Artist reconsiders his decision to close art school

The multi-talented artist, Lucky Ntimani, announced a fortnight ago that he was shutting down his Tinyiko Art School in Mbhokota village, near Elim, after he had experienced years of endless financial exhaustion and exploitation.

After Limpopo Mirror carried the story a fortnight ago, readers started phoning Ntimani, offering words of encouragement to him and the children who were benefiting from the art school. “I received calls 'left and right', and all callers said that they were heartbroken to hear that I had committed myself to transferring art skills to other people for many years, using money from my own pocket, and still had nothing to show for it,” he said. “They also said they were saddened by the fact that I was closing the art school and quitting teaching art.”

Readers begged him not to quit but to consider seeking other avenues to fund his art school.

“I had also already informed all my art learners that I would not be continuing with the art school, but the majority of them kept walking into the schoolyard, hanging on the walls and roaming around all day long,” he said. “They looked sad, and it pained me.”

When Limpopo Mirror visited Tinyiko Art School last Wednesday, some youngsters were sitting on the chairs and walls, chatting among themselves.

“What do you do when children insist on coming for lessons? Do you chase them away?” he asked. “The insistence of children and the calls that I received from readers had made me to reconsider my decision to shut down Tinyiko Art School. I will be continuing to teach the children art, hoping that God will one day open up his flood of funding to enable me to buy art materials and also get a reasonable salary out of it.”

Although only a few art learners in the music discipline were there during the newspaper's visit, they were able to play some live music for a moment.

Tinyiko Art School is not a qualification-based school, but an expertise-acquired school that teaches art in different disciplines to more than 270 children each year.

Ntimani can be phoned on 063 720 3114.

News - Date: 01 December 2019

Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

Email: [email protected]