Fiyani John ‘Johanni’ Masondo

Born in 1965, Fiyani John Masondo, who signs as Johanni, has spent most of his life as a farm labourer, picking up skills that are never put to use, although they would make an impressive CV. Farm labourers, of course, don’t get to have CVs. They have a temporary existence, based on temporary jobs, with long spells of nothing in between.

Two of Fiyani’s employers were murdered – which meant the end of work. Other jobs were seasonal or affected by the market slump. He’s not a talkative person, so one has to work alongside him, digging in a field, to discover the wide range of knowledge he has acquired about farming. His experience has been diverse and practical. He’s learnt and observed – and lost another job.
In 1999, during another spell of unemployment, Fiyani signed on for temporary work with a poverty relief programme, clearing land for the plough. When that work came to an end, he joined a copper wire class, sitting with twelve-year-olds and learning from the beginning.

It wasn’t easy for a man with such a strong sense of manhood. He is independent, stubborn, slow, and methodical – and he faltered learning to bead (traditionally seen as a woman’s activity). He would come into his own with the use of brass beads on copper baskets for metal is perceived as a male element. Fiyani was comfortable with brass, a ‘male’ decoration – heavy and assertive, forged out of rock.

Necessity has made him come to terms with glass beads, and his skilled coloured beading has drawn admiration from the women. But that’s a necessity. His real love is metal – and his best work is metal with no beading at all.

Text adapted from correspondence between Creina Alcock and Julia Meintjes, 2011.

Fiyani John ‘Johanni’ Masondo

Born in 1965, Fiyani John Masondo, who signs as Johanni, has spent most of his life as a farm labourer, picking up skills that are never put to use, although they would make an impressive CV. Farm labourers, of course, don’t get to have CVs. They have a temporary existence, based on temporary jobs, with long spells of nothing in between.

Two of Fiyani’s employers were murdered – which meant the end of work. Other jobs were seasonal or affected by the market slump. He’s not a talkative person, so one has to work alongside him, digging in a field, to discover the wide range of knowledge he has acquired about farming. His experience has been diverse and practical. He’s learnt and observed – and lost another job.
In 1999, during another spell of unemployment, Fiyani signed on for temporary work with a poverty relief programme, clearing land for the plough. When that work came to an end, he joined a copper wire class, sitting with twelve-year-olds and learning from the beginning.

It wasn’t easy for a man with such a strong sense of manhood. He is independent, stubborn, slow, and methodical – and he faltered learning to bead (traditionally seen as a woman’s activity). He would come into his own with the use of brass beads on copper baskets for metal is perceived as a male element. Fiyani was comfortable with brass, a ‘male’ decoration – heavy and assertive, forged out of rock.

Necessity has made him come to terms with glass beads, and his skilled coloured beading has drawn admiration from the women. But that’s a necessity. His real love is metal – and his best work is metal with no beading at all.

Text adapted from correspondence between Creina Alcock and Julia Meintjes, 2011.

Mgongo Ngubane

Gregarious, full of sparkle, and hungry for learning, Mgongo Ngubane is certainly one of those people life would have pushed ahead if he were given a real chance to fulfil himself. He has an innate sense of style and aesthetics, and could be a stonemason with his wonderful sense of rhythm and rock. Yet, crafts are the best he has, and he makes the best of it.

He has become a master weaver in the Threads of Africa Project, developing incredible expertise at working finely with all the metals and testing and developing new patterns. Metals have different densities, and work-harden differently. Ngubane is highly-skilled at keeping pattern-detail while maintaining even tension as he weaves each of the metals being used in a single item. He has woven the largest bowl yet created for Threads of Africa, a 28cm beauty in sterling silver and coated copper wire weighing over 1kg. Another of his bowls was exhibited at the Revelations International Fine Craft and Creation Biennial in Paris in 2019.

Mgongo Ngubane was a young boy when his father was killed in Johannesburg. So, early on, Mgongo was always one of the ‘men’; a little boy who tagged along with older guys in the very remote rural area of KwaZulu Natal where the weavers live. Born in 1984, he’s never been to school, and despite his hunger for learning, literacy classes in Mdukatshani never lasted long, but Mgongo has become more and more fluent in English, and is a great ambassador for the project.

Threads of Africa is a collaboration between Julia Meintjes Fine Art and the Mdukatshani Development Trust. Ngubane is one of the weavers who has travelled to Johannesburg to weave in gold wire at the factory, which makes wire for the project, and to the Threads of Africa exhibitions in Cape Town and at Kim Sacks Gallery, Johannesburg.

(Creina Alcock and Julia Meintjes).

Text adapted from correspondence between the Mdukatshani Trust and JMFA, 2011.