Vicky Somniso writes on the amazing story of Freda Phenethi, a 73 year-old art student in South Africa
A very wise author once said the cemetery is the wealthiest places on earth. Her reason is that dead people who had great dreams and visions that were never fulfilled are buried there. According to her “They died with their potentials”.
Surely, someday the same will not be whispered about the 73-year-old granny who has utilized almost all of her skills. Granny, Freda Phenethi from Dobsonville in Soweto,South Africa is not just an ordinary woman, she is a polymath. She is the Meadowlands Methodist Church Choir chorister, fashion, graphic and garden designer. At 56, she studied fashion designing with the Kirsten Academy in Booysens and Theology with Methodist Church College in Jabavu, Soweto. She is currently an art student at The Design Studio in Roodepoort. She specializes in craft, oil, acrylic pencil and art painting.
As a little girl, she was totally different from her peers who played with dolls and other games. Instead, at a tender age of nine, Phenethi was serving as an assistant nurse at Peelton Clinic in Eastern Cape. Born in 1939 in East London, she professionally practiced as a nurse in 1960 and retired in 2010.
“I started at the age of nine in the sense of my godmother being a nurse. She taught me basic health care skills and I had to help her with patients when she responded to calls for delivery as she was also working as a mid-wife” she recalled. “I had to assist patients who had minor ailment, sustained injuries and general illnesses such as flue. Dressing them and cleaning their wounds was the main thing. But I was not supposed to give medication though. However, I was allowed to give health education and teach them to take care of themselves. I would also ask them to wait for my godmother to come or refer them to doctors or clinics.”
She studied Nursing at Frere Hospital in East London and later worked at Frere Hospital, Kesington, Sandton, Garden City, Milpark and Flora Clinic in Gauteng. Her ex-husband Rev McFarlan Phenethi was a member of the National Assembly during Former President Nelson Mandela’s ruling.
“I think I may have had enough time in nursing and being a strenuous career or profession I was feeling it in my body. It was strenuous because of the attention that one needed to give to patients, lifting them up especially after following cardiac operations and during emergencies,” she said.
Phenethi is an award-winning ballroom-dancer and the former second princes for the Frere Hospital Miss Golden Jubililee beauty pageant. As an actress, she featured in a play called Xhapa Goes to Town and performed under the guidance of the late Gibson Kente.
Speaking about her career as an artist she said, “I became fond of drawing when I was working as a nurse. I then decided to learn more skills in this area. At the age of 68, I began to study professionally as an artist at Roodepoort College. I did a two year course in graphic designing and at some stage I did freestyle embroidery as well as arts and craft.
“ I’m still continuing with my studies in arts and this is my second year but now at The Design Studio. It is my creative nature. I can’t allow myself to be bogged down with boredom because the devil always looks around for idly hands. But my idea of doing this is to find a way of ploughing back to the community, restore the society that is breaking down, to build and develop the youth of this generation. What drives me is the energy I have and I get it from God. God has given me a wonderful energy,” she emphasized.
To shame a majority of people who are younger than her, she is a member of Virgin Active in Roodepoort and attends yoga classes. She goes to the gym at least twice in a week and watches her diet.
“But we do the slow muscle stretches that will strengthen your muscles.”
She has designed her garden beautifully and opposite her arts studio is a Koi Pond.
“I designed the Koi Pond or Fish Pond to distress. When I break off from designing then I just sit around the pond, open some water and enjoy watching the fish playing around,” she said.
Her words of wisdom to the youth and her peers are, “They must try finding ways of sustaining their lives in a more creative way to breakdown from the demands that are misleading them such as being attracted to drugs and living deviant ways that their families or parents wouldn’t expect of them. The elderly people should try to keep themselves busy at home and distress to alleviate problems they encounter at their age.”
As part of serving in the church, she and her team encourage people who are involved in substance abuse, drugs, gambling and women and child abuse to stop. They also pray for the nation concerning problems that are affecting the society.
Freda’s faith is obviously her major driving force. “As God created us in his own image, we find ourselves as artist to be God co-creators, as we are creative beings, our lives become our work of art,” she said.
