Festive gifts at Buzzart in Glenwood

THE season of giving has arrived, and with it the annual Buzzart Christmas market at the KZNSA Art Gallery in Glenwood.

If you’re hunting for something unexpected, the sort of gift that suits both the discerning and the delightfully eccentric, this is where you’re most likely to strike gold.

Gloria Hoff, who runs the gallery shop, says the market brings together a wide selection of art, fashion, textiles, accessories, jewellery, art books, stationery and even cosmetics.

“All our artists are from KZN and other parts of the country,” she says. “What we look for here is essentially good-quality craft work. We mostly take pieces on a consignment basis and add on a percentage because that's how we exist.”

This year, at least 100 crafters are showing their work. Buzzart opened on 5 December and runs until 18 January.

The first pieces to catch the eye on entering the gallery are the richly coloured tapestries from the Rorke’s Drift Art School that cloak the walls. Nearby is the striking work of Guido van Besouw, one of the very few glass masters in South Africa.

Hlengiwe Dube’s beadwork and telephone-wire baskets take pride of place near the entrance. The celebrated South African artist has even travelled to the US to teach her craft.

Also on display is a selection of silver jewellery by Chris de Beer, former head of jewellery design at Durban University of Technology, and his wife, Marlene. A festive spread of Kapula candles, each hand-painted in different designs, would light up any heart this festive season. There’s also a range of soaps containing, as Hoff puts it, “only the good stuff”, and for those with a wicked sense of humour, a line of sauces marketed as “condiments of the season”.

Hoff recalls that Buzzart’s original home was in the old Overport City shopping centre, where they first operated as an art gallery — a tough sell at the time.

“Everybody came in because it was on the way to the toilet,” she laughs. “People would think, ‘Oh, here’s a gallery,’ and pop in on their way.”

Eventually, they moved to the KZNSA Art Gallery, which offers a café and multiple exhibition areas and on most days you can also find a streetlit bookseller and even artists shaping exquisite flowers from wire. The gallery is open every day except Mondays.