JOEL STEYN GWENERE

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A day that changed a life

t 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 whom have either ridden on their

parents artistic backgrounds 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.
ith no source of income, she had to look for means to fend for
her two children. I got married 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 to put food
on the table for my children. I tried several small but because of the economic
situation in the country most of them flopped1, narrates Juliet.
he 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.

ut 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 prompted2 her two male partners to try their luck in
Europe, the Netherlands to be specific, and Juliet joined them.

1 Fall
2 Cause or bring about

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espite finding a new market, Juliets 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.
he next morning, I took out a stone and made my first sculpture,
though it wasnt that good, I knew I had it in me. Since that day,
Juliet has never looked back. She now exhibits3 her sculptures and
even conducts lessons in both the Netherlands and Guruve.
er 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.

ife 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.

3 Present for inspection

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