Bronze Africa ‘Rolling the Groceries Home’
Commissioned by our good friend Jim Hensley the request was unusual but in effect very interesting. The Dung Beetle is the only creature warm blooded, cold blooded or insect that creates something from a raw material and then by rolling it along the ground eventually makes it perfectly round as it gathers soil particles. In this case a blob of dung is clawed from a pile of wet dung into which the beetle lays eggs then rolls it to build a crust of earth on it and then buries it by digging all around it, gradually sinking the ball into the ground where the eggs hatch and the little worm has a full larder to snack on until it pupates and emerges as another beetle to continue the cycle. Made more interesting by the fact that despite seeing this round object being rolled along the ground the wheel was not developed in Africa.
John Tolmay
Born in Southern Rhodesia in 1943, John Tolmay grew up immersed in the African bush, where an early fascination with wildlife and nature inspired him to begin drawing his observations. After agricultural college in South Africa, he traveled to Europe and the United States, working as a cowboy in Nebraska and New Mexico before returning to Rhodesia in 1966 to ranch.
Tolmay began guiding African hunting safaris in 1974, an experience that gave him an intimate understanding of wildlife, movement, and anatomy - knowledge that would later become fundamental to his work as a sculptor. He completed and sold his first bronze in 1989 and has since devoted himself to capturing the animals and experiences of a lifetime spent in the wild.
A committed conservationist as well as an artist, Tolmay founded Zambia's Nyawa Pilot Project, promoting community-based wildlife management and a sustainable relationship between rural communities and their natural resources.
