The Sunday Mail
AT FIRST glance, she resembles the typical rural African woman who is trying to make ends meet.
But her foresight, courage and hard work have seen her triumph in the male-dominated industry of sculpting.
Unlike her female peers, many of whom have either ridden on their parents’ artistic background or have prior professional training in the field, Juliet Juckers (nee Mukwesha) of Guruve had none of the above. Her journey only began in 2005 after a nasty divorce with her husband of eight years. With no source of income, she had to look for means to fend for her two children.
“I got married soon after completing my ‘A’ Levels; therefore, when my husband and I divorced in 2003 I had no professional qualifications to fall back on.
“I was so heartbroken, hurt, bitter and most of all I did not know how I was going to put food on the table for my children. I tried several small businesses but because of the economic situation in the country most of them flopped,” narrates Juliet.
She continues: “That was the time Zimbabweans learnt the skill of creativity and hard work. People would try their luck in almost every business that they thought would put food on the table.
“I met two young male sculptors in Harare who introduced me to art dealing, but since I could not sculpt, it did not make much sense for me to join the industry.”
But she had no choice when everything else failed and she started buying raw stone from Guruve and selling it to sculptors in and around Harare.
But with the depressed flow of tourists into Zimbabwe, the raw stones were not in much demand either.
The economic situation prompted her two male partners to try their luck in Europe, the Netherlands to be specific, and Juliet joined them.
Despite finding a new market, Juliet’s frustration did not go away as she would only carry raw stone to Europe and watch her male companions earn much more from their sculptures. Then she had a strange experience.
“My mother came to me in a dream. She was carrying a raw stone, sculpted it into a tiger fish and when she had finished she gave the finished product to me. The next morning, I took out a raw stone and made my first sculpture, though it wasn’t that good, I knew I had it in me.”
Since that day, Juliet has never looked back. She now exhibits her sculptures and even conducts lessons in both the Netherlands and Guruve.
Her love life has also taken a turn for the better: married to Steven Juckers whom she met in the Netherlands four years ago.
Born in March 1976 in Kanyemba Village in Chiweshe, Juliet is the fourth child in a family of eight.
Her father was a headmaster, which afforded her relative luxury in rural Zimbabwe.
Life took a dip when her father passed on when she was young, leaving her mother with the responsibility of looking after her and seven other children.
Juliet derives some inspiration from the stone she sculpts, but much of her work depicts her own life.
“My most treasured sculpture is ‘Woman with an Open Heart’. In this piece I was trying to encourage women not to bottle up their emotions,” she explains.
“I had a lot inside of me for many years and it did a lot of damage to my soul, so in this piece I was trying to encourage women to open up. I also have something I dedicated to my late mother. It is called ‘The Family of Eight Pieces”.
I did it to thank her for sacrificing her life for us.”
Women’s issues are predominant in her work.
“I try somehow to express the role women play in society and the way they are being treated – they are still not free. They are struggling one way or the other.
“Men must also see this because it is something that exists between men and women.”
With the money from her sculptures, Juliet has built a lodge that has conferencing facilities.
In an effort to plough back into the community she has a library that is rich in books of all genres.
“When I first entered the world of sculpting, I was limited because of my background.
“I do not want that to happen to people in this village. I hope this library will someday uplift someone’s life.”
