Before even entering Graham Jones’s home, one is made aware of the sheer beauty of his creative spirit. There are sure signs that nothing about Jones, sculptor and Richmond Hill resident for the past 30 years, is ordinary. An enormous fly, made from recycled materials, clings against the outside wall of the stoep, and next to the front door a concrete ear has been embedded in the wall.
“Visitors have to whisper the secret word into it before they enter,” Jones says, good-humouredly.
Once inside, the busy rooms are filled with Graham’s stories – some lived, others passed down, and a good few in the process of unfolding.
Not only the house itself, but also the cellar space, the wide balcony at the back (with a view over the bay), and his garden, are Jones’s workplaces and studios.
His fireplace is the heart of his home, where he was inspired to do his drawings when he was a young child.
“The hearth is typically the centre of the home and family – an ancient thing going way back in our distant, collective history; it gave rise to stories and mythology, playing into our fears, passions and hopes.”
Throughout his career, Graham has continuously created art conveying social commentary. Amongst his paintings (some hung upside down, representing a time when life felt somewhat upended), tools, equipment and work benches, various sculptures – made from (amongst other materials) wood, bronze, cement and cast iron – can be found.
Little Regret consists of a carved wood egret wrapped tightly in black bags, giving it a slick appearance, as if covered in oil. Commenting on the devastating impact that the modern world has on nature, this work – like many of his others – has been recreated over the years. As if floating on air from the balcony railing at the back, a sculpture of the ancient coelacanth with a tangle of fishing gut hanging from its mouth, reaches out towards the horizon. A tiny, sculpted owl – still in the making – perches on a branch. Some of Graham’s graceful female figures, some constituting parts of his series of Wind Girls, are eache encapsulated inside separate moments of freedom, a few leaning into the force of the wind that simultaneously supports them, every one of them graceful and proud. In Graham’s words, one can see “a subtle dance unfolding” from one artwork to the next.
His home also harbours many memories of days gone by. Two antique footstools covered in his mother’s tapestry, with ball and claw feet carved by her, flank his fireplace. A still-life of two yellow daises in a vase, painted by Jones even before art school, reminds him of the simple, meditative gesture of his father, regularly leaving two daisies by the front door of his childhood home.
As Jones’s spirit is firmly planted in the natural environment, his art work and acute sense of humanity are linked to his love of nature.
“It seems to me that aboriginal people had a deep respect for their natural world, and took no more than what was needed for their well-being.”
And this too is how Jones endeavours to live his everyday life.
“The source of my inspiration is essentially nature, her complex, yet simple, opposites,” he comments.
His home and garden are his sanctuaries, his close connection to nature being a grounding force.
We watch a shrike fly between the huge milkwood and stinkwood trees. The sun-baked remains of the bird’s small victims quiver in the slight breeze.
The white bones of a seagull that got entangled in a fishing line adorn a tree with its stark beauty. In the shade of a Mickey Mouse (Ochna Serrulata) bush, having originated from the third generation seed of one of his mother’s bonsai trees, rests one of Jones’s cast-iron art pieces.
So far Jones has planted 850 trees, over approximately 3 000m² in a rehabilitation project, removing alien trees and cacti for indigenous ones typical of the area.
“My garden and planting trees are my church and my gym. Trees are amazing. You think you’ll never see it grow into a big tree in your lifetime. Then, sometimes, you grow a few extra grey hairs, turn around and that tree has grown taller than you.”
This is where his heart is, where the fire within gets ignited and allows him to give back to nature. It is a continuous, grateful exchange and interdependence.
I leave with a handful of marjoram from Jones’s front garden, and a renewed awareness of how connecting to nature can help us connect to ourselves and enable us to reach out to others.
“Perhaps we need to sit together by a fireside and contemplate what has gone before to create a new story,” says Graham.
