Don’t touch me on my studio, mense!

Trigger warning: this article was written while “watching" the 10th-anniversary concert of Les Misérables.

IT'S HARD to work out if I had a personality change because of Vrye Weekblad 3.0 or because I am a woman over 50 who is gatvol of being a handlanger. It had been coming for a while though; my entire being overtaken by a gallery of gifs with less and less discipline or desire to keep them on the inside. But as I slid from VWB 2.0 (buitestander) to VWB 3.0 (binnekring), the words of that one-eared snowflake genius named Vincent were relatable:

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”
“Ek sal eerder sterf van passie as van verveling."

In the predictable landscape of old-school media with their “scoops” and their pandering to stale Afrikaner voices in a 1997-format of Gallo Images © photograph meets headline meets drop cap; that clickbait formula designed to keep you addicted to mediocrity and the status quo: Ain’t nobody at VWB got time for that.

Korreksie: Ons wou die klieks hê, maar die aas was uniek, dapper, gehalte binne 'n visuele fees wat die ervaring onvergeetlik sou maak. Doelwitte!

Not every writer is an artist like Franz Kafka whose illustration depicting the anguish of the writing process is so utterly breathtaking that it folds you in half (te siene in die oë van kollegas tydens die redaksievergadering op Maandagoggende). And others like Tennessee Williams, Breyten Breytenbach, Victor Hugo and Sylvia Plath (her first calling was to be an artist) whose artworks need no words.

Vrye Weekblad’s rich, avante garde, layered, in-your-face visual ancestry has always been a personal beacon for me; not least of all because it was woke/woke-ish Boere who set the tone but also because it challenged the boundaries between words and images. Respek!

The creative tension between writers and artist-designers is not new or unwelcome; it is necessary. It is this push-me pull-me that shreds the ego of “I am a Writer” (capital W, bold) and “I am an artiste” (with an “e”, italics) to tell a story. It’s a utopian collaboration that requires both riders to consider the other on the see-saw. It hardly ever works because most Writers believe that their words have the power to stop traffic and the artiste is like, dude, I took the detour. I will find you in the traffic.

Will the Writers in the room please stand?

Will the artistes in the room please stand?

[Sidebar 1: I can highly recommend writing about the demise and last weeks of a courageous brand you live for while listening to Les Misérables at the Royal Albert Hall, October 1995.]

These days the binnekring of Vrye Weekblad is like a scene from Les Misérables (sadly not the pub scene) mixed with the anxiety and absurdity of Kafka, and Plath’s confessional poetry pretty much all recited by albino terrorists. In Afrikaans. Not A Streetcar Named Desire except for that part where Blanche DuBois “loses her grip on reality as she fails to get what it is she most desires”.

Full disclosure: I experience the world in still and moving pictures with dinkborrels and even running commentary. Storyboards form when people speak or even when a thought lands in my brain. At times images and scenes play out in recognisable voices, such as those of Woody Allen, Maya Angelou, Bart Simpson, my mother, John Cleese, Pik Botha; of willekeurige vreemdelinge bied hulself aan in baie spesifieke uitrustings. Dit klink dalk meer kranksinnig as wat dit werklik is. Meestal.

So, stel jou voor dat jy 'n betaalde werk aangebied word wat direk aanspreek wie jy is? An actual job description that demands that you create visuals to illustrate the written word. Pah-rah-dys. Do what you love, they said.

[Sidebar 2: Strictly speaking, VWB 3.0 should be viewed in Three Acts: The Beginning, The Middle and The End. “An actual job description” only had a bit part in The Beginning.]

The online Monday morning editorial meetings are critical to planning our next edition but there are few guarantees. Think therapy session; by which I mean there may or may not be breakthroughs, there may be random tears and inappropriate laughter to mask private and public challenges, there will be intermittent Wi-Fi for some, blank stares, monologues, taking of notes, mini outbursts, side stories, and awkward silences. But there will always be the arrival of dogs and Deborah’s cat, Skat, and there will always be Max holding us together: Kom nou mense.

My internal script is always visual: Why is newbie Celeste speaking to us from a sidewalk café dressed in a flowing red dress wearing red lipstick and drinking a takeaway coffee? What is that painting behind Ali? When did Willem shave off his bokbaardjie? Why is Max’s Moshoeshoe artwork not on the wall? Where is Deb? (at the front gate meeting a courier from publishers). Why does Laureen set her background to the Eiffel Tower when she is the décor queen?

Me:

As everyone presents their story proposals for the week (except Deborah because like all Employees of the Year she works a week in advance. Verbeel jou!) my mind starts creating images with an internal running commentary that includes: Please not that again. Ooooo lovely. Never gonna happen. This comes to fruition on Wednesday night or Thursday morning with a WhatsApp that reads:

“My storie het nie uitgewerk nie. Ek gaan iets anders doen. Sal laat weet.”

JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL. The Writer is now tortured and the artiste must wait by the phone and watch the timer on the bomb painfully tick the minutes down to deadline.  

Plotkinkels is gereeld en nooit vroeg in die week wanneer 'n mens fake wakker kan wees nie. Dis gewoonlik op 'n Woensdag wanneer Max nie anders kan as om ons almal uit te freak met: Mense, die uitgawe lyk baie dun 🙄. Skielik sal hy vir ons 'n stuk aanbied wat hy per e-pos van 'n welmenende, patriotiese leser ontvang het. Niemand hou terug nie: “Hy moet dit aan Maroela Media stuur.” Al waaraan ek dink is, nog 'n kunswerk?! Daarvoor?! Standards, people!

 [Sidebar 3: A private hotline in times of crisis or frustration is critical to one’s sanity. Enter our first Production Editor, one Pieter van der Merwe of Pretoria.

Me: “I am going to throw myself on the floor and scream.” PvdM: “Well, I have just finished a big cry and I feel another one coming.”

He would always end with: “You’ve got this.”

Me at 2 am: “Oh greeeeaaaaaat. The entire edition is that shade between rust brown and burnt sienna! At least Picasso had a blue period.”]

The intensity of a small team (shrinking with each iteration) increases one’s reliance on support acts from the outside: a lifesaver to shift the narrative and bring perspective. A best friend whatsapping you the artwork of a story and saying: Wow, I love this! Or a writer asking for a high-resolution jpeg so that they can print an artwork they like. Comments on the website about a visual are a surprise gift. But it is hard to match the crack-of-dawn or middle-of-the-night messages and voice notes from Herman, Mercy or Anastasia, especially Anastasia.

Speaking of support acts, enter Their Excellencies Jeff Rankin, Theodore Key, Tinus Horn and Nathan Trantraal. Their experience, loyalty and disobedience, humour and bad moods, openness and cynicism, accuracy and artistic licence, plus respect for deadlines epitomise why “a picture tells a thousand words”. These works impacted me the most.

The closing of Vrye Weekblad is not right.

Writers will lament this with their wordy poetic sentences, and Oxford commas (Max’s fave) and adjectives far better than the sparse grungy black artwork currently occupying my mind. That, and a scene of Vrye Weekblad as Amadeo Modigliani on his deathbed; the struggling artist who died so young (aged 35) after a lifetime of seeking the right climate to address his challenges. His first exhibition took place two years after his death and today Modigliani is seen as one of The Leading Figurative Artists of the 20th Century. The irony of (his) art having the last word.

VWB Act III is about to be told in the history books and I hope it begins: “It's better to be a misfit than a one size fits all."

Paradise Lost. Never forgotten.

 [Final Sidebar: This guy is a legend.]

• Naskrif: Too soon! I am saying a proper goodbye next week.

♦ VWB ♦

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