#118: Clau
We’re joined by die Miesiekind! Cape Town-based artist, Clau, who tells us more about cooking Orzo in lemon & olive oil, thick industrial silver necklaces, Bring You My Love by PJ Harvey, and more!
Hey gang! I am die Miesiekind although my friends call me Clau or Clouds, as in clouds in the sky. I am a fem baddi in STEM… aka Sculpting, Tarot, Esotericism and Metaphysics. I am presently a contemporary art student at CTCA, where my body of work is the metaphysical embodiment of me, touching on critical themes of child abuse, sexual abuse and the feeling of “otheredness”. My work is a transmutative tool to nurture the inner child through reparative justice and how systems of abuse do not have to define one’s idea of functioning. It critiques and acknowledges the destructive/violent ideologies of being Afrikaans/Boer and refuses to censor the nature of raw vulnerability and anger. In my free time I am found talking to birds on the mountain and visit familiar faces in the dreamscape.
We welcome Clau to The FRM Newsletter to share what she’s been into recently!
☾👢 Fashion
My personal favs for fashion right now are thick industrial silver necklaces juxtaposed with organic preserved animal specimens. My necklace stack right now is my ongoing evolving talisman consisting of a 40yo preserved bird paw and an antique shark tooth. I am a sucker for biker garments like jackets and boots, because they’re super durable and are comfy to wear during long studio hours. I love oversized black trench coats that swallow me, black leather bags that serve as a marry poppins portal and scarves used as belts. As for fashion references, Alexander McQueen A/W 2002, Junya Watanabe F/W 2007 and stripes in a Sonya Rekeil way. My fav source of fashion discourse is from Rian Phin’s Youtube channel.
🎧💿 Music
My music right now varies from autistically ambient, self loathing divorced dad and campy perverted vampire. The songs that have been on absolute repeat is; Gilded by Sarah Davachi, We will not be Lovers by the Waterboys, Spit by Show Me The Body and Princess Nokia and I Put A Spell On You by Nina Simone. My albums rn are To Bring You My Love by PJ Harvey, Parralellograms by Linda Perhacs and Bad Girls by Donna Summer. There’s this dj set I put on when I wanna feel CUNT and it’s Disco & House Classics Mix in New York Book Club Meeting | Bridge that you can find on Youtube. I take dj sets very seriously and have been clubbing since I was 14 and when I first heard this set I got further confirmation that I’m gay and that CPT clubs need more jungle disco and club etiquette. IF YOU ARE GONNA BE ON THE DANCE FLOOR DANCE
🎨🇿🇦 Art
As for art, I am literally my own biggest muse, because I am embedded in my work and my work is an embodiment of me. I consider myself a curatorial sculptor and an academic artist as my work requires a lot of reading and academic research. My current work draws on Zizek’s work, The Body Keeps The Score, Psychology of the Unconscious by C.J, Virus by Linda Stupart and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I always draw my concepts from meditating in early hours of the morning. My best ideas come to me naturally when my subconscious is the strongest. I used to have a wack REM cycle and my greatest concepts were self actualised to me at 2am after doing a ritual and sometimes my dreams. I am super inspired by the scents of Table Mountain on my weekly hikes and want to make work that captures how I experience the mountain. My artist influences as of lately are Mira Lee, Liz Hammilton Quay and Elaine Cameron Weir. I am super fond of creating sensory installations and am looking into configuring my own ambient audio works. I’m also training to learn taxidermy. Tarot has also been vital in my work. Currently; death, the star, the hermit reversed, the high of priestess and justice have been relevant cards to my practice and life.
🧛♀️🎬 Films
My ultimate film genre is analog horror, found footage horror, HORROR HORROR HORROR. I’ve been watching horror since I was a little girl and found the format of horror movie storytelling super infatuating. I’m a sucker for thai horror, Japanese horror and french indie horror films. I’ve really been enjoying RAW (2016), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and Resurrection (2025). Some important and relevant documentaries I’ve been watching are Paris is Burning (1990) and No other Land (2024). As for series; Something Very bad is going to happen and TADC are a MUST WATCH. My art is also very inspired by liminal celestial spaces, like glowing bodies of water that shine crystal blue and misty hazes. The Never-Ending Story and Pan’s Labyrinth are very important films to me right now.
📚 Books
The prophet by Kahlil Gibran, The Body keeps The score (2014), Virus by Linda Stupart, The Outsider by Karl Jung, Like a thief in broad daylight by Zizek, Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, Paradise logic by Sophie kemp, The Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer are books I have read/am reading thus far this year. Reading is so important, especially in this era of anti intellectualism and the decline in critical thinking abilities. People have become emotionally stunted and I think that the world is bigger than what therapy speak podcasts and ChatGPT have to offer.
🧄 🍋 Food
I love cooking Orzo in lemon, olive oil, butter, black pepper, with sage and garlic. That’s my lazy meal, although I love assembling plates with snacks as I am a snaky person. My favourite breakfast as of lately is crumbed chicken with a big tangerine and goats cheese. I am a whore for sparkling water and fein over beetroot salads. For flavouring I’ve been loving dill and sage and love honey on meat. Lately my go to beverages have been masala chai with a slice of ginger and hot chocolate with almond milk mixed with earl grey tea.
🏃♀️🐈⬛ Lifestyle
I love hiking from my apartment to lions-head and table mountain x3 times a week. I am always on the mountain, either to regulate or to do ritual work. I genuinely feel the safest and the most comfortable in my skin when I am alone with the birds and naked in the rain alone. I am a very independent person and enjoy my company the most when I’m not perceived. I take myself out to nice restaurants for fun and love doing things in solitude with music. I love watching moomin on the TV with my cat where we eat supper together and adore curating my apartment, such as assembling bouquets of flowers on my altar and growing my balcony garden. I don’t get to travel much, though when I do, it’s usually up garden route where I’m happy and alone in the mountains with animals, taking bush poos and riding horses. I also as of lately have been having private burials for dead animals I find in the street or on the mountain, allowing them to pass on gently, specifically birds.
You can feel and love as unconditionally as you want to, but in order to be a sensitive passionate person you need to have firm boundaries. Emotional avoidance is one of the greatest curses and being able to feel to the fullest extent is a blessing you can use to your advantage. Vulnerability is a form of emotional hygiene that can be transmuted to get anything you want. Feeling and having access to yourself is a privilege, and a lot of people will find your authenticity and ability to be truthful offensive, because many people work incredibly hard to convince themselves that they are good, when they have spent a lifetime running away from holding up a mirror critically to themselves. That would mean that they would need to be honest with themselves and often results in deflection. It is very easy to blame things on yourself. Our world lacks ethics and people are doomed with this idea that they love themselves when they are just selfish. Identify your needs and allocate what really makes you valuable as a person beyond what social capital tells you, you need to be.
