Jennifer Armstrong's unique biography as an artist

Frances Jennifer Armstrong

This is a bit of an attempt at a bio.  It's difficult to tell this sort of truth as it has been rather complex.   Whilst everything is very clear now,  there have been many gains and losses.   #artist #sculpture #african #art #biography #jenniferarmstrong #australia #zimbabwe #struggle #success #story

Transcript

00:00Today I'm an artist. I'm a fledgling artist, but it's been a long journey developing my

00:09undergirding to become what I am. It hasn't been easy. I've had a background of disadvantage

00:23in a very specific way, in a very paradoxical way, because I've been viewed as somebody

00:33who has privilege, who has a huge, immense amount of that. But in fact, the opposite was true,

00:45always has been true. Consequently, this has put me at odds with most explanations that float

00:53around in Western culture. I've been called all sorts of names, very unpleasant, very horrible

01:03names, like arrogant and conceited, and it has been implied grandiosity according to the prevailing

01:14psychological paradigm, and none of it actually is true. My background is extremely different.

01:22My background is, was in Africa. And the reason I've attracted so much negativity ongoing is

01:32because of that word colonial, colonialism. And yeah. But growing up as a so-called white colonial,

01:45colonial, I really didn't have the advantages that people have and that they use for leverage in the

01:53contemporary West, in the modern West. Education was entirely different, not preparing you for

02:00a vocation or a career. What else? My, my, my amount of money that I had to spend, nothing really. Actually,

02:11I didn't have any money. I didn't have any money. I didn't learn to manage money. I didn't have any.

02:16My parents didn't have any. We lived a very, very frugal existence. Very, very careful existence.

02:27And, uh, luxuries were basically non-existent. I could go into that, but, uh, I'm sure, uh, you could study

02:36the past in America during, uh, I guess the age of the Depression. It wasn't quite that bad,

02:43but it wasn't that good either back there in Southern Africa, um, in the land that dare not

02:51speak its name. Uh, so, yeah. I mean, we had, for example, we had, uh, the most greatest luxury,

03:01maybe going to the drive-in once every couple of months. Wow. Or, um, alternatively, we would,

03:09uh, have, I mean, just as an alternative example I'm giving, I'm trying, uh, I'm trying here,

03:17uh, we would have a, a large family-sized packet of crisps and a Coke on Saturday with a barbecue.

03:27That was our luxury, so, actually, non-existent luxury, really, by today's terms, but still very happy.

03:35Um, but, uh, that background didn't set me up very well for having a career understanding the world

03:43because I, of course, was brought up in another culture, not this one. So, it's taken me a while

03:51to get my feet as a, an artist and to find my vocation to, uh, be able to embrace it, to even

04:01have, uh, sufficient resources, money resources, and I'm still grindingly poor, but to have enough

04:08just to do something. And, uh, I have faced immense discrimination, just unbelievable stuff,

04:16just un, un, un, if I may say, un-fucking-believable, incredible stuff.

04:24I just, weird hostility like I brought it on myself, or, uh, I don't want to play the game,

04:31I don't want to play a ball, never was true, always was another issue entirely, that I just

04:38wasn't set up for success. Uh, I wasn't given the resources, I had no resources, even my parents

04:44had no idea that, uh, the amount of resources I would need just to, um, begin to live a life

04:52in this, uh, current context was entirely different from what they understood or indeed what they

05:00had available. So, extreme, extreme disadvantage. And I've become robust in a way, used to it,

05:09inured, which is, uh, what is actually my current source of potency. When I evaluate myself against

05:18my Western counterparts, I'm way, way more self-reliant, which is a good thing. I'm, uh, way more, uh,

05:29imaginative, way more resourceful in drawing from my own, uh, imagination and my own, uh,

05:38capacity to innovate and to amuse myself without having to have a lot of, uh, money, uh, or, uh,

05:50attention or anything pumped in. Not that those would not be welcomed, but, oh well, oh well.

05:58So, I'm enjoying myself now at this time in life. I'm a bit older now. What am I? 57.

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