The National Guild of Decoupeurs

This is a map of Trinidad made by the craft of Decoupage. You may see many works of a sort hung in living rooms across the nation, Trinidad and Tobago. Popular imagery are flowers and the Lord's pray made by the lady of the house or as a gift given on a special occasion. It is an art form which entails pasting paper cut-outs which are then glued to a treated plaque of wood.

The outer edges of the work above shows the hacked indents from a hammer and this was perhaps to give a patina of old world charm. It also showed the passion in which the artist attempted to produce the most authentic work gauging from the group of housewives who participated in the project. The map has been preserved by several coats of varnish or lacquer but the aging has somewhat dulled the finish. It should be noted that parts of the paper had been deliberately tarnished or burnt to give the look of a historic document preserved under cakes of varnish.