ABSTRACT
I first met Meshack Masuku towards the end of 2001. At that stage, I was recently retrenched and had set up a small bonsai nursery in order to provide an income for my family. Part oftny vision for the nursery was to indigenize the art of bonsai by developing African bonsai styles, working with African tree species and finding a potter who would be able to design African bonsai pots. This is where Meshack entered in. He was a lecturer in ceramics at the then Port Elizabeth Technikon (currently the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University). A Swazi of origin, he left school to herd cattle where he spent his days working with clay. Somehow, as part of a development program that ran during the 1990s, the details of which I cannot recall, he received the opportunity to study ceramics at the PE Technikon where he was appointed as a lecturer in his second year "because they had nothing more to teach me". He agreed to work on the design of African bonsai pots with me and immediately started off with a lecture on African art. I immediately felt an attachment to this huge guy, always with a guineafowl feather or porcupine quill in his hair, with his boisterous laugh and his deep sense of humanity.
