Mtukwa

Janet Mbirimi lives in Cape Town with her two daughters and husband. She grew up in the rural village Wedza (or Hwedza) in Zimbabwe. Wedza is in the province of Mashonaland East, located south of Harare.

Mbirimi works as a printer at the print studio, Warren Editions. Her exposure and intense involvement in printmaking at the print studio led her to explore her own ‘language’ in etchings, woodcuts and monotypes. Her childhood geographic landscape is inextricably linked to her landscape of memories.

Her etching Mtukwa is of the mountainous range in the province of Mashonaland East. In the summer months, as a child she will walk on the gravel road with her sister, Florence, to Mtukwa about two hours away from their home; there they will primarily pick plum sugar fruit – in Shona named ‘mazhanje’.

For her etching she used hardground etching, which is a way of making fine line work. The best ground for line work is beeswax mixed with asphaltum and gum rosin. The plate can be handled without the ground being accidentally nicked. The plate is degreased, set on a heated surface and the ground, which comes in a ball, is spread onto it and then spread out evenly with a rubber brayer. When the wax cools, the plate is smoked with the flame of tapers. Thereafter, lines can be drawn through the ground with any pointed tool – the traditional one is a pointed metal cylinder called a needle. The resulting print is called a hardground etching. In using hardground, the artist can draw smoothly – all he or she needs to do is break the wax. The acid does the rest. The longer the plate is in the acid the deeper the bite and the stronger the lines will print.