First blog post

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Due to a concurrence of circumstances I now have the opportunity to re-invent myself. I have a B.Mus degree majoring in violin and have spent many years teaching other peoples’ children. I really enjoyed doing that, because I love working with children and I had an exceptionally good training as a violinist.

However, the performing part of being a violinist never really suited me. I am much happier when I paint or draw. I have been drawing since I can remember and attended an art school after hours throughout my school going years.

My oil paintings gradually became part of my income. When my son was born, I no longer needed to teach, since my husband, Heinrich, had a good income.  He often worked 17 hour days; he never saw our garden grow! We had moved to the country side and he left at four in the morning to get to town for work and returned after dark. Which gave me the opportunity to spend all my time and knowledge and the energy I was used to spending on many, many pupils, on my own child. What a delight!

My son, now thirteen years old, is a very special young man. They call it “gifted”, a term which makes me feel uncomfortable. It smacks of “my child’s better  than your’s”. People tend to be unsupportive when they are confronted with this term. I wish people would realise that a gifted child and the parents have to deal with as many difficulties as people with any other “different/special” child. After a short stint at private school, then government school and much frustration, we started homeschooling him after grade 5 (11 years old). A couple of months into working through an online distance school, we gave that up as a waste of time and Hein took over. Having taught Maths before, this was right up his alley.

Remember video tapes which you could fastforward? I think Hein has a fastforward button somewhere in his system. When he needs to work, for instance, he buckles down, concentrates and gets it done faster than one can imagine. He can do that with any amount of noise and disruption around him (perhaps his experience as an air force pilot has something to do with it). This is what they did with school. He put Hjalmar through high school in two years and they are now preparing for Cambridge A-levels in October.

Now the fun starts. He did so well in his IGCSE exams at 12 years of age, that he was offered the Vice-Chancellor and Principal’s Merit Award at the University where he is going to study. This bursary  will cover all fees for his B.Sc. Physics degree, starting next year. We now need to move to the other side of the country, since at fourteen he will be too young to live on his own.

To finance this move, we need to start a new business over there. We are starting an Enrichment Center to teach (among others) art, which is no longer part of our school syllabus as it used to be. I can teach art full time!

When Hjalmar no longer saw his school friends once he started homeschooling, I arranged free art classes every Saturday for those (of his friends) who were interested. We provided eats and drinks during breaks and Hjalmar had a party every week. I discovered that I enjoy teaching art as much as I enjoyed teaching music.

Hence metamorphosis; from musician to artist. The slight reference to Kafka is due to my stint as musician which didn’t quite make sense to me.