What Eric Xakawe would really love to do is open an art school in his community to help children find themselves and make something beautiful. He may have the chance to start working on such a project in about three years from now if he qualifies for early release.
The former Station Hill, Port Alfred resident is serving the third year of his 10-year sentence in Grahamstown Correctional Centre. He is one of the artists whose work is on display at the facility’s Arts and Crafts Gallery, opened by the National Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale recently.
For Xakawe, the day the arts and crafts workshop opened at Waainek, as the facility is better known, a window opened from the emotionally dark place that the consequences of his crime had created.
“Being in prison is like looking in a mirror,” said Xakawe, “It’s very difficult and you get depressed and frustrated.
“But it’s also an opportunity to grow up and to learn.”
When the light began to filter through for Xakawe, so did memories of his childhood.
“Since I was small, I used to draw,” he said. “People really encouraged me and they used to hire me to do signwriting for their shops.”
Xakawe says alcohol played a major role in the crime that saw him locked up and he feels he’s got a lot to share with others – about art, but also about life.
“You know, if you make mistakes often enough, they become normal and you will eventually get caught out. But once you get here, you realize, ‘But I don’t belong here’.”
Xakawe hopes to qualify for early release from his 10-year sentence and if he does, he says, it would mean a lot to him to share his love for art with the children in his home suburb, Station Hill.
The little gallery where Xakawe’s paintings are on display alongside sculptures, beadwork, traditional attire and crafts, is light, airy, peaceful and a far cry from its previous life as a dingy store room.
Most of the work there is made by offenders who are still young so the effect and impact of this intervention will matter for a long time from now.
The project is run in partnership with the National Arts Festival, Makana Municipality, the South African Police Service and the Department of Sport Recreation Arts and Culture.
In his address at the opening, the National Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), Makgothi Thobakgale, said said this was in the spirit of cooperative governance and in line with the district development model.
The Grahamstown Arts and Crafts Centre is the fifth such centre to be launched by the Department. The sixth was to be launched the next day in KwaZulu-Natal. Together with sport, they are core to its self sufficiency and sustainability strategy for offenders.
“We were given a directive by the Minister to develop the arts and crafts side of rehabilitation and corrections programmes to ensure that the offenders in our care do not spend time in our correctional facilities without developing, without growing, without changing,” said Thobakgale. “We identify and develop talent and position inmates to be competitive when they go back into the world.”
“We are saying to our offenders, you are ready to interact with the community by showing your talent. After you’ve served your sentence, you don’t have to fall prey to crimes that are committed from an economic motive.
“But apart from that, there is a lot of power in art,” Thobakgale said. “That power is being able to teach others and benefit the community.”
South Africa’s prison population was not decreasing, Thobakgale said.
“The trend suggests that the situation is not about to change, unless deliberate efforts are made to empower citizens with diverse skill sets. In our correctional centres, inmates are being prepared for opportunities where they can self-employ instead of being jobseekers.
“Inmates have a right to take their fate and future into their own hands. The arts has given many people hope and prospects of a better future.”
Thobakgale cited celebrated artist Blessing Ngobeni, who left home at the age of 10 and got mixed up with a bad crowd. He was 15 when he was arrested for robbery and spent nearly six years behind bars.
“While incarcerated, Blessing took a decision to reform his life,” Thobakgale said.
Ngobeni first completed his matric, then went on to discover art.
“I do believe that there are many Blessings that we have produced and can still produce.”
Because they might be important for someone reading this, Xakawe’s closing words are, “Please listen when people offer you good advice. People like your parents, your family. Do things that can help you grow as a person. It might not be too late to do something good if you end up here – but spending time here might be detrimental to your future.”
The Grahamstown Arts and Crafts Gallery will eventually be open to members of the public to view and buy from; however a number of arrangements would have to be put in place first, staff at the facility told Talk of the Town. This would likely be during the National Arts Festival.
