So honoured and pleased to have contributed these illustrations to The Heritage Treasures of Toppieshoek, a new book by Vincent and Prof Jane Carruthers.
The book details the history and significance of two heritage sites at Toppieshoek, a property owned by Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) – two telescopes from the 1900s, operational from that time until 1978; and the archaeological remains of an Early Iron Age settlement, the earliest known African village in that region.
I was approached to illustrate some scenes of life at the Early Iron Age site. It was especially important to feature the people in a way that felt human and authentic, which would help readers resonate emotionally with what it must have been like to arrive in this place so many centuries ago.
These illustrations appear in the book itself and also on information boards at the site, which has been honoured with a blue plaque from the Magaliesberg Association for Culture & Heritage.