South African artist Carol Cauldwell
We caught up with one of South Africa’s most talented sculptors, Carol Cauldwell, to learn more about her life and craft. Cauldwell was born in Germiston, South Africa. She was inspired by her father’s love of art.
Why did you become a sculptor?
It’s probably the one thing I always knew I would do. I was always fascinated by foundries and bronze sculptures. I excelled in anything 3D from an early age.
From the age of about 25, I remember being kept awake many a night imagining sculptures I wanted to make in my head. Once I started I would lie awake for hours on end.
In my twenties, I remember saying that I would make my name in the business world, and then when I turned 40 I would start sculpting. The first bit didn’t really go to plan, but I started my journey towards bronze sculpting at 40.
I studied ceramics after school where I excelled in sculpture but chose the production route and slowly built my factory up to hand painting up to 4000 units per day for one of our chain stores. It was the 1990s when coloured plates were in vogue. It was a fun time. Sadly, I lost that factory in 2000. It was at the time that a lot of the bigger potteries around the world were shut down because of the rise of Chinese imports. We just couldn’t compete.
It was really difficult to lose and I swore I would never touch clay again, At the time I would tell people I was cured of that horrible disease and didn’t touch clay for about 12 years.
I was creatively exhausted at that time and had no idea what I liked or disliked. I had been fulling the market needs for too long. I took on painting Greek Orthodox icons in the Byzantine style. I painted a few churches here at that time. There is no room for individuality there. It is such a strict discipline. I loved the journey and I was able to quietly heal a lot of wounds.
Then I bought myself a woodturning course for my 40th birthday. I enjoyed turning immensely but I conquered the discipline a little too quickly and soon found it all a little bit too round and brown for me. I yearned for the flexibility that I found in clay. It’s also a very slow process, there is little demand and you simply can’t sell an item for what it is worth in the hours spent making it.
Then on a random day, I had a bit of time to kill and popped in to see the top gallery in Johannesburg, just to see what they had on display. I remember walking into the room. It was blacked out and they had about 30 individual spotlights from the roof each pointing down at a sculpture. It was spectacular.
I remember gasping so loud in sheer shock at the beauty of the exhibition. I was mesmerised. I went straight downstairs and asked somebody for the name of a foundry to use and went straight and bought some clay and started my journey. When I opened that first bag of clay I burst into tears. I had missed it so much. I haven’t looked back.
I was struggling to decide what to make as my first sculpture. I visited a few foundries then to discuss what I needed to do. I remember saying to someone at a foundry that I didn’t know what to make. He replied: ‘Stop thinking so much! Just start and do something. The rest will follow’ It was such good advice. I decided to remake the last sculpture I had made at college and the rest just poured out.
What mediums do you work in, and why?
Everything gets bronzed. I find it an incredible medium. It’s permanent. So permanent that the archaeologists will find it. I don’t have a single ceramic sculpture left. They have all slowly broken over the years.
I love that it goes to a foundry and comes out a little differently than I had planned most times. Very much like putting a pot in a kiln to be glazed. The surprise element is what gets you hooked.
I mostly make the originals in a water-based sculpture clay. I like that it is so forgiving. You can take away and add at lib. I am really bad at planning what I make. My armatures are always wrong, and I am forever changing them.
Most of my sculptures land up on the floor only to be started from scratch a few times before I am happy with them. As much as I hate it, I have learned to accept that is how it will probably always be.
A good friend of mine will always comment that it will be a good sculpture once it’s fallen a few times. I learn a lot each time and normally get it back to where it was within a few hours.
I make my own moulds and sometimes my own waxes too and send them to be cast at the foundry.
To what extent have your life experiences influenced your work?
I think everyone’s art is 100% influenced by their experiences. When I first started sculpting I was in an incredibly hard marriage. My sculptures at that time had really dark humour attached to them. Sculpture was my refuge.
Normally someone or something would make me angry and I’d translate it into a sculpture. There can’t be much better therapy than that!
Then life got a bit easier and I met the art dealer I have at the moment. He changed the way I look at sculpture. They don’t have quirky titles anymore and are sculptures in their own right. ‘A sculpture for the sake of a sculpture.’
What theme/s do you pursue in your work, if any, and why?
Life has become incredibly hard for a lot of people especially here in South Africa. We are all bombarded by so much negativity all day.
I think I have knee-jerked this reality by trying to make something with a ‘feel-good’ feeling about it. People need to laugh and smile a bit more.
I try to make works that will tug on some form of nostalgia in a person. Nothing gives me more joy than a comment from somebody that my sculptures make them remember parts of their childhood.
It’s a really good feeling for me to quietly stand back and watch people take photos with my work. It happens a lot in the galleries.
What do you see as the strengths of your pieces, visually or conceptually?
Scale is very important to me. I spend a lot of time deciding how small or big a piece needs to be. I’d like to think they are strong compositionally with good lines both positive and negative.
I turn my pieces constantly while I sculpt. They need to work in the round. That’s why they are so hard to photograph.
I get comments so often that they are so much nicer in reality than in a photo. I’d like to believe that is true.
What are you trying to communicate with your art?
That there is so much goodness in the world. If we look it’s there.
What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to?
Form is the most important. They need to own their space allotted to them.
The patinas are very important. I give Carlo at the foundry carte blanche with the patination of my work. He is my ‘kiln’ I’ll send him photos of what I have in mind then leave him. Sometimes they don’t come out as I had thought they would, but we make a series of between 8 and 15 of all of them so we can always change in the next one.
Would you tell us some things about yourself? Please include a few little known facts about you as well, thank you.
I am from a family of six and one of an identical twin. There is a theory that you will always get a scientist and an artist in every twin. (one right and one left brain) we both did well in academics and art but we have each chosen our side. Lynn, my twin sister, has her PhD in pharmacology and I sculpt.
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
Everywhere! Life is so full of inspiration. I wish I had time to make all the ideas I have in my head. There are so many.
Who are your typical clients? What do they appreciate the most about your work?
The main gallery I supply is in Franschhoek in Cape Town. It’s a spectacularly beautiful tourist town in the winelands of the Cape. It attracts a lot of tourists which means I am privileged to have my work all over the world.
I’d say 60% of my work is scattered around the world and 40% is here in South Africa.
I’d say my work resonates with some bit of nostalgia in most of the people that own a piece.
I see them placed in beautiful gardens around the world.
I fell in love with your sculptures after seeing a few pictures on Facebook. Which is your most cherished piece, and why?
I suppose I’m normally attached to the latest piece I’ve done. I am so happy with the way my moongazing froggies have turned out. They were originally going to be a male and female with crowns but it changed one afternoon to what it is now.
It’s so wonderful to watch the overwhelming attention it has received on social media.
But for me, my most important work is the first rabbit I made. I had always made a mix of humans and animals but this was different. My art dealer suggested I look at Alice in Wonderland and I made that. It’s the piece that changed the trajectory of my work.
What other interests do you have apart from sculpting?
I have a few. I actually went to art school for music in std 6 and changed over to art in Std 7. I still play my piano a lot and dabble with classical guitar. I love to sing and my two daughters both sing, so we have a very musical and sometimes too noisy house.
My 12-year-old daughter sings opera like an adult. Raw God-given talent, so we have a lot of opera playing at home.
I am passionate about South African bulbs. South African fauna and flora are in a league of their own. I started a bulb society years ago. Life got a bit too busy to keep running it, but I still collect as many as I can. I love a beautiful garden.
Fitness is important to me. I did Crossfit for many years, but injuries got the better of me so had to take a break. I am busy getting back into it. It keeps the filing cabinet in my head nice and neat. My younger daughter does gymnastics so we permanently have cartwheels and handstands happening, we’re always trying something new.
What role does the artist have in society?
I think they are one of the many barometers of a healthy society. A healthy society is one where artists thrive.
The arts as a whole are vital to the well being of a very large portion of society. We would die psychologically without it.
What, for you, is the most rewarding part of your art?
The actual creation is vital to my wellbeing. I need to create to function properly. It’s therapy for me. My happy place.
The positive reaction I get once it’s put onto the market is really rewarding and the thought that so many people have parted with so much money to own them is the most incredible feeling. I am blessed.
What do you think about the South African art community and the market for art?
Having travelled a bit, I can comfortably say the South African art community is one of the strongest I have seen. Our contemporary art is of a very high standard.
Life is getting increasingly difficult here and sadly the government we have at the moment doesn’t support the arts at all so a lot of us have fallen on hard times. But it is still vibrant.
Cape Town is fast establishing itself as one of the art capitals of the world. If art is what a person wants to see, I can highly recommend a visit.
What else are you working on at the moment? Next projects?
I spent most of 2019 making a 5m tall rabbit. It is beautiful. I am so proud of it. I am busy making it in resin at the moment and it should be installed in Franschhoek before the end of the year. I am so excited to finally see that happening. Let’s hope we get a few people that would like to have one from different corners of the world. It is so big that it has an incredibly calming effect on people looking at it. I so look forward to standing back and watching people interact with it.
I have just finished another rabbit with a dandelion that will be moulded in the next few weeks and am busy starting a water feature that I think will work very well. Let’s see if I’m able to make it a reality. It’s proving a lot more of a challenge than I had expected.
How can our readers find your work?
My work is exhibited at the Grande Provence wine estate in Franschhoek, Cape Town but they can contact me through my Facebook page if they are interested.
I would so love to exhibit my work in galleries around the world. I hope I am able to sign up a few more galleries in the future.
Some short questions now:
What part of South Africa were you born?
Germiston, Gauteng. Near Johannesburg.
Favourite textures?
Bronze of course! But nothing beats a fury blanket in winter.
Favourite artists?
Camille Claudel has to be my biggest inspiration. She must’ve been a wonderful person. It’s so sad that she destroyed most of her work. The world is a lot emptier without it.
There are so many incredible artists alive at the moment. To isolate one would be too difficult.
Favourite African authors?
Deon Meyer, Dalene Matthee, Zakes Mda.
Favourite African musicians?
There are so many fantastic Afrikaans musicians at the moment!
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Soweto gospel choir, Johnny Clegg, Pretty Yende…
Favourite African movie?
Not a big movie fan. Can’t sit down for that long.
Favourite African food?
Braaivleis and Potjie.
What does being an African mean to you?
Everything. My bones belong to this soil. I think once you have tasted Africa your heart will always yearn to be back. It’s a magical place.
I pity the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people that have left for greener pastures. It must be unspeakably difficult for so many of them.
Website: I have my old work on art.co.za/carolhamman but I don’t have a website with my newer work on. Most of it is posted on my Facebook page Carol Cauldwell Sculpture.
Note to readers: You, too, will fall in love with Carol Cauldwell’s Franco the Tree Frog.
