Farewell 2008 - Thank you for teaching us

A home showcasing the flag of Trinidad and Tobago

Michelle Isava - Artist of the year

Aiming to martyrdom


Isava enactment of a Tango dance amidst her forceful violence

Michelle Isava has demonstrated that perseverance and will to become what you want to be, gets you to the place and draws in those who seek to help you on the way. Earlier this year during an impromptu interview, she stressed that artists must pick themselves up and do something rather than just waiting around for something to happen.



The videos shown here courtesy of the artist exhibits a powerful meaning. It demonstrated her strength and courage of just doing it performed in places that one would least expect. Isava toys with the self, she forces confinement, restraint, live sacrifice and remorse to the suffering of the female, the mother and the inner womb - Aiming to self martyrdom

Michelle Isava works from Trinidad, West Indies

Art at Don's Roti Shop

The bar next to Don's Roti shop, Diego Martin, Trinidad with a Christmas Tree and Music Boom boxes nest to it.

Don's Roti is a popular shop in Diego Martin and many loyal customers wait over an hour to get their all potato, channa, veg, chicken or beef wraps. Many hungry patrons sometimes go next door at their Rumshop to take a nip of Scotch and to discuss the politics of the day. Is dem fault make we so!. This is the general tone of many conversations. Knowing what's wrong with the country and making the best to keep it so.

But at this festive time, Christmas is being celebrated by an installment of a large and tastefully decorated Christmas tree which matches two collages resembling a wooden Rum cast interspersed with gold leaf. These paintings are the visual backdrop of a couple embracing tightly, the woman taking a sip from her drink, and feeling up of her man's ass at the side. Baby Jesus would be shocked. Oh Trinidad is nice, Trinidad is a paradise.

My leisurely Sunday stroll - Art at the Oval

A public Art project supported by private sponsors under guidance of the Trinidad Art Society located at the Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain.

The Queen's Park Oval wall has a face lift after it was painted white for the World Cup Cricket venue in 2006. The entire wall has been placed with large posters showcasing the who's who in local contemporary art. This is to spruce up the capital and give the public a look at art where they may have never seen it before. The vinyl posters are to be up until Carnival 2009.


Men at work, the Queen's Park Oval, Tragarete Road, Port of Spain.

What needs to be done to make this project benefiting.

1. The Trinidad Art Society should include walking tours of the space open to the public by someone who is knowledgeable on the subject.
2. Target the community, schools, elder homes, disable people etc.
2. Invite artists to talk about their work.
3. Make it aware that high quality reproductions of the work are available.
4. Rotate this exhibition in other places including on the island of Tobago.


The Queen's Park Oval mural spared by the onslaught of carnival mas, 2009

Playing Card > > > > Marlon Darbeau

Gambling at one's State, literally - Slick but not really slick


EN ROUTE installation at Alice Yard, Trinidad

The graphic artist Marlon Darbeau has installed a work that relates to the political state of the country. This work by all means is literal. Darbeau has mocked up a stage of a card game where the participants are wheeling and dealing with the future of the country, yet not showing their full hand. This was indicated by incomplete sentences hinting on corruption. He also had seats for the public (onlookers), as they suppressed (sat) on the social issues facing Trinidad and Tobago. Icons representing crime, planning and basic infrastructure were impressed on the seats.


Seats of the public

En Route ... Of Bridges and Barriers, an installation by Marlon Darbeau, continues until Saturday 13 December, 2008. Hours: 3.00 to 7.00 pm. Alice Yard 80 Roberts Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain.



The ruling party - The opposition - The people

Marlon Darbeau's work should have taken on the look of the card itself, there is an example what it could have been. Better yet if this was done in neon.

Releasing Susan Dayal's Heart

See Susan Dayal's current work

Q.You work with wire, and you create female forms. But you also do commercial work, tell me a bit about that straddling of lines between commercial and art practice.

A. I have been working in wire for about 18 years. I started working in wire in my second year of art school. During that time, I was experimenting with the material and exploring ideas related to feminism, body image, fashion and Carnival. When I graduated and began to try to earn a living with this skill, I began to develop a range of smaller craft items. The first was the little wire angel Christmas tree decoration that I still make today.

SKILL

From the perspective of skill, making craftwork consistently for the past 15 years has been very good for me. The craftwork has provided a strong technical foundation for my artwork. It has without a doubt, provided me with many opportunities and challenges that have helped me to develop my technique and skill level. It has also made me a lighter, less serious person. When I make craft work, I am collaborating with the client and that process has made me more sociable and extroverted.

CONTENT

One disadvantage of devoting more time to craft than to art is that craft does not challenge me mentally and emotionally, the way my artwork does. Through my artwork, I am forced to face and express my shadow side, my introversion and my issues.

Q. You are a professional Yoga instructor, how does this inform your work?

A. I think that the process of becoming a yoga teacher has affected both the skill and content of my work. For my yoga teacher training course, I had to develop a daily breathing / meditation practice as well as a daily posture practice. The practice of breathing and postures breathing has influenced my work. It has made my focus more intense. The level of intricacy of my wirework has increased to the point where it is becoming more challenging to price the work because I spend so many hours on it.

My yoga practice has also influenced the content of my work. Through my earlier work, I wrestled with the issues surrounding women being stereotyped and victimized. Now I am more interested in a more positive perspective of femaleness.

Q. You went to India a few years ago, has that influenced your work?

A. India provided a sensory overload. I’ve spoken to my artist friends who have traveled there and I think that we would all agree that the place continues to have an effect on you many years after the visit.

What I noticed and what inspired and impressed me the most about India was the sense of creativity. First of all, creativity is seen as a divine gift. Musicians, dancers and would imagine that artisans as well regularly give thanks and praise to God and their gurus. Their level of workmanship and commitment to excellence is truly inspiring.

A commissioned Artist book incorporating the work of Dayal made by Bookmann

Q. You studied in Scotland, tell me a bit about your early art learning?

A. When I was deciding on which schools to apply to for my sculpture degree, I looked at a lot of different art schools. I looked at Chelsea School of Art, Central-St. Martins, Kingston University, Glasgow College of Art, Edinburgh College of Art and of course Dundee College of Art and Design. I liked the program at Dundee the best because the program was very well balanced between being structured and allowing students to discover their own voices. I think that a sculpture program has to be structured and directed to a large degree because there are so many processes to learn. However, it also needs to be flexible and accommodating, so that the students can learn how to apply these skills and make images that express their voices and visions.

I think that I received the kind of resource and instruction that I wanted. I was also allowed to be myself, to express my femaleness and Caribbean-ness in a very white, male space. Although I majored in Sculpture, I explored photography a lot too and I enjoyed that.

Q. You studied with Eddie Bowen and Steve Ouditt, what was that like for you?

A. That was a lot of fun. They were both young, in their mid-twenties and very vibrant teachers. They pushed us and encouraged us to explore and push limits. I loved that. They introduced us to other artists like Jackie Hinkson, Shastri Maharaj, Francisco Cabral and Anna Serrao. As teachers, they supported our growth very well.

Q. You did a group show with Irenee Shaw and other regional female artists, tell me about the experience, and don’t you think that we need to have another show like that very soon.

A. Lips Sticks and Marks came about when Irenee had a solo show at CCA in 1998. She invited 2 other artists to speak at her talk, Annalee Davis and Alida Martinez. From their collaboration at the talk, these 3 women artists decided to take things further and expand the idea into a group women’s exhibition, with artists from the region. The show was curated by Irenee, Annalee and Alida and was intended to travel around the Caribbean. They invited Roberta Stoddart from Jamaica, Joscelyn Gardner from Barbados, Osaira Muyale from Aruba and myself to join the group. A catalogue was designed and printed. The show opened in Barbados and then traveled here to Trinidad.

Lips Sticks and Marks was a really wonderful experience for me. I was the youngest of the women, and the least experienced. They were like big sisters to me. It was very ambitious and a massive undertaking. I am very proud to have been a part of that.

What made this show so special, was that it was curated by women artists. It was a spontaneous response to the connections that Irenee, Annalee and Alida felt with each other’s work and the work of the other artists in the show. They had seen parallels and connected themes in the work of all 7 of us. We were working through issues of gender and cultural identity in the Caribbean space.

I would like to see more thoughfully curated exhibitions in Trinidad and perhaps a women’s show could be one of them.

Q. What are some of the misconceptions that people have of your process?

A. People may not realise that wire-bending is very hard on the body. That is one of the reasons I began to practice and then eventually teach Yoga. I have carpal tunnel and at times, excruciating back pain that is a direct result of this work. I am however able to manage my injuries with my yoga practice.

Q. What are you working on now?

A. I am working on a small collection of craft for Christmas.

Q. What would you like to do that you have not had an opportunity to do as yet?

A. I find that technique and content are closely connected. Some techniques lend themselves to expressing certain ideas. For these past 18 years I have been working mostly in wire, though from time to time I experiment with painting, drawing and fabric work. At this point I would like to explore another technique or techniques and devote years to developing my skill level. I think that these new skills will give me the visual language with which I can express different ideas.

Q. Your husband Johnny Stollmeyer has worked with you in a collaborative way, tell me about this melding of natural materials with wire and some of the places you have shown your work together.

A. Soon after we were married in 2000, Johnny and I had a show together at the Gallery 1234 at the Normandie Hotel. We made several collaborative pieces for that show. Since then we have made a handful of collaborative pieces that have been displayed in gift shops like Scribbles in West Mall (which is no longer) and Rainy Days in Ellerslie Plaza. Presently we do not have any of the collaborative pieces available.

Q. There are not many art couples, the Bainey’s, the Cozier’s, these pairings are dynamic, and in every case they manage to be strong together. Have you given any thought to this, and what are your views?

A. Although I enjoy and appreciate the work of the Bainey’s and the work of Irenee Shaw and Chris Cozier, I do not know anything about their working process or working dynamic.

It has taken effort for Johnny and I to be able to collaborate because we have very different creative processes. Generally speaking, artists are single-minded and egotistical. Collaborations, like any other relationship require commitment to the other person, compromise and trust so that creativity and spontaneity can flow. In successful pieces, the aesthetics and visions of the individuals can work together well.

Q. You have made work for Carnival, what was the experience like?

A. In 1996, I made a series of headpieces for Peter Minshall and the Callaloo Company’s production, Song of the Earth. That was a very intense working experience. Minshall was my mentor and I met with him a few times and he would express to me what he wanted through metaphor and simple sketches. Then I would go away and with further direction from Kathryn Chan, I would play, explore and experiment. At some point, I arrived at what was required.

Q. Your women body cages had a visceral impact on the viewer and the wearer that it was built around. Talk about that.

A. Looking at my earliest work from art school, you can see that I am interested in the female torso. Using the forms of structured garments like bras, corsets and girdles as my starting point, I have consistently explored the idea of an empty garment holding the form or describing the shape of the body that inhabits it.

I took that idea further by making corsets from cardboard, wire or mild steel and then taking photos of myself wearing these structures. I was commenting on the torture that is a part of fashion, beauty and body image. In the photos I would wrestle with the costumes. The photos were meant to illustrate the conflicted feelings that I felt towards the stereotypical roles of women and having to dress a certain way in order to get approval from both men and women alike.

The series of 5 torsos that I called She Structures, were a social comment on rape. I was thinking of what kind of garment could protect a woman from rape. I came up with the wire torso with a serrated labia.

Q. Where do you see your work going in the next few years?

A. I would like to explore sheet metal and push that material on its own, independent of wire, and see what happens. I would also like to learn traditional quilting and explore working in fabric as well.

Interview courtesy of Sexypink

Susan Dayal's Heart

The Letters of Margaret Mann

Paradise lost - A pastoral history and how we fockup de place


The Cazabon Mann collection, Port of Spain, Trinidad

At the National Museum in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the works by Margaret Mann and Michel-Jean Michel Cazabon are on exhibit. This is a collection of watercolours and gauche paintings of Trinidad executed during the 19th century. A student to Michel-Jean Michel Cazabon, Margaret Mann lived in Trinidad during the period, 1847-1851. The Cazabon Mann collection once belonged to the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, England, it was acquired by the National Museum in 2005 at auction at Christie's. This is its first public viewing.

For art lovers of Cazabon's work, this is a rare exhibition which can be relished to a Trinidad that once was. This is our history. The beauty of the lands and the richness of the flora shows how idyllic the place appeared, painted by Cazabon and his apprentice.


The port of Port of Spain, Trinidad

Jean Michel Cazabon has been criticized for placing straw figures in his compositions, whether this distracted or exposed his weakness as a painter, what is clear is that he has recorded parts of Trinidad's landscape which is a remembrance of the island's natural beauty, landmarks and of its European colonialism. Cazabon in many ways was an anthropologist who studied the manner of the period and left his fingerprint on works that will never be forgotten. The port of San Fernando is particularity beautiful as no one today would ever think.


Tessa Alexander's shanty town of Sea Lots, Port of Spain

Contemporary landscape painters such as Jackie Hinkson, Karen Sylvester, Peter Sheppard, Peter Doig and particularly Tessa Alexander have attempted to idealized Trinidad and Tobago in a light that is a paradise fused by the harsh reality between what we rather want not to see apposed to what we want to see. These Painters have chosen to use this truth and others have not. The answers to art itself is how artists are capable of translating these experiences to leave a viewer, pondering, longing or just repulsed. As with the Margaret Mann collection's large public turnout, this expressed the desire for a place they once loved.


Fisherwomen by Margaret Mann. Mann's pictorial representation of the Negro looks more like men dressed as women. Her portraits are heavy and stiff.

This is an exhibition that should be seen, not that it is of Cazabon, but rather from a place we all came from. It stands as a reflection and testament to who we as in the present, to who we will be in the future The Cazabon Mann collection at the Annex, National Museum of Trinidad and Tobago. For inquiries on the length of the exhibition, you can contact the Museum. A calender for 2009 related the collection is also available, and a hard cover book on the artists and period.

Cazabon Mann- collection by Danielle Delon
Hard cover - $350.00 TTD
Soft cover - $295.00 TTD
Calender - $125.00 TTD

wonder of the world

why are people given things they really don't want?

Land of the Humming Bird

Those who eat the cascadura will, the native legend says, Wheresoever they may wander, end in Trinidad their days.

And this lovely fragrant island, with its forest hills sublime, Well might be the smiling Eden pictured in the Book divine.

Cocoa woods with scarlet glory of the stately Immortelles, Waterfalls and fertile vaileys, precipices, fairy dells,

Hills and rivers, green savannahs, fruits and flowers and ordours rich. Waving sugar cane plantations and the wondrous lake of pitch.

Oh! the Bocas at the davbreak – how can one describe that scene! Or the little emerald islands with the sapphire sea between!

Matchless country of Iere, fairer none could ever wish. Can you wonder at the legend of the cascadura fish?

Entering the Boca, Trinidad, South America

From the History of the West Indies by Allister Macmillan transcribed from the West Indian Reader 1932