crafts, including fine art, printmaking, pottery and weaving, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It has been described as "the most famous indigenous art centre in South Africa". [1]
Founded by the Church of Sweden Mission, [2] Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre started producing weaving in 1965. It was originally intended to teach crafts such as weaving to female nurses who would then pass it down to their patients as a form of occupational therapy. [3] The workshop's first Swedish directors were Ulla Gowenius (an artist and weaver) and her husband, Peder Gowenius [4] (an art teacher), both graduates of Konstfackskolan in Stockholm. The first student to enroll in their classes was Allina Ndebele, who then went on to form her own weaving workshop and is now an internationally recognized artist. [5] During the 1960s the three main production studios were established at Rorke's Drift (as it is known worldwide), and its staff continue to design and create tapestries and woven rugs, printed fabrics and stoneware ceramics to the present.[ citation needed ]
The Pottery Workshop started in 1968 with Danish supervisors (first Peter Tybjerg, then later Ole and Anne Nielsen) with founding throwers Gordon Mbatha, Ephraim Ziqubu, Bhekisani Manyoni and Joel Sibisi. Already expert ceramists from the neighbouring Shiyane-Nqutu region, Dinah Molefe and several women of her family joined the Pottery Workshop from the start as skilled hand-builders, accustomed to using traditional Zulu and Sotho coiling methods in the making of domestic izinkamba (beer pots). The gendered work-division in the studio's ceramics —women coiling, men throwing— has been maintained to the present.[ citation needed ]
Through his consultations as intergroup mediator in the late 1960s, H.W. van der Merwe was alerted to the presence of Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and a need for assistance in its newly established Pottery Workshop. His wife Marietjie was an MFA (Ceramics) graduate of UCLA and a practicing South African ceramist who was able to offer her support to the studio at Rorke's Drift. Marietjie was appointed Advisor to the Pottery Workshop in 1971, and having designed and built a large oil-firing kiln in 1973, she continued to mentor the studio's ceramists and to help with technical problems until her death in 1992.[ citation needed ]
In the era when apartheid policies denied a formal education to black artists and crafters, under the Directorship of Jules and Ada van de Vijver, Rorkes Drift also established a Fine Art School. The van de Vijver's introduced printmaking, photography and weaving to the Center that produced some of southern Africa's most renowned artists and printmakers (for example Azaria Mbatha, John Muafangejo, Dan Rakgoathe, and Bongiwe Dhlomo).[ citation needed ]
The authoritative publication about Rorke's Drift printmakers, most of whom were trained at its Fine Art School, was written by Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin in 2003. [6]
A comprehensive article on the Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre is available at the South African History Online (SAHO) [7]
Rorke's Drift is also the location of the battlefield of the Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879), a historic site in the Anglo-Zulu War where British troops defeated a large Zulu army. The nearby battlefield is a major draw for tourists.
Zulu people are a native people of Southern Africa of the Nguni. The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa, with an estimated 14.39 million people, in total of which 13.78 million people live in South Africa, mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The Battle of Rorke's Drift, also known as the Defence of Rorke's Drift, was an engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. The successful British defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenants John Chard of the Royal Engineers and Gonville Bromhead, of the 24th Regiment of Foot began once a large contingent of Zulu warriors broke off from the main force during the final hour of the British defeat at the day-long Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879, diverting 6 miles (9.7 km) to attack Rorke's Drift later that day and continuing into the following day.
Studio pottery is pottery made by professional and amateur artists or artisans working alone or in small groups, making unique items or short runs. Typically, all stages of manufacture are carried out by the artists themselves. Studio pottery includes functional wares such as tableware and cookware, and non-functional wares such as sculpture, with vases and bowls covering the middle ground, often being used only for display. Studio potters can be referred to as ceramic artists, ceramists, ceramicists or as an artist who uses clay as a medium.
Basket weaving is the process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into three-dimensional artifacts, such as baskets, mats, mesh bags or even furniture. Craftspeople and artists specialized in making baskets may be known as basket makers and basket weavers. Basket weaving is also a rural craft.
Rorke is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Hlobane is a town in Zululand District Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
Philippa Hobbs is a South African art historian, artist, and art collector. She was born in 1955 and matriculated at St Andrew's School in 1972. She studied art at the Johannesburg College of Art before finishing a post-graduate printmaking course at the University of the Arts (Philadelphia). She then furthered her studies through University of South Africa (UNISA) and the Technikon Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Hobbs was a professor of art at the Technikon Witwatersrand from 1979 to 1993, and also the Head of Printmaking there. She has been noted for her contribution to the practice of art, art education, research, and community development through art. As of 2006, Hobbs has worked as Curator of the MTN Art Collection, a private, corporate art collection in Johannesburg.
The Buffalo River is the largest tributary of the Tugela River in South Africa. With a total length of 426 km (265 mi), its source is in Majuba Hill, "Hill of Doves" in the Zulu language, located northeast of Volksrust, close to the Mpumalanga / KwaZulu-Natal border. It follows a southerly route into KwaZulu-Natal past Newcastle then turns southeast past Rorke's Drift, before joining the Tugela River at Ngubevu near Nkandla. During the nineteenth century it formed part of the boundary between the Colony of Natal and Zululand.
Maqhamusela Khanyile was the first South African Christian martyr.
John Ndevasia Muafangejo was a Namibian artist who became internationally known as a maker of woodcut prints. He created linocuts, woodcuts and etchings.
Wonderboy Nxumalo was a South African artist associated with the Ardmore Ceramics workshop.
Susan Collett RCA IAC is a Canadian artist in printmaking and ceramics. In 1986, she graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art, earning a B.F.A. in printmaking with a minor in ceramics.
Kagiso Patrick "Pat" Mautloa is a multi-media visual artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Catherine Yarrow was an English artist known for printmaking, painting, ceramics and pottery in a surrealist mode. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1925. The art historian Patricia Allmer has described her as 'one of the international figures of surrealism and its developments in the 1940s.'
Nesta Nala (1940-2005) was a Zulu-speaking artist working in the medium of clay.
Allina Ndebele is a South African artist and weaver known for her tapestries. She was born in Swart Mfolozi in KwaZulu Natal Province and after training to be a nurse se she secured a job as a translator for Peder and Ulla Gowenius who were in the process of setting up what was to be Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre. She quickly picked up weaving and studied in Sweden to become a teacher-weaver. She later went on to establish her own weaving studio, Khumalo's Kraal and obtained the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver in 2005. She still lives at Khumalo's Kraal today.
Sam Nhlengethwa is a South African creative collage artist and the co-founder of Bag Factory Artists' Studio.
Bongiwe or Bongi Dhlomo-Mautloa, is a Zulu South African printmaker, arts administrator and activist.
Elizabeth Deane Rankin is a South African–New Zealand fine arts academic, and is an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in neglected South African artists, and printmaking and sculpture.