Leave us Alone Print

I graduated from the Bulawayo School of Art in Zimbabwe with a Diploma in Commercial Art. In 1970 I married my husband Frik Maas and we moved to a farm in Mozambique where we managed the farm for two years until the border was closed between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. My interest in wildlife painting began when we moved to Fothergill Island in Kariba which is where I began to paint nature scenes. We raised two children in Kariba over the next several years, managing a safari lodge and having the unique experience of building Tiger Bay Safari Camp. It was a thrilling place to raise a family. During this time of raising children and managing the camp I had the privilege of being able to viewing nature up close and collecting an extensive library of reference material for future use in my art. It was a real challenge to make the time to paint yet in this village in Kariba I began to paint in earnest, exhibiting regularly in Harare the capital city of Zimbabwe. In 1990 we moved our family to Lesotho where I had my first solo exhibition. In 1997 my husband Frik returned to Zimbabwe to assist my brother on the family farm just outside Mutare and eighteen months later I joined him there. This is where we built our ‘dream home’ on the farm here in Africa. On the farm we continued to develop a small textile business with a staff of two tailors and three female assistants. Sadly the farm was taken away from us in 2001 by the government of Zimbabwe and we had to flee the country, forever leaving behind our home and possessions. We decided to go back to Cape Town which is where we currently reside. Here I continue with my art and textiles in a little cottage that we rent just outside of a town called Stellenbosch, nursing my husband who is suffering from a terminal illness.