FACET and South African artist Gerhard Deetlefs Host Sculpture Workshops

While FACET and The Pebbles Project continue to search for land for the next Graff Leadership Centre, a series of sculpture workshops have been set up for the children involved in the programme courtesy of South African artist Gerhard Deetlefs. 

The workshops take place every second Saturday with lunch served, where the children create designs out of wax, from jewellery to animal statues.  The wax designs are then given time to harden from which molds are made, and filled with hot liquid bronze, which the children can then take home and display proudly.  Says Deetlefs, “The sights, sounds and smells of a working foundry are fascinating for the children.  What has impressed me most is the unusual ways in which the children approach the making of a sculpture object. I have seen some really out-of-the-box thinking that has astounded me at times”.

The workshops have given the children an opportunity to explore an art medium they might never have been exposed to otherwise, and the children have all really enjoyed the continuing workshops, which have illustrated a wider point about FACET’s work.  As FACET and all its partners in sub-Saharan Africa give time, resources and opportunities to children who are in real need, the children themselves give back just as much.

The goal of the Graff Leadership Centre in South Africa will be to enrich the lives of children from disadvantaged backgrounds with special educational needs, especially those whose lives are affected by alcohol, and to establish after-school provision for older children living in the Winelands. 

[Gerhard Deetlefs is devoted to increasing awareness of social injustice and is committed to using his artistic voice to speak for those who endure the horrors of sexual exploitation; Deetlefs envisions his work as a campaign to awaken social consciousness. While contemporary South African art remains socially aware, Deetlefs aims to use his work as a poignant display which provokes its audience to become an advocate for change.]