where ev’ry creed and race…
What the hell are we doing? (PART 1)
When I write, I almost always do so because of conversations that spark a desire to understand more about the subject in question. The fact that Art occupies most of my thoughts leads me toward the subject matter exclusively in all of its forms.
In the last few days two such discussions brought me here with questions that I know I shall stumble upon again and again with no real answers. Yet they are serious enough to start to formulate a way forward because they have been stated.
These utterances are so provoking that I must get right to it. The statements are all about what is the point of Art in Trinidad and Tobago and What are we really doing about Art in our university settings?
‘People don’t care about Art!’ Was what was said to me. The person continued, ‘ They don’t relate to it, they don’t see it. My world is ugly and there is nothing to see in it and people don’t feel that Art have anything for them.” The last part in true local parlance.
I practically winced. If the air could have gone out of me, it would have. I have not been confronted with a statement like that in that way in that place before. We were standing in the Central Bank having just watched two thought provoking and to me, satisfying shows.
The person uttering the opinion was unexpected as they were a benefactor of the bank as an Artist themselves. So to me, the statement was both an inditement to her personal professional sense of defeat and more markedly, the education system in total. I stared at her trying to find a way into my answer that could give some sort of context to hers. I chose to ask questions instead.
‘What sort of high school Art and Humanities did you do?’
‘None. I did Sciences, Maths and Geography. I never did Art after form two and I definitely didn’t do Literature.” This last part was said with a degree of pride, I found in her tone. Or was I now making it up to satisfy my sense that the lack of said subjects automatically meant a lack of empathy and sensitivity to her outer world? Was I being judgemental in the extreme?
I replied, “No Literature!’ I was aghast.
The divide between us getting larger and larger. A virtual wedge with depths unsee-able to the eye.
What the hell was going on here!
Art has no value, no purpose? I hear this all the time from any and everyone. But, this person, it somehow impacted me like a physical wound and I wanted to know why?
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She seemed to dare me by asking me what did Art mean to me? I told her she was asking the wrong person if she felt that I thought that it meant nothing as well.
I recalled my first encounters with art and culture in Trinidad and Tobago. Going to see The Joker of Seville at the Little Carib Theatre at seven or eight years old. Listening on repeat to the music by Andre Tanker from that Walcott play. Watching Best Village, Mastana Bahar and Play of the Month on television. Seeing Ralph and Vera Bainey’s sculptures at Scotia Bank and the most exciting of all, getting into Trinidad and Tobago Television building (TTT) to witness the costliest painting by a local Artist, Leroy Clarke.
In reply she rattled off…nothing.
Art did not make that presence matter in any way she could conjour up. While I was replying to her, she was watching me with cunning, and I even saw her totally confused by my experiences, as if I were making them up. They seemed so foreign to her.
We were at an impasse.
Two very different worlds.
The second issue came the next day in my own Foundation 3D Design class. We had achieved a great deal in thirteen weeks. The students had gone from absolute trepidation about what it entailed to showing off ideas that they wanted to continue to pursue. Some students have already decided that they shall be going beyond school into their future professional plans for their careers. It was satisfying to get that feedback.
Yet, there was a sense that I knew that I cannot guarantee them future classes in the subject. At present there is no part two, three or four, and although I will suggest it, getting the department to come on board is harder than it seems. I felt dispondant even as I was smiling about their accomplishments.
When I was graduating from college, every semester was a litmus test to asking whether what was learned could be applied to the world of work. I felt relatively confident that it could. I was aware that I could at least eek out a living from something. Ceramics, photography, illustration, silkscreen printing…teaching…all offered proof of earning a living.
I felt the size of Trinidad and Tobago jostle with the scale of possibilities and real opportunities going to waste as I stared at the students and they stared back wanting answers from me, and wanting reassurance. I felt also very acutely the dreams that were sold and the insecure realities of our collective experiences.
I began teaching because I had a calling to it and a sense that I wanted to show that Art is a career and that Artists are not cliches, but real people making really important strides in their communities and the country as a whole.
Very quickly all that I have not accomplished slammed into me. The books that have gone nowhere, Inner Sanctum:Artists Studios, researching 20 Artists to ascertain their working lives. A Brief history of Graphic Design in Trinidad and Tobago, capturing our own special approaches to design that I began in a picture book called Trinidad Aesthetic about the quirky sense of taste that could only be Trinbagonian. No School and then Design Lab, a workshop/studio teaching hub where teachers in the arts could do short, long or in between classes including virtual ones. Ideas that came to naught. I felt so bereft.
What the hell was going on here?
To assume that the differences one wants to make can change the world is arrogant and hopeful at once. To state that trying is just as important as achieving is a sober reality.
When does trying stop and results actually start? Should I check my ego? Have I overshot my own ability to do?
The echo coming back to me was a sentence…you better Do before better Don’t.
