His sculptures stop beach-goers in their tracks. His medium is sand and sea water, his only implements a trowel, a small plastic spray bottle, and a wooden ice-cream stick. Lee Currie meets an artist with a difference
Astonishingly, Mandla Mthembu sculpts with just his left hand, as his right hand is badly deformed. Yet for the past 12 years his sand sculptures have become a familiar attraction on Umhlanga beach, his daily exhibitions entertaining both locals and tourists.
His original spot was on main beach, near the lifeguards’ tower. Then the big seas in 2007 literally wiped out most of his working area and he was forced to move south, close to the lighthouse. What he lost in passing trade he gained by having a wider beach.
“There were a lot more people gathering at main beach, but I had a problem with the tide. Even before the storm there was not enough beach area and my sculptures were often washed away. Here the tide has to be very high to reach them,” he says.
Wildlife
Mandla’s exhibitions vary daily, though they usually depict some form of wildlife. His themes are often topical and on some days there’ll be a proverb, or a “bust” of a local personality. He almost always includes one or more of the Big Five, popular among tourists and, he admits, his own favourite too.
The inspiration for wildlife sculpture stems from a childhood spent on a game reserve in Zululand: “My father worked there and I used to love watching the wildlife. I guess the images just stayed in my head.”
Mandla discovered he had a talent for sand sculpture almost by chance. “I came to Durban from Richards Bay looking for work,” he remembers. “I wasn’t able to find a job and I was sitting on the beach one day idly playing with the sand, wondering what I was going to do to make a living. I carved out a crocodile and a man came up to me and told me that he thought it was very good. He gave me R20 and urged me to build a bigger crocodile! From then on I knew I had a way to earn some money, without even having to buy any equipment.”
Each exhibition takes Mandla about three to five hours. If the weather and tide has been kind, his creation stays largely intact overnight and just needs adding to, or tidying up the next day. He carves quickly and skillfully, continually spraying with seawater (he had a much bigger spray bottle but it was stolen) to make the sand malleable, drawing the finer touches – such as crocodile scales – with the ice-cream stick. He can just about manage to hold the spray bottle with his deformed hand. “I was born a conjoined twin,” he explains. “When the doctors separated us my brother died and I lost most of my right hand.”
Mandla has had little in the way of formal education or training (“I would love to have studied art”, he confesses) and relies on donations from the public. While an appreciative public is happy to contribute something, some take photos, ignoring the donation cup he has in place. Hot, sunny days are his best (though uncomfortable to work in), wind and rain his worst. Sometimes he arrives in the morning to find that thoughtless people have destroyed his work and he has to start again from scratch.
But he stays smiling and upbeat. After all, Durban weather is mostly brilliant, he has the World Cup visitors to look forward to and a bountiful supply of sea and sand.