(Juliet
Armstrong)
Estelle Sinkins pays tribute to the late
Juliet Armstrong. (Courtesy of The Witness newspaper)
With her infectious love of life and her
championing of traditional Zulu pottery, Pietermaritzburg ceramicist, Juliet
Armstrong, made the world a better place.
Following a battle with cancer, Armstrong,
a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Visual Art, died on
Wednesday (August 22). She leaves her husband Mike, daughter Jessica, son Tom
and step-son, Brendan.
In a note to friends and family, Mike said:
“She would require you at the earliest opportunity to cook your favourite food,
get out your best wine, listen to some music (opera, Abdullah Ibrahim,
Sibongile Khumalo, The Fureys, classics, whatever) and celebrate a life lived
fully and lived well. As I said to her, she made the world around her a better
place.”
Armstrong obtained her BA Fine Arts degree
at the then University of Natal in 1972, before heading to England for two
years to attend Leicester University, where she studied glassblowing and industrial
ceramics. She later worked as a governess in Stuttgart, Germany, for the famous
Porsche family and travelled across America before returning to South Africa
and her alma mater, where she did her masters degree thesis on the well-known
British ceramic artist, William de Morgan.
Best known for her exquisite porcelain
sculptures, several of which can be found in the Tatham Art Gallery in
Pietermaritzburg, Armstrong also tried her hand at pencil drawings, wood
carvings and photography.
During her years at UKZN, she did extensive
research into the use of bone china as a sculpture medium. She developed a
method of deflocculating the porcelain to cut down the percentage of water in
the body, to create an exceptionally white, hard and translucent medium.
As one of the artists in the All Fired Up exhibition, which took
place in March and April 2012 at the Durban Art Gallery, Armstrong said she
wanted to show that clay could be used in different ways and that it did not
have to look perfect. One of her works from the exhibition has been acquired by
the Tatham for its permanent collection. Titled Ridge Dog, it is partly original work, part found object. The dog’s
body was discovered by Armstrong when she was digging in her Scottsville
garden, and she added a head and limbs to it, creating something unique.
This work, along with others made by
Armstrong, have been installed in a special tribute display in the ceramics
room at the Pietermaritzburg gallery.
Armstrong and fellow academic, Professor
Ian Calder, also helped raise the profile of Zulu pottery through a research
project, which began in 1993 and involved them collecting pots, and meeting and
working with potters like the celebrated Magwaza sisters from Mpbalane near
Kranskop and the Nala family from the Oyaya area.
In a tribute to her, Brendan Bell, director
of the Tatham, said: “She will be a huge loss to ceramics in this country … when you look at
our collection; so many pieces in it are connected to her through her work and
her teaching … her spirit wanders through our collection.”
It no doubt also wanders through the
corridors of UKZN. Armstrong’s colleague at the university, Faye Spencer, said
the staff and students were feeling devastated. “Juliet was the warm heart at
the centre of so many significant aspects of our practice: her involvement with
rural potters, her interest and research on pottery and indigenous crafts, her
compassionate mentoring of her students, her wise and wry counsel for new
academics like myself … we feel so sad because we feel the loss of all these things,” she
added. “I know UKZN has been lucky to have her for 30 or so years, and the mark
she has left on this place is something indelible and wonderful.”
Another friend of long standing and a
comrade in the Black Sash, Mary Kleinenberg, said Armstrong’s compassion for
others would be sorely missed. She volunteered at the Black Sash’s advice
office in Pietermaritzburg, from the time it opened in 1975, offering help and
advice and taking on various roles, including that of treasurer. “Juliet had a
huge sense of justice. She really cared for people who were battling; as
evidenced by all the people she supported in the arts community,” Kleinenberg
said. – Estelle Sinkins
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