Barber finds silver lining in art
Thato Kala | Friday October 3, 2014 10:27
He recalls the Mandela piece he drew back in Standard Three and how it illustrated his artistic prowess.
He is quick to share that years later, after devastating Form Five results, he found his silver lining in an A in art.
“My Form Five results were terrible in other subjects, but I was not surprised art was an A because I loved it and was always gifted in it,” Mzala says. Thanks to his Mandela piece he also earned a prize in primary school.
“I had drawn Mandela in black and white with a pencil, which earned me a prize,” he says.
Drawing is not the only art form he can do.
“I can trim a hedge into any shape that I want. It’s all art,” he says.
But well aware he could not make a living out of art, Mzala gladly accepted a few lessons to do what he refers to as doing graphics on people’s heads. He explains: “I basically use a razor blade for my cuts. The razor is quite different. The perfection you get is more refined than from the machine.”
The razor cut is quite popular in West Africa and Mzala considers himself privileged to have worked with a Ghanaian barber some four years ago.
“He taught me well and I have never stopped since then,” he says.
He has gone on to teach two other people who are doing it in Gaborone.
“I think we should be five in number here in Gaborone. It’s quite a popular cut in West Africa. It is not so popular in southern Africa,” he says. A Zimbabwean barber based in Botswana, Liqhwa Sibanda, knows 24-year-old Mzala and speaks highly of his work.
“It’s no surprise that he has an average of 20 people a day and some of them high profile people,” Sibanda says.
Former-Zebras star Thato Siska, businessman McLean Letshwiti, and several musicians and footballers are some of Mzala’s clients. Sibanda believes the talented artist-cum-barber could do well in a set up like in Zimbabwe.
“He would do well in a place where there are always power cuts like in Zimbabwe because he can do any cut with the razor,” he explains.
Mzala wants to take his work beyond the borders of Botswana.
“I would want to take my work to a different country and economy because it is a skill that is applicable in any part of the world,” Mzala says, adding that sketching will have to wait a bit.
He has seen how local artists struggle to sell their pieces and would rather focus on hair for now. In fact, he has a piece he drew months ago and is without a buyer in a shop in Maruapula.
Art here in Botswana, he says, is different from elsewhere as it is not supported.
“People will love it and marvel, but not buy,” he says.
Jokingly, he adds: “This is why I am doing this (razor cut). I know hair is growing everyday so people have no choice but to come here.”
Although he misses sketching, which he rarely does because of work demands, he finds consolation in razor cutting.
“I believe I apply the same technique in this,” he says. Just like most artists, he does not believe he needs to go to school for what he does.
“I am beyond school limits. No one can teach me this. They would be scared,” he says.
He, however, admits that it took a few mistakes for him to master the art.
He considers mistakes a learning curve that taught him to be more careful when working on people’s heads.
His patience has since paid off as people love his work. One of his regular clients, Peter Ncube, says: “My wife will not allow me to get my haircut done by anyone else. In fact, she is the one who referred me to him.”
Ncube says Mzala did his wife’s eyebrows for a relative’s wedding using a razor and the whole family has since been loyal customers to him.
That alone thrills Mzala who says, “It makes me feel big, it simply tells me people appreciate what I am doing and they believe in me”.
Adept as he is at what he does, Mzala does have people he admires. One of them is a local painter, Lazarus Madoko, a former classmate of his. He believes the support President Ian Khama has given to the arts the industry will certainly grow.
He says it pains him to see artistically gifted youngsters who have dreams of making something out of that gift branch out to do other things in life for fear art may not pay them well.
Mzala has started teaching his younger brother how to do the razor cut.
The two come from an artistic family. Their mother does sewing while a close cousin of theirs, Isaac Monare, does portraits.
While doing his work, Mzala plays his favourite Hip Hop music. He is also a fan of House. He says that he is grateful for his former boss and the first few clients who have stuck by him.
He says: “For now I am just surviving but I want to do big.”