Stellenbosch

The town of Stellenbosch turned out to be delightful. Located about 40minutes from the airport its sits under the Stellenberg Mountains and is the home to the world renowned Stellenbosch University. More importantly for me is the fact that it is the centre of Cape Wine with its many wineries and close proximity to Franschhoek and Paarl . But more than this it also has many fine restaurants in all sorts of different food and decorative styles. We ate several meals in the town itself and were delighted with all the meals. We also discovered that it is full of art shops/galleries and I am a complete sucker for art shops.

As soon as Marion saw them she was overcome by a feeling of dread in case I bought yet more pictures. We particularly like naïve paintings and would you believe there sitting in the wonderfully named art shop, The Red Teapot, was a painter churning out whimsical, colourful naïve paintings of all shapes and sizes. There were prints of his work, calendars based upon his prints and heavens knows what else. He was sitting there full in the middle of the shop completing yet another painting. I think I would have realised Marion’s worst fears and bought one of his paintings if it had not been for a small matter of price. His work is not cheap, much above auction room prices for price comparable work. At these prices he had to be well known but unfortunately not to me. I decided to do some research on the internet so much to Marion’s relief we walked out of the shop.

We looked through many of the other art shops if not all. We discovered a painting form that I had not seen before where the objects being painted are either painted separately or clipped out of magazines or perhaps if small enough the actual object or a model of it is used and these objects are stuck to the painting. This produces a very different and not unpleasing effect and from what I saw fits well with a naïve painting style.

We ate in four restaurants in Stellenbosch, the Apprentice (formerly the Olive), the Fish Factory, the Winehouse and the de Oewer, all of whom provided very good food with really excellent service. We particularly enjoyed the last with its riverside setting.

Oh yes! And what about the painter in the Red Teapot. Well his name is Portchie and it turns out he is very well know and maybe even South Africa’s most successful commercial artist. You can find him and his work on www.portchie.com. He produces a phenomenal amount of work per year and commands the high prices I had baulked at. Unfortunately, or fortunately from Marion’s point of view, we did not have enough time to revisit the shop when it was open though we did try.