Homeless Capetonian artist has a blog & a belief in humanity

Chuma Somdaka lives on a park bench, blogs from the public library, and paints delicate portraits of her fellow humans

For Chuma Somdaka, art is not about drawing pretty pictures - it's a way of finding peace, a way of talking with God. Every day, she sits on a shady bench on Government Avenue, next to parliament in Cape Town.

Her portraits are spread around her for sale. In pastels, she draws passersby and other people who live in the Company's Gardens.

For nearly two years, this has been her home. Somdaka, 31, was born in Mthatha and later moved to Cape Town to live with her late father. She lost her leg in a hit-and-run accident in 2007. It was amputated above the knee and she uses a prosthetic.

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Her mother lives in Mthatha, but Somdaka can't go back there because she doesn't see eye-to-eye with her stepfather. Her head is still scarred from the 16 stitches she received aged 18, when he burst into her bedroom and beat her.

"Later he said that my being a lesbian disgusted him and that was the reason he did what he did," she says.

She was renting a room in Gugulethu when a man living nearby attacked her.

"He hit me with stones in my face, then tripped me, knowing that my leg is amputated," she says. She managed to get to her room. He threatened to kill her. "What also got to me is that people came out of the houses and were just standing there and watching." She knew she had to leave - and so she took the train into town.

The policeman she reported the attack to told her she didn't have enough evidence to lay a charge. It was evening, and she had nowhere to go, so she found a place to sleep at the bus terminus. It was her first night on the street.

In the Company's Gardens, "you're visible daily - there's no privacy. You see everything, and everybody sees everything of you," she says. "What goes on in the Gardens is sex: sex in the toilets, sex in the bushes." She talks about the man who lives in an Adderley Street hotel who comes almost every day to have sex with homeless men.

And then there's the drugs: from 6pm or 7pm, the junkies congregate, inhaling tik or smoking or spiking heroin. Sitting here, seeing all this, sent her into a slump.

"I was so frustrated. I thought what am I doing here, I'm just sitting here ... there's no love, no energy ... it's just all demonic, it's just negative, it's just people eating out of each other."

And so last year Somdaka started drawing. "I find God in my art," she says. "It's the same feeling, the same voice I used to get as when I used to hike up the mountain.

block_quotes_start There's no humanity. Some look at you as if you're from I don't know where - like you're an alien. Art makes it a whole lot better. It's helped me to love block_quotes_end

The minute I'm drawing, I'm able to forgive, I'm able to accept certain things, to evolve. "I'm communicating difficult things that I find challenging. When I come out of there, the hunger is gone, it's a beautiful world and I'm at peace."

The last time she had made art was at a free workshop when she was 18. It unleashed hopes that she could embark on a creative career. But at a family meeting, her uncle told her she would never make a living from art.

 "And why would I be drawing lines for the rest of my life, what is that going to do, because I have to think of financially supporting myself and that's not going to make me survive. That was the end of art."

Her fellow homeless people try to figure out why she is doing art. "To most of them it's weird." They want to know, "Why don't you use your [missing] leg to beg?" But she's tried begging, and she hated it. For her, begging "is like telling myself I'm nothing". The time she attempted it, she stood there and realised: "I can't."

In the Gardens, sleep can be elusive. Occasionally security guards pass through, hurling insults, telling the sleepers to get up and leave. When it rains, Somdaka takes shelter behind St George's Cathedral. She tries to keep to herself. She's learnt that it's better that way.

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Months ago, she became friendly with members of the 28s numbers gang. She would look after their stuff while they were out on the streets. "I don't know whether I blocked it out or was too naïve - but they were actually stabbing and killing and robbing people."

One day, one of the gangsters came up to her covered in blood. He had been attacked by the guy his girlfriend had been trying to rob. "I had to distance myself from that, because I didn't want to be involved." Another time, a gangster kicked her in the face and jeered: "Where's your manliness now?"

She went to a shelter in Paarl for a while but got tired of sitting around doing nothing. When she returned to Cape Town, she started sitting by herself, ignoring the comments the 28s made as they swaggered past.

If she doesn't draw in the mornings "my day gets weird", she says. "It's draining" knowing you can only get food at 11.30am from the Service Dining Rooms. It's draining when passersby treat her with suspicion, like she's a criminal.

"There's no humanity," she says. "Some look at you as if you're from I don't know where - like you're an alien. Art makes it a whole lot better. It's helped me to love."

Somdaka visits the Central Library, where a few of her artworks are on display. Here she became acquainted with her favourite artists - Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Juan Bautista Maíno, Derek Russell and David Hockney. She has a blog that features snapshots of her own life and mini-biographies about the people she's drawn.    

"I don't dream anymore. But I do hopefully hope," she says. She hopes for social interactions between people "that engage with their humanity" - predicated not on judging by appearances, but on listening. "Words can do so much," she says. "They have the power to uplift."

CHUMA'S INSIGHTS ON HER ARTWORKS

'Mr Headphones'

This is a city resident who often walks through Government Avenue. I was inspired to sketch him because of the expressions on his face while he listens to music. The expression on his face is determined by the asymmetrical design of his eyes and his narrow mouth.

The well-lit face is framed by badly behaved hair, accentuated with restless brush-strokes and scratches. I drew this portrait with mixed media - wax, paint, charcoal and pastels.

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'Tumi'

I met Tumi a year ago and we became close friends. She often lives here with me on the street. She shoplifts to support her heroin habit. She has been on it for almost 10 years and has been arrested three times since we became friends. Tumi has a teenage son who lives with her mother in Khayelitsha. She is also staying there at the moment because she recently came out of prison.

Last week she came to tell me about what happened, and said that she thought it best that after speaking to me she should go straight home. Guess what? She did the opposite and went back to using. She sat with me so that I could do another portrait of her.

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'Dikie'

Dikie has been living on the streets for 40 years. He has lost two sons to TB. His behaviour can be confusing. He is a man of few words, yet the moment he opens his mouth all he speaks about is who and how and when he last had sex.

This portrait was done one evening when he surprised me with a gift on my birthday. I sketched him using a stick that I burnt to create charcoal. I prefer to use this method when I begin drawings.

One of the reasons I draw people's faces is because I believe that the truth reveals itself. Even though you may not see their thoughts, their impressions and eyes and energy give a clear insight to the true being.

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• See more of Chuma's art at mynameischuma.wordpress. To buy a portrait, e-mail chumasomdakaart@gmail.com