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South Africa, Maverick Life, Maverick Citizen, Culture

There’s an angel factory in the Karoo

Some of Rietbron angelmakers in their ‘office’ at Bronville Primary School. Back from left to right: Brenda Rex, Anna Solomon and Ronel Skaarnek. In front, Sara Steenkamp, Juliana Steenkamp with her baby Jaylene, and Elsie Theron. (Photo: Chris Marais)

By Julienne Du Toit

19 Jul 2023

Picture, if you will, a tumbledown railway siding in the Karoo semi-desert where Christmas angels are made by an outpost community of exceptional wire crafters.

There would be no jolly Santa presiding over squads of pointy-hatted elves, no restless reindeer champing at the bit to head into the skies, and certainly very little eggnog in evidence.

The Karoo Angel Factory is, in fact, split across two remote and dusty settlements in the Eastern Cape. One part is in a tiny old church in Vondeling, a hamlet near a ruined railway station, midway between Willowmore and De Rust, in the shadow of the great Swartberg mountain range.

The other unlikely angelic production line is in a classroom of the Bronville Primary School in Rietbron.

Every year the angel-makers, barely more than a dozen of them, fashion about 20,000 Karoo angels from wire, ostrich feathers, hand-felted Merino wool, sequins and beads. Then they are dispatched to faraway places like Norway, Sweden, Canada, the US, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and France.

How in heaven did this start?

A pair of angels hanging from thorn tree branches, with the Vondeling craft factory in background. (Photo: Chris Marais)

A foundling

In 2006, Cacadu District Municipality (now Sarah Baartman District Municipality) launched an upliftment initiative aimed at handcraft skills development, business creation and the sourcing of appropriate markets.

It could so easily have been one of those breathless projects that dash dreams and waste money. But this one was different. The municipality entrusted the mentorship to two dedicated women, Hannelie Herselman and Gardi Oosthuizen of Craft Partners.

The district municipality chose Vondeling for the initiative, a hamlet of about 29 families with a school and church, no electricity or shops, and a single solar-powered payphone. Income was mostly from social grants or seasonal piecework on farms.

The dusty road to Vondeling Station, between Willowmore and De Rust. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Vondeling Station – trains don’t stop here anymore, but some of the angel crafters still live here. (Photo: Chris Marais)

The story about how the angel business started is still very much alive in the village. Siena Klaassen (now deceased) was one of the first to be involved. Back in 2008, she told us: “This craft business started a bit like an optel kind, a picked-up child, a vondeling (foundling). Hannelie and Gardi showed us first how to start off with things that were lying around us – old tins, glass shards, bits of agave wood. That’s why we called our project Vondeling Optel Craft.”

Gardi adds: “We then built on their existing knowledge of crochet and knitting, using thin wire and beautifully coloured beads, sequins and wool. The Vondeling group members were determined to grasp this opportunity and were very proud of the fact that after only 21 days of training, they were producing saleable objects.”

Right place, right angel

One of the items they produced was an angel with beaded feet peeking out of the wire-crocheted robe. The Vondeling group named it Justine, after one of the young leaders in their team.

Then came an unlikely series of minor miracles that linked this speck on the map to Oslo in Norway.

Downtown Willowmore on a misty morning. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Parts of Willowmore Village resemble a rural European setting. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Gardi gave two angels to a former colleague who worked at the Cape Craft Design Institute (CCDI) in Cape Town and he displayed them on his desk. Soon after that, the CCDI staff happened to be meeting with Norwegian retailer Kjersti Lie Holtar, who owns Isandi in Oslo – a long-standing importer of African handcrafted products.

Kjersti was specifically looking for Christmas stock. And there was the angel Justine, lying on a desk, twinkling at her.

“It was so pure, so simple, so honest,” recalls Kjersti. She wanted to meet the source of the angels. As soon as she connected with Gardi, Kjersti ordered 100 angels for distribution in Norway. They were sold out in a single day at Isandi.

Kjersti ordered several hundred more.

The crafters now laugh when they recall how exhausted they were after making only 200 angels in two months. Today they work 10 times faster.

Then Kjersti asked them whether they could make an angel with white ostrich feathers.

The Angel Factory shop in Willowmore. (Photo: Chris Marais)

“And that is when the angels really took off,” according to Nathon Alexander, who now oversees the dispatching of angels from Willowmore, along with Janine Hobanie, who comes from Vondeling.

Feathered Karoo angels began to gleam on Nordic conifers, magical and exotic by candlelight. They spread to Germany and France, and by 2015, the angel team in Vondeling was battling to keep up with the orders.

Angels united

Rewind again to 2009. The district municipality had appointed Gardi and Hannelie to repeat Vondeling’s success in another remote community – Rietbron, between Willowmore and Beaufort West.

There the two taught a group of women to crochet and knit hearts, delicate snowflakes, wire trees and small jewellery items using fine wire, welding skills and spray paint. The end-products were beautiful, delicate and quirky. They sold fairly well locally and overseas, but there was less demand for their ranges than for Vondeling’s. The demand for angels, meanwhile, was absolutely exploding.

Window angel at the factory shop in Willowmore. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Packaged and personalised, these angels are ready for shipping. (Photo: Chris Marais)

By 2015, it seemed only natural to deploy the deft hands at Rietbron Handcrafts to help fill the demand.

Since then, the two groups have worked together under the Karoo Angels label, naming themselves as “The Angel Factory in the Karoo”. Kjersti formed Karoo Angels (Pty) Ltd to handle the exports.

All the angel-makers come together once a year to decide on new angel designs. What started with one angel in 2006 is now a range of many dozens. Each one has its own personality, features and style, often named after the angel-makers, family members or friends.

There’s a Jaylene, an Amorey, a Charlene, an Anna, an Elsie, Violet, Levona, Nelly, Estalien, Marinda, Zara, and a Lisa, among many others.

An angel from the deep Karoo – superb Christmas gift for a city kid. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Hannelie and Gardi also have angels named after them. In fact, Hannelie has remained involved as a friend and mentor to the angel-makers.

Nathon and Janine at the Karoo Angels office in Willowmore take care of incoming and outgoing orders, which build up to a crescendo by the last quarter of the year.

Dreams have wings

But production is 100% managed by the two craft groups, explains Kjersti. Their professionalism and commitment are critical.

Ronel Skaarnek of Rietbron puts it this way: “Making these little figures is our career, and that is why we do not compromise on quality.”

Karoo angel factory Angel-makers often work from home: Trudi Hobanie, Veronica Olyn, Charlene Daniels and Janine Hobanie. (Photo: Chris Marais)

The first angel prototypes to be made in Rietbron, a nearby village. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Rietbron’s Bronville township, home to a number of angel crafters. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Angel-making has brought many blessings to the women of Vondeling Optel Craft and Rietbron Handcrafts, above and beyond the income they bring in. This work has allowed a kind of creative expression that might not have been possible before.

“I am convinced that, in another world, Violet Martin would have been a recognised artist,” remarks Kjersti.

Says Violet: “Because of the angels, we receive visitors from across the country and overseas. My husband is proud of us. Our whole community respects us. These angels have given life to my dreams.”

Kjersti adds: “It is indeed a miracle that, every year, thousands of handmade angels fly from the Karoo plains to countries far away. This Christmas again, people in every corner of the world will unwrap a small gift and discover a skilfully handmade angelic creation, and on the label they will read these words: There is an angel factory in the Karoo.” DM

This is an extract from Karoo Roads III: The Adventures Continue. For an insider’s view on life in the Karoo, get the three-book special of Karoo Roads I, Karoo Roads II and Karoo Roads III by Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais for only R800, including courier costs in South Africa. For more details, contact Julie at [email protected]

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South Africa

A foundling

Right place, right angel

Angels united

Dreams have wings