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Property Profile The Flying Fish

The first time artist Sibusiso 'Punch' Mbhele saw an aeroplane close-up was as a 17-year-old schoolboy in 1986 when a light plane buzzed the playground of his school near Bergville in KwaZulu-Natal. Excitement welled as he abandoned his mates to sprint round and crane his neck to study it. The aircraft was gone in seconds, but its soaring spirit, freed from the constraints of earthbound existence, lit within him a lifelong passion.

'When I returned to my friends I was ecstatic and I told them I was going to build an aeroplane,' grinned Sibusiso.

He is a slight, longhaired man with a friendly, gentle face made to appear stronger by a sparse beard. Dressed in a green overall he speaks very fast – breathlessly and nervously, his hands always fidgeting. But his demeanour is misleading because it disguises a gusto fortified by towering courage that make him as imposing, prominent and difficult to subjugate as his mountain surroundings.

Sibusiso was born and raised in Zwelisha, a small rural community sheltering in the amphitheatre of the Northern Drakensberg. This is a land of rugged slopes, endless valleys and rushing rivers. Here nature is at its grandest. The air is clear and fresh. The views superb. It is a picturesque and mighty Eden – one that has imparted its power to him.

Sibusiso set about building a plane from wire the moment he got home from school that afternoon in 1986. Then his brother showed him a book with a double page spread of a helicopter, which appealed to him and he began making choppers from flattened tin cans, wrecked vehicles and wire. It also gave him inspiration for the extraordinary home he built behind his mother's hut and the one he is currently completing.

The enormous structure in his mother's yard, in the shape of a helicopter that was built on stilts to simulate flight, was constructed from corrugated iron, boarding, car windows and the shells of wrecked minibus taxis. Silver stairs, lowered by a hand pedal attached to two bicycle cogs welded together, gave access from below to a magical space decorated with swooping planes lit by a rainbow set of huge battery-powered pink and green lamps he made from tin in the shape of blooming flowers and proteas. To the rear, in the tail section, was his television set – the aerial attached to the back rotor. In the middle of the room taxi seats had been welded together as if airline seats – with a hi-fi system between blaring traditional Zulu music.

From these seats, because the chopper was raised and slightly elevated, the view from the windows gave the impression of flight. In the centre of the helicopter, through a curtain not dissimilar to those that separate economy class from the rest in passenger jets, was his kitchen and workplace where he built planes until 4am – his favourites those with shiny wing tops that could reflect the sun in flight. Through another curtain, in the cockpit, was his lamp-adorned double bed. This was the captain's space, a place where he was in full command.

As his home rose in the early ?'s so did his fame – attracting a following from as far afield as Australia, France, Britain and the United States. It was a double-edged sword. He was invited to exhibit his planes, studied for two weeks by a group of academics and fawned over by galleries eager to market his talents. With the recognition that he had sought came money and the inevitable attempts by a variety of interests to control him. It was akin to strangling the very life from the golden goose that flourished only when it was allowed to fly free.

As efforts to harness him tightened, so Sibusiso became more resolutely irascible and independent with lamentable results. Youths smashed the windows of his home, he was mocked, the police scurrilously charged him with stealing rubbish and those that had failed to inspan him to their commercial plans scurried off in search of more pliable artists. Abandoned and in despair he considered suicide, eventually fleeing to Johannesburg to work and lodge for a time with a more understanding benefactor. But he soon hankered for the mountains, as the city was not a place he could soar.

'I could not stay in Johannesburg,' he explained, 'it is not good, not open.'

On his return he confronted the community who welcomed him back. But his troubles were far from over and the old pressures soon resurfaced – making him more determined to acquire his own land where he would be answerable to nothing but his passion. His heart soon settled on a stretch of communal grazing surrounded by beehive huts. With the intention of towing his helicopter home to its new site, he hired a tractor, attached a towrope to the cockpit and, unfortunately, destroyed his craft with the first tug.

'It was a good thing,' he laughed, looking up at the new helicopter that is nearing completion, 'because it has given me the opportunity to build something bigger and grander.'

And his dreams are impressive because inside his new home, that is similarly decorated to the old, are his architectural plans to turn the field into something similar to an airport – only more colourful.

But these are not really dreams because there is no doubt that a person so passionate will accomplish anything they set their heart on.