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MICHAEL GARDINER SPEAKS ABOUT BILL AINSLE

No single person is able to reflect fully what Bill means to so many. In paying a personal tribute to Bill, I can only follow those feelings that run closest to my sense of him and to my sense of what others have experienced through contact with him. For example, to be taken seriously by Bill was an experience like no other. He aroused a sense of danger, a desire to reach beyond the self, a need to offer more than habitual thought, and so would stimulate new awareness and sharper insight. Being serious was never being solemn. Bill loved life too much to lose his pleasure at making mischief. And it must be acknowledged that Bill was a powerful person. He was too powerful to accept the lies of Apartheid; he was too powerful to forget that beauty is truth; he was too powerful to be satisfied with things as they are. Wherever he went, and whatever he did, he caused change to happen. This city of Johannesburg is different because of Bill; this country is different because of Bill. There is no doubt in my mind that the spirit of liberation and that determination to transform this society are extensions of what Bill dedicated himself to over thirty years ago. His influence cannot yet be measured, and if it ever can be, we will all be astonished at its extent. It is impossible to separate Bill as a person from his involvement in the community and from him as an artist. Yet in my emphasis upon Bill as a person, I want to include that quality of patient gentleness which is so much part of his presence: in his voice, in his hand, in his eyes. And that gentleness cannot be felt or remembered as softness. That gentleness was part of a determination and an intensity of focus which made absolutely sure that things happened. If they did not happen soon, he made sure they happened eventually. (essay by Natalie Nolte)

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Welcome!

Bill Ainslie. 1934 – 1989

South African Artist, teacher, activist and humanitarian

Almost 20 years after his passing, there has not yet been a website dedicated to Bill Ainslie, he is not written about in school art history books and there is still is no biography on the shelves of bookshops. Bill Ainslie's work was far reaching in ways told and untold. Many of our South African artists passed through the doorway of his classroom. Bill worked in the cracks of Apartheid (to use his terminology) and facilitated the formation of many community art centres in the days when art was not part of the education system for the majority of South Africans. Bill Ainslie touched the lives of many directly and indirectly. His work will never be undone. BUT is the memory of Bill Ainslie going to die? Let us change this.

UPDATE

A website for Bill Ainslie is in progress. The address is: www.billainslie.co.za. The hope is that this site will be a group effort by all whose lives were touched by Bill Ainslie and the site be continually be updated as people send in new material. The site as it stands is by no means adequate and a lot of work still needs to be done, which includes contributions from the many artists and others who worked with, heard of, knew or were friends with Bill Ainslie.

It is pleasing to see a Wikipedia site has been opened for Bill Ainslie. This site needs to be expanded. Click here to view.

Bill Ainslie part 1

Bill Ainslie part 2

Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation

JAF provided a developmental teaching program to meet the needs of students of all ages and backgrounds and for those who did not fit into the academic or commercial art spheres. No prior academic accreditation or portfolio was required, just the desire to learn. Students could stay as long as they wanted, provided they were still learning. In a newspaper interview, my father remarked, "In a sense students at university and technikon are captive…if they want a diploma or degree they have to study for a certain time, fulfilling certain requirements. If our students want some kind of diploma from us, we give them one, but more important, we help them build their portfolios" (Davimes 1984). (See essay by Sophia Anislie)

PAT WILLIAMS SPEAKS ABOUT BILL AINSLIE

The truth is that whatever you could say about Bill, you could also say the opposite: the consistency lay deeper. He was as light hearted and easy as a child, yet utterly serious; he didn't care how he lived, yet he was responsive to the beautiful ambiance Fieka created; he was abstemious, yet appreciated good food and drink; he never held himself back, but was careful and tactful with others; he was unpredictable yet utterly reliable; his rare angers could be utterly frightening yet his house was full of laughter. While he was a young teacher at Natal's posh Michael House School, he once broke up a conventional cricket match by riding a polo pony at breakneck speed across a field, straight through the cricket pitch ad players, and on into the distance. The horse had run away with him, but the disarray he caused surpassed the exuberance of the event. The image holds. Bill never rode roughshod through convention at any level just for the sake of it. Only when he had no option, discovering and demonstrating time and again that custom or timidity could be shattered, making space and energy for the thing that had never been tried before. (essay by Natalie Nolte)

Talks

Questions and answers

The Johannesburg Art Foundation

PUBLISHED WORKS OF BILL AINSLIE

Bill Ainslie: Workshops, Teachings, Seminars, Art Centres, Exhibitions, Writings

BILL AINSLIE by Natalie Nolte, 2000

THE VOICE OF THE NATION; by Sophia Ainslie

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WHAT LIONEL ABRAHAMS said ...

"Bill Ainslie, indefatigable seeker of information, especially such knowledge as leads to aesthetic insight and inner illumination, matched all the light he absorbed with the light he gave out. But his quality of light was extraordinary in that it had the character of simple ordinariness. Emanating from his patient perception of duty, necessity and merit, uncoloured by egotism or cynicism, it pervaded his sphere like a kind of daylight, employed by all eyes yet mostly unnoticed. That is why, though the sphere he benignly influenced was exceptionally large, he was less honoured and rewarded than he deserved."

Sesame Literary magazine

"He had a calm matter-of-factness in his style. His manner implied that he did what he did simply because it was what circumstances naturally required to be done. Attention was deflected from the question of his personal choice." Lionel Abrahams

(see essay by Natalie Nolte)