Christine Marais a natural artist.Christine Marais is what many of us would aspire to aspire to verb aim for, desire, pursue, hope for, long for, crave, seek out, wish for, dream about, yearn for, hunger for, hanker after, be eager for, set your heart on, set your sights on, be ambitious for be--at 71, she is the picture of vitality, with talent, a good sense of humour Noun 1. sense of humour - the trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the humorous; "she didn't appreciate my humor"; "you can't survive in the army without a sense of humor" sense of humor, humor, humour and a driving passion for what she does. Currently working on her 16th book and having just held her 37th solo exhibition, age is definitely not getting in the way of this determined woman. Christine has been an active author and illustrator since 1979, when she published her first book, Swakopmund our Heritage, which focused on the colonial architecture Colonial architecture: see American architecture. of Swakopmund and formed part of a trilogy that included titles on Luderitz and Windhoek. Best known for her evocative ink-and-wash wildlife and landscape paintings, she is a living legend Living Legend may refer to:
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Christine has also teamed up with various writers to bring Namibian fauna to the layperson lay·per·son n. A layman or a laywoman. Noun 1. layperson - someone who is not a clergyman or a professional person layman, secular , with books such as Etosha Experience (1995), which she co-authored with her daughter Anna Louise, and Birding in Namibia (1999), a joint project with Eckart Demasius. She joined forces with Dr Gabi Schneider, director of the Geological Survey The term geological survey can be used to describe both the conduct of a survey for geological purposes and an institution holding geological information. A geological survey , to publish the recent Passage through Time: The Fossils of Namibia (2005) and also has a few children's books to her name including The Dancing Millipede millipede (mĭl`əpēd'), elongated arthropod having many body segments and pairs of legs. Millipedes, sometimes termed thousand-legged worms, have two pairs of legs on each body segment except the first few and the last. and Leonard the Landrover. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 1996, the Namibian Children's Book Forum awarded Christine a medal and she also received the Namibisch Deutsche Stiftung Prize for Illustration. Born in Bloemfontein, she received a BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand Due to the 1959 Extension of University Education Act the school was only allowed to register a small number of black students for most of the apartheid era, even though several notable black anti-apartheid leaders graduated from the university. in Johannesburg. She moved to Swakopmund with her geologist husband and three children in 1976, where she developed a deep fascination and respect for her new environment, particularly the Namib Desert Namib Desert Desert region, extending 1,200 mi (1,900 km) from Namibe, Angola, along the entire coast of Namibia to the Olifants River in South Africa. It is an almost rainless area, 50–80 mi (80–130 km) wide over most of its length, traversed by rail lines . Despite her prolific career as an artist and art teacher in South Africa and Namibia, Christine is humble and averse to publicity. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I just sit and paint in Swakopmund. I'm a desert rat," she says with her trademark directness and honesty. "I paint for myself, to renew my soul." Once a week she heads into the desert with other members of the Desert Sketching Club, which comprises some of her former students, all women except for one man. "So often I say: 'Aren't we lucky to live just five minutes' drive from the Namib.' I love it. It is such a special place and it is different every time we go out there." Next Easter, the Desert Sketching Club will hold an exhibition at the coastal town "celebrating 30 years of painting together." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Christine, a widow since the early 1990s, has a passion that is clearly contagious. Both her daughters did art for matric n. 1. admission to a group (especially a college or university). Noun 1. matric - admission to a group (especially a college or university) matriculation , although Anna Louise was more inclined to the sciences and now practices as a vet, and son Otto is a mining engineer. Daughter Nicky followed closely in her mother's footsteps and is a freelance artist and the curator of the John Muafangejo Art Gallery in the capital. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Now a grandmother of six, Christine Marais is far from considering 'retirement' from her art, but she also knows how to unwind. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I enjoy gardening and it helps me to relax. My garden looks like my paintings," she says, gazing out from Nicky's verandah in Windhoek. Her eyes, however, are not focusing on the wonderful indigenous garden before us, but on the far distance, about 350km away, in the Namib. |
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