Sam Nhlengethwa opens the red door to his studio, we step inside, and I find it difficult not to gasp.
I have been to a large artist's studio before, but this one - with couches, a dining table and chairs, spacious kitchen and en suite bathroom - feels like a house. "That's what my wife Maureen says; this is a second house," remarks Nhlengethwa, who slept there one night that week.
He does that occasionally when the pressure is on, such as now, when he is putting the finishing touches to his exhibition that opens in Cape Town on Thursday.
What really makes his space special is the paraphernalia it provides for him to take a break: a punchbag, a basketball ring and net, and a cello.
"Everything that is here brings down the tension. When you work hard, sometimes you can say, 'Now let me be playful, take the basketball, bum bum bum bum bish, bum bum bum bum;' sometimes I will take the gloves and psh psh psh psh ."
The sounds he makes almost echo the rhythm of his soundtrack. Because it's legendary that Nhlengethwa has a soundtrack. Whatever he does indoors is accompanied by jazz - Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan, Keith Jarrett and Zim Ngqawana being some of his favourites - and it's inevitable that our conversation is punctuated by the sound of the sax.
"Music is part of my life," he says. "After two or three days I change the music and bring other vinyls or CDs. That's how I function in my studio."
BORN TO BE INSPIRED
"I once got a question from African-American jazz singer Kevin Mahogany. He asked me, 'What made you do art?' and I said, 'Maybe it's a calling,' and he said, 'Same here.' "
This calling has taken him around the world, from exhibitions in the US, to Germany, Italy, Brazil, France, London, the Netherlands, Mauritius and Japan; the Cairo and Venice Bienniales; and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He was the 1994 Standard Bank Young Artist for Fine Art and is often invited to take up residencies. His most recent was in Saint-Émilion in France last year, where his wife and youngest daughter, Ofentse - who plans to study astrophysics at Wits University next year - joined him for one of the three months.
Nhlengethwa has created 20 tributes to other artists. These include Zwelethu Mthethwa. They did a two-man show at the Seippel Gallery in Cologne, Germany, in 2000 and the following year the collaborative Sam Meets Zwelethu exhibition was at the Goodman Gallery in Joburg.
There is nothing particularly newsworthy about this. Mthethwa is an internationally celebrated photographer and painter.
Then last year Mthethwa was found guilty of murdering sex worker Nokuphila Kumalo in Woodstock, Cape Town, in 2013 by kicking her more than 60 times. He was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment.
"Well, we read about it. No one understands it. He didn't want to talk about it, not even to us.
"Zwelethu is my friend. When I went to Cape Town, I used to stay at his apartment with my wife when we attended the Cape Town Jazz Festival, and when he came to the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz he stayed with us, or sometimes, before my daughters were staying there, he would stay in our apartment in Newtown.
"I am going to see him when I go to Cape Town for my show. I think he is in Worcester prison."
MUSIC MAKETH THE ARTIST
It cannot be easy making a selection to bring to August House, the five-floor former warehouse on the east of Joburg's inner city where about 50 artists have studios. Back home on his smallholding in Benoni, he has more than 6,000 vinyls and 5,000 CDs in his music room, collections so vast that when he comes home from overseas trips jubilant about his new purchases and settles down to file them, he often finds he has bought duplicates of what he already has.
Collecting is part of Nhlengethwa's psyche. Although when I refer to them as his toys, he doesn't seem to like the idea, perhaps because he is driven by passion, not self-indulgence or extravagance. And he certainly has swag. Take his cars for example.
He owns 1956, 1973 and 1975 Beetles, a 1941 Ford pick-up truck, an old square-shape Jeep, a 450 Merc and a left-hand-drive Merc G-Wagon. "Today I am using my wife's Volvo but I use them all,'' he says.
"With my G-Wagon, I go off-road and travel to Lesotho and Swaziland with my family. It's not a Sandton 4x4," he says, and we laugh.
FROM A HA'PENNY TO R100,000 AND UP
Visiting Nhlengethwa in this second home is as convivial and relaxing as if we were old friends.
In fact, his friends from primary school in Ratanda, Heidelberg, should check if they still have some exercise books covered in brown paper that Nhlengethwa decorated. Some were random drawings, some were based on poems they were taught, others were collages.
"When I think about it, collaging has been in me. I would tear some of the things from the papers and I used to steal my grandmother's sugar and boil water and then paste it.
"I always say to people I started to make money when I was at school because some of the classmates would give me half a penny."
Judging from the fact that his most recent sale was a 2014 oil and collage on canvas, titled Red Room, which sold for R125,180 at Aspire's spring auction last Sunday, those school artworks must be worth quite a bit now.
Nhlengethwa never made it to matric. Already studying art under Bill Ainslee at the Art Foundation in Saxonwold, often catching a train into town from KwaThema when there were no classes because of the political protests in the mid-1970s, he eventually dropped out of school to study art at Rorke's Drift in KwaZulu-Natal. Incidentally, it was at the Art Foundation where he first met William Kentridge, now one of SA's most prominent artists, who was also a student there.
"One wanted education, one way or another," he says. "We were very active [politically] but I said I wanted to go to school, and Rorke's Drift was a very good replacement for me."
An offshoot of the Evangelical Lutheran Art and Craft Centre established in 1963, the fine art school was founded in 1968 and, until its demise in 1982, was one of the few places where black people could study art during apartheid. Nhlengethwa, along with Bongi Dhlomo, Pat Mautloa, Kay Hassan, Gamakhulu Diniso and Dumisane Mabaso, was one of many leading artists who graduated with its two-year diploma.
"I am proud to be one of the products of Rorke's Drift, which gave so much richness to SA. It is just a pity that our government does not care about heritage sites. Rorke's Drift deserves to be one of the heritage sites in the country," says Nhlengethwa.
THEY ALSO SERVE, WHO ONLY STAND AND WAIT
Capetonians will be treated to Nhlengethwa's exhibition, Waiting, that opens at the Goodman Gallery there this week and is a fascinating exploration of the subject.
The idea for it began germinating when he was driving across town one wintry evening from an event at the Bag Factory in Fordsburg, which he co-founded and where he had a studio for years. In President Street he saw people queuing for taxis "and I thought, let me tackle this". He takes about three years to come up with themes, then he chooses one and shelves the others for later. "You focus into this whole scenario and then everything just pours; it is there, it just happens."
His Waiting artworks include Mandela waiting for freedom and Winnie waiting for Mandela; a jazz band, instruments only, poised on stage waiting to be played, while a packed audience awaits; and miners waiting to be rescued.
"You see a guy leaning against a pole and then you ask yourself: 'I wonder what's he waiting for?' " he says.
In his studio is one artwork that tickles his fancy: a recycler waits to cross the street at a red traffic light. "So the title is Waiting for green," he says, smiling.
Next up is a retrospective of printmaking from his Rorke's Drift days to his work at the Artists' Press in White River, scheduled for the Wits Art Museum in February.
A show on Joburg architecture - some of the explorations for this can be seen in his studio - is planned for the Goodman Gallery in Joburg next October.
• 'Waiting' is at the Goodman Gallery, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town, from Thursday until December 1. A selection of Nhlengethwa's vinyls will be played at the 6pm opening. He will conduct a walkabout of the show on Saturday November 10 at 11.30am..