Michele Hamman: a life of art and colour

The patrons of the arts and craft circuit in Kwazulu-Natal are notoriously private about their art, and this lady was no different. She was born in Durban, matriculated in the small town of Britz, studied fashion design in Pretoria and lived and worked in Wellington and Paarl for the best part of 26 years, where she worked as a personal assistant to the head of Bayer’s Research and Development Department in Paarl.

Michele spent most of her adult life in the Western Cape, where she met her husband Johann almost 18 years ago. She was a widow at the time, and met him while he was doing his Masters in Shipping Law at the University of Cape Town

Only a select few people in Northern Natal are more than just passing acquaintances  with Michele, who has a textile and pottery studio at the bed and breakfast she co-owns, with her husband in McKenzie Street. Here she produces some of the most stunning ceramic ware you will probably see in Dundee. Her handmade tiles are in demand for interior application, and she sold many as far away as Johannesburg and the west coast.

Her unique handbags for which she hand dyes and prints all the material by hand, and her 100% cotton ribbon, also printed by hand had featured in the Ideas and Home magazines on a few occasions.  The studio is called Bahia Art, which means Bay in Spanish and simbolizes a laid-back life, which is how she approaches her art.   She talks easily, and works at the same time, fiddling with her pottery kiln’s adaptor. Her small figure tends to disappear behind the stuff she has in her studio, and she jokes when she speaks of her weakness for fabric. The mass of fabric in her workshop testifies to this.

She attributes all to brutal hard work and long hours on her feet. Many hours of research into printing procedures followed, and she soon developed a specialised silksceen printing process for pottery and textiles.

She arrived in Dundee in 2005, with her historian husband, Johann, and daughter Natasha.  She lost no time in getting the studio built. “We had some problems with some of the builders, but in the end we got it done,” she jokes with a glint in her eye.

She is an intensely private person, but she talks easily when she gets going.  She has always had a love for pottery, and has been doing this for over 20 years now. She loves colour, and to experiment with colour on all types of textile. “My whole being is about producing colour, playing with colour, and putting it on fabric.”

With her inventor father and brother probably providing the largest portion of the incentive behind her creativity, she states that being creative is one of the sanctuaries she had at her disposable to balance her earlier life. “It later becomes who you are, and what you do.”

She does not share her feelings with a stranger that easily, and will rather pour it out on the fabric that she is bringing to life.   She and her husband had travelled all over South Africa, and she particularly likes to unwind in the west coast town of Port Nolloth.

Her artistic hand is well-visible in the big old house they bought in McKenzie Street, and her pots and tiles are in almost every room. She is well-known on the local craft market circuit, and exhibits regularly in Vryheid, the Biltongfees and at Lennox Farmers’ Market.