His shoes don’t have laces and the soles are loose. His black jacket is speckled with shavings from sand papering masonite board. Wiry grey and black hairs sprout from his cheeks while his hair is dreadlocked from unkemptness. He smells like he needs a bath. 45-year-old Mbuyiselo Bosman holds a ruffle of creased white papers, one side has a printed side and the other has pencil sketches of houses, people and still-lives.    

“I just love being an artist,” he said sitting on the grass showing off his many sketches.

In between Cradock Road and Pear Lane there is a quaint place to park off amongst the trees.

“Every day I sit here and do my art,” said Bosman, who said the place was relaxing.

“I’ve been an artist for more than 15 years,” said Bosman who knew he wanted to be one when he was still at school.

“In my life it was my deep desire for my career.” He names artists who inspired him, all European: Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya. 

“Most of my time as an artist I was in Jo’burg,” said Bosman who completed his Visual Art degree at Wits University in 1996. His mother, who was a teacher at a Bloemfontein high school, paid for his fees. “I started suffering as an artist when my mother died. The reason I was struggling was my mother did everything.” 

“As an artist I decided for me to work on my own, and not depend on someone else,” said Bosman who lives in a house behind Shoprite. Bosman has been in Grahamstown since last year, before festival. His sister who lives in the Location said he should leave Bloemfontein because Grahamstown “is a better place for art”.

“Life here is a little bit difficult for me, but I like the place because my sister is here.” If Bosman had more money his first interest is not buying shoes or a comb for his hair. “I don’t have money to buy art material. I can buy oil paint, acrylic, brushes, buy canvas.”

When he studied at Wits he would work with sculpture, medium bronze casting and plaster of paris. Bosman likes to do portraits, abstract works, still lifes and sometimes landscapes. He draws on found objects, even making frames for some of the work.

The ruffled Bosman and his artwork that leans on trees attracted passersby.

“I sell one painting a week,” he says. Bosman smiles a toothless grin as a young girl and her dad look at his drawings.

“She also wants to be an artist,” says her dad who pays for Bosman’s pastel drawing of a vase of flowers. The girl skips to the car while her dad recommends they put it in her room. Bosman has made a R20. He will live off this money for a week.