Week 18 – Day 6 – Around Town

by shellgren | Posted on May 9, 2015May 11, 2015

The Spring Auburn Art Walk happened tonight (Just love the poster). I had been wanting to go to it for weeks. So, of course, we are out for dinner and away from town when my phone beeps and I see I have a Facebook update from Auburn Valley Creative Arts saying “Having fun at Zolas.” Zolas is a coffee shop in Auburn that was to be a stop on the art walk. Oh crap! We forgot! We finished dinner and made it home for the last two hours of the event.

Art Walk (think I went to high school with him)

Dang! I never plan on buying anything but always do. We brought home a large metal crow feather created by Greg Bartol. Not sure where it will go, but we will find space. Greg is the one who created the life-sizes ostrich in town that is made from knives, forks, and spoons.

ostrich and child

As we went from place to place exploring art we also went into a few stores we have not been in before. One of them was Vintage Antiques & Custom Picture Framing. D’Arcy and I both saw the register at the cash wrap at about the same time. Just beautiful. Had to take a picture or two of that. The only problem with a register like this is you almost need to know how to add.

the register

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The Great Escarpment goes from the northeast of South Africa and swings in a wide semicircle down to the south and then back to the northwest corner of the country. It separates the high central plateau of South Africa from the coastal areas.

Wikipedia has a great image of this.

The Highveld is basically between 5,000 and 6,800 feet in elevation and is part of the central plateau in South Africa. The Lowveld is lower than about 500 meters (1,650 feet). It is basically to the east and northeast of the central plateau. And yes, if you are wondering, there is a middleveld. It is more often referred to as the Bushveld.

The Highveld is basically between 5,000 and 6,800 feet in elevation and is part of the central plateau in South Africa. The Lowveld is lower than about 500 meters (1,650 feet). It is basically to the east and northeast of the central plateau. And yes, if you are wondering, there is a middleveld. It is more often referred to as the Bushveld.

While the highveld is more like a prairie of grasses and the lowveld is grassland with scrubby brush and occasional trees, the bushveld is, amazingly, kind of between them. The bushveld is grassy lands with lots of patches of tall bushes and trees.

At least that is how I would describe them.

Daylin Paul is a fantastic photographer. A collection of his images is called Broken Land. From the October 6, 2019, Sunday Times:
“…the collection begins with aerial photographs of the seemingly legendary natural beauty of the province before Paul’s lens zooms ever closer in for a look at the realities on the ground.
“There pollution is rampant; those who are not lucky enough to find employment in the power industry are forced into dangerous subsistence mining for survival and many residents of towns and informal settlements that abut the power stations are without a proper water or electricity supply and suffer from diseases such as TB.”
Paul is quoted in the article as saying that the connection the indigenous people had to the land is broken. “Now the land is just a place where you put up a house or you dig for something.”
The article continues a bit later with this statement: “When Paul hears US President Donald Trump talking about ‘clean coal’, his experiences in Mpumalanga lead him to react with disdain and outrage because ‘there’s no such thing’.”
The whole article, and its images, was simply stunning. You can read it here, but you must be a subscriber to the paper first.
But better yet, you can see Paul’s own website to see the collection of images called Broken Land here: https://www.daylinpaul.com/broken-land

I had heard from people about the issues with the power industry in South Africa, but didn’t know how severe it was. As one person related to me, “the president has taken a lot of money from the coal power industry. The bribes were there to keep the industry free from too many regulations.” Or as one watchdog group there says, “Public procurement is particularly prone to corruption, and bribery thrives at the central government level.”

I am talking about South Africa, of course. I know nothing like that happens in the States.

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