Meet Vivienne Croisette | Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Vivienne Croisette and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Vivienne, we’d love for you to start things off by telling us something about your industry that we and others not in the industry might be unaware of?
I really try and let everyone know the process of getting the sculptures to the exhibits. Everyone is astounded at the painstaking task of packing for weeks, crating everything, loading the containers at our home, and then sending it on its way from Zimbabwe by truck to South Africa, loaded on a boat and sails to North America. Taking 6 weeks in total. Then offloading it this side at the port and trucking it to its final destination. It’s quite the journey.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Someone asked me this question “For anyone starting out in business, what advice can you give them?”

For the first 10 years, I dedicated 16-hour days to creating this business. From doing hours of research, creating an intensive website and cataloging all the sculptor’s biographies, to checking competition, finding the right target audiences and venues. Going with all the ideas anyone gave me, no matter how crazy. Opening every door and walking through it. Even though it was daunting, bigger than me. For many years I always pretended I worked for this huge organisation, which I kind of do, with all the sculptors, but it was just me running it in the early days, alone. I describe it as being a puppeteer. Everyone sees this great performance but only one person is moving all the strings! I took reassurance pretending I was working for the greater good.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, we’re new in the area, BUT we’re staying right opposite Dickie’s arena AND Amon Carter’s showground, in an AirBnB. Every day we’ve been driving past horse trailers and people on horses practicing for one thing or another. For us it is such a fantastic experience alone. Also being in the Cultural District with some many fabulous Art Centres and Museums, we’re so spoilt. We do have friends and family coming to visit, so really, there is so much to do with them just in our vicinity. We’re big foodies, so we’ve found some great restaurants, some we’ve visited a few times, so we’re really keen to know new places and have fun speaking to locals about their favorite spots! Of course, no visit to FW would be complete without visiting The Stockyards either and for fun, Billy Bobs too, to learn the two-step…

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I am privileged to work with all the fabulous and very talented sculptors. We have worked with over 300 sculptors for 23 years, many we have known since the outset, so we are a tight-knit community. We all know each other’s families and stories, over the years. Weddings, deaths, separations, children – their lives are entwined in ours. We owe our livelihoods to all of them. Especially the sculptors who come on tour with us for up to six months per year, they are an integral part of the success of the exhibition. Visitors see them sculpting and understand the process required to make a stone sculpture by hand with hand tools, which is fascinating and awe-inspiring!

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