Tian Robin Justman, a fashion designer and stylist who was a key influence at the Goat Farm Arts Center, died Sunday at Emory University Hospital. She was 33.
The cause was leukemia, her family said. She had battled cancer since adolescence.
A memorial service will be held at Honey Creek Woodlands, 2625 Highway 212 in Conyers, Friday at 5 p.m. Her body will be interred in a wildflower meadow that is part of a nature preserve owned by the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, a few miles from her childhood home. Guests are invited to wear white or colorful clothes and bring quilts for seating.
Justman touched lives though her sense of beauty, her sensitivity, her tenacity, and her generous spirit. As the aesthetic director at the Goat Farm arts complex, she applied her unique design sense to everyday objects in common areas of the 19th century industrial site. She inspired fellow artists through mentoring, workshops, and collaboration.
“She had a really precise and avant-garde eye which translated well into the way that people interacted with space,” said Allie Bashuk, a Goat Farm program manager.
For the past six years, Justman lived and worked in a former locker room there. Her sunny studio was full of her favorite things, such as a photo from a trip to Thailand, an antique sewing machine, and Geisha shoes she made with her father. She lived with her sister Abigail Justman, and her dog, a hairless Chinese crested named “Kymo” (rhymes with chemo).
Justman’s passion for originality was evident in an outfit she created for Laura Turner Seydel, who wore it to a Captain Planet Foundation gala. Taking a “reduce-reuse-recycle-reclaim” concept, she crafted a dress of seat belts that buckled across the chest like a harness. “She actually went to the junkyard, climbed into cars, and cut out the seat belts,” said Seydel, who commissioned the work. “She pried the hood ornaments off cars and made jewelry out of them.”
She was always searching for an alternative to the norm and creating beauty, friends and family said.
When decorating Easter eggs, a family tradition, “Tian would make sure we took it to the ninth level, with gold plate, plaster and LED lights,” said her brother Phillip Justman of Conyers.
“With the limited time she had outside the hospital, she filled it with nonstop creative events,” he said. On the weekend of her death, she had planned to attend the Wigwam Wellness Festival at the Chattahoochee Nature Center and the Hambidge Art Auction at the Goat Farm, according to her Facebook page.
Justman’s creativity and drive helped her power through a life interrupted with illness. An athlete at Heritage High School, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at age 16. After surgery and chemotherapy, she rejoined the varsity swim team and competed in the state finals. The bone cancer returned when she was in college, and she subsequently fought leukemia.
She was a pre-med student at Georgia Southern University with dreams of becoming a molecular geneticist, when she switched gears into the fashion industry and transferred to Bauder College.
In addition to her sister and brother, she is survived by her parents, Coyle and Mary Justman of Conyers.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions be made to the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Office of Gift Records, Emory University, 1762 Clifton Rd., Suite 1400, Atlanta, 30322.
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