2010 August

Swaziland Trip

August 10th, 2010

Yep. That’s me speaking to King Mswati III, King of Swaziland, Africa’s last remaining monarchy.

He came down and spoke to me after I had painted in front of him during Heart For Africa‘s Litsembe event. “Litsembe” (“hope” in Seswati) was an event that HFA conceived to be a sort of blessing event for Swaziland’s huge orphan population. Thousands of children came from various children’s homes and from the surrounding area. The event had multiple musical acts and performances… and once the king arrived, it became an very official affair.

I had been asked to paint at the event. The plan that morning is that I would paint on the stage across the field from the stands…. but right at the last minute I was told that I needed to grab all my stuff and I was to paint right in front of the grand stands where his majesty was seated. It was a very intense experience. Mostly cause you are not allowed to turn your back to the king… and as a painter you have your back constantly towards the viewer. So I side painted amidst the wind and the mid-day sun. But when the event ended, the king on his way to his police escorted vehicle, came over to where I was painting, asked me about the meaning of the painting, and invited me to teach how to paint so fast to people in his country. I said I would be happy to do so. We’ll see when that happens.

One of the reasons Holly and I decided to go on this trip is that we wanted to do something were we could respond in a way to the growing number of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. Especially in Swaziland, the number of new orphans is 4000 a month. This is due to the fact that Swaziland, which is the size of New Jersey, has 46% HIV infection rate in the country. The adult population is slowly diminishing which is leaving thousands of orphans and hundreds of orphan headed households. The country itself predicts that if nothing stops this trend that by 2020 the country will mostly consist of children and the elderly. Crazy.

As a painter, the way that I can respond the best is to tell stories and make art. So that was our idea of how we could help contribute to this disturbing situation. You can read more about the idea on orphanartproject.com but basically the project is to create artwork with orphans, tell their stories, and create product that can be sold to help fund the work of indigenous organizations that are doing good work in Swaziland.

So we spent time creating work with kids. Part of the most amazing and sobering aspects of this project is the realization that this was the first time to paint for most of these kids. And they ate it up. I mean imagine never having art class as you grew up… never even having crayons to use to make pictures. And to see the few kids who lighted up with the process… knowing that they would probably do this all the time if they could…. heartbreaking.

Anyway, I’m now in postproduction finishing off all the artwork and working on a short film about the whole endeavor. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going.

One final fun fact about our trip is that I ended up getting hired as the Second Unit Cameraman on a documentary that a friend of ours is helping to produce. They are making a movie about Swaziland…. on all the things I mentioned before… and looking at what Swazi’s are doing to stop this deadly journey. It was an awesome experience. I got to work with my new favorite persons: Helmut Schleppi, Elkin Antoniou, and Janna Fassaert…. and the film should be coming out in the winter of this year. I’ll keep you posted on that as well.