‘Lifelong creative’ had passion for photography, poetry, crafts
Ardelle Robinson was a visionary.
An educator, journalist and award-winning artist, photographer and poet from the Hill District, Ms. Robinson added a richness and beauty to the lives of all who experienced her work or knew her personally.
“She was a lifelong creative. She was one of the early members of the Kuntu Writers’ Workshop and Repertory Theatre and the Homewood Poetry Forum,” said her daughter Barbara Eubanks, of Madaba, Jordan. “She was a contemporary of August Wilson. We would come home from school and in our living room would be August Wilson, [novelist] John Edgar Wideman and [playwright] Rob Penny, and they would be having discourse about literature, theater and social justice.”
Ms. Robinson, also an entrepreneur who owned Designs by Vivienne, died May 15 after a series of health setbacks. She was 71.
As a girl growing up in the Hill District, Ms. Robinson showed the first sparks of creativity, her daughter said.
“She was the oldest of four and she typed a newsletter for her neighbors on Anaheim Street,” Ms. Eubanks said. “She was gifted a camera by her grandmother and she took pictures of her neighborhood. She was always a photojournalist.”
Ms. Robinson graduated from Schenley High School, where her late mother, Ardelle Vactor, served as a librarian for 30 years.
“That was where she got her love of literature,” her daughter said. “Then, my mom began teaching at the A. Leo Weil School. There were people who came to her funeral who said she was their kindergarten and first grade teacher and they never forgot her. She stayed in touch with many of them over the years.”
By the late 1970s, a battle with scoliosis forced Ms. Robinson to reconsider her priorities. She returned to her first loves, photography and journalism.
“She had an aggressive treatment with major surgery and was in a full body cast for a year,” Ms. Eubanks said. “During that time, she enrolled in Point Park College, majoring in photojournalism. She went to school every day and worked at night at the Holy Family Institute to put herself through school.”
“Photography was always her most steady pursuit,” said her other daughter, Montia Robinson-Dinkins, of the Hill District. “It was her earliest passion.”
Ms. Robinson served as lifestyle editor at the New Pittsburgh Courier and she hosted a talk show called “Talk Tyme,” on the Pittsburgh Community Television network.
“In the ’80s, she interviewed Sammy Davis Jr. and Barry White. She was one of Sammy Davis Jr.’s last interviews,” Ms. Robinson-Dinkins said. “She was the only Black reporter to interview Warren Beatty at the premiere for ‘Dick Tracy.’ ”
In 1990, Ms. Robinson won the poetry division of the August Wilson Writing Competition. Mr. Wilson himself presented his old friend with the award.
A lover of culture in all of its forms, Ms. Robinson shared a wide array of interests with her daughters, whether it was an African history harambe or listening to Porky Chedwick on the radio.
“My mother believed we should be exposed to things,” Ms. Robinson-Dinkins said. “She just wanted us to see a little bit of everything.”
Growing up, their household bustled with activity and interesting visitors, her daughters recalled.
“It was enriching — it was normal to us to hear intellectual discourse on complex topics and be challenged to write poetry or do research,” Ms. Eubanks said. “She passed down her gifts to us in lots of ways that we are still coming to understand.”
Ms. Robinson had myriad talents, her family said.
“She had photography that won awards and recognitions in shows, and her whole life she crocheted,” Ms. Eubanks remembered. “She also sewed. When we were kids she made some of our clothes, and later in life, she monetized her craft and started her own company, Designs by Vivienne.”
Among the items she sold were blankets, like the ones she lovingly crocheted for friends and family over the years, waist beads, and oneofa- kind notecards she made from her original photos.
Ms. Robinson curated the photos from years spent traveling the globe, including visits to Paris and Nairobi, Kenya, and the seven years she spent living in Honolulu. While she was there, she earned a degree in social work from the University of Hawaii.
“She met a group of fellow crafters online and they asked her to move to Hawaii, and one day, she decided that Hawaiian winters sounded better than Pittsburgh winters,” Ms. Eubanks said, laughing at the memory. “So, she had a yard sale, boxed up her things and lived in Hawaii from 1998 to 2005. It was courageous, but my mom was always courageous. When you’re a kid, you don’t always appreciate that breadth of courage, but we came to appreciate that later.”
Some of her source material was also gathered during a particularly meaningful trip to Kenya, where Ms. Robinson documented the lives of women who worked as bead-makers.
“She appreciated a meaningful story,” Ms. Eubanks said. “She traveled with these women to work, where they walked for miles and miles every day. It costs the equivalent of 25 cents to catch the bus, but they walked to work, then took the bus home. She captured all of it so that she could tell their story.”
Deborah Batten-Reid, a colleague and longtime friend who traveled to Kenya with Ms. Robinson, said, “She wanted to help everyone there who she met. Although she was there for her work, she wanted to do whatever she could with whatever she had.”
Later in life, Ms. Robinson never missed a show at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, where she especially enjoyed photographing exhibits, and she doted on her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“She would have the kids with her for a week or two in the summertime, but she ended up turning it into an entire operation, with matching T-shirts and itineraries,” Ms. Eubanks recalled. “It was called ‘Camp Nana.’ ”
“She was their ‘Nanny Banany,’ ” Ms. Robinson -Dinkins added, laughing at the nickname given to her mother by younger family members. “All of the kids had homemade blankets from her.”
Amir Rashidd, of the Hill District, a fellow creative and friend who knew and worked with Ms. Robinson since the 1970s, said, “She was a very good friend to everyone. She was a great poet and master photographer. She was a wonderful mother and artist. ... And I could never beat her in Scrabble.”
A devout Christian, Ms. Robinson saw her many gifts as God-given.
“She once wrote, ‘God has given me a gift to capture the greatness of His majesty from behind a camera lens. From butterflies that pose for me to the intensity in the eyes of an African bead-maker, I have been able to capture thousands of moments in the blink of an eye,’ ” Ms. Robinson-Dinkins said.
Along with her daughters, Ms. Robinson is survived by seven grandchildren; three great-granddaughters; and her siblings Rev. Darlene Alston, of Columbia, S.C., Raymond Vactor, of Honolulu, and Richard Vactor, of Bellevue.
Her funeral was Saturday.
Memorial donations can be made to the Ardelle Vivienne Robinson Scholarship at Point Park University, www. pointpark. edu/ alumni/givenow/index.