One of Ardmore’s award-winning modelers, Victor Shabalala, will be starring at the Florida show this year with Ardmore founder Fée Halsted-Berning and painter Happiness Sibisi. Victor was recognized as one of South Africa’s top artists in July 2009 when he was awarded a merit prize in the national art competition sponsored by ABSA.

Victor is an inventive and visionary sculptor. He expresses himself with vigor and finds metaphors in the world of reptiles to which he is particularly drawn. His visions are visited by mythical creatures that hark back to chimera, griffons and gargoyles. When he visited London for an exhibition at the South African consulate last year, he was captivated by the gothic sculptures in Westminster Abbey and these are now influencing his work. However, Victor is also steeped in Zulu traditions and perceives images through old-established African values. Victor loves to stretch the limits of his medium and it is amazing to watch one of his bizarre creatures emerge from a lump of clay.

The Ardmore pottery makes exuberant ceramic art, which is hand-made and hand-painted in KwaZulu - Natal. Since 1985, Fée Halsted-Berning has mentored hundreds of talented young local people and encouraged them to express themselves in clay. Their unique work has been exhibited in art galleries all over South Africa and Europe and last year an Ardmore masterpiece made a world record of $22,000 at auction. American collectors are now being enchanted by Ardmore ceramic art, thanks to Pascoe and Company and the sale of each unique piece helps to uplift the local community in KwaZulu - Natal, which has been greatly afflicted by the AIDS pandemic.

Recently Victor and his fellow Ardmore artists have been introduced to the work of the Victorian Martin brothers thanks to all the ceramic reference books which were presented to the pottery this year. Martin-style birds and eccentric lizard-like creatures with a novel Zulu twist are now part of the Ardmore vocabulary.