Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 14/Jul 07:33

Sarah Beckett exhibit pays tribute to Trinidad and Tobago

SARAH BECKETT’S Latest exhibition, Iere, was different from her usual offerings. Hosted at Tapas restaurant at the Hotel Normandie, St Ann’s, from July 9-13, the 23 works were varied in theme, style and media. All except one were done within the last year in pencil, pen, gouache, oils, acrylics and gold leaf on paper and canvas. And while some pieces were in her recognisable dreamy and mysterious style, they all had a romantic feel to them. They included portraits, flora, hummingbirds and figures, including pan players. “I wanted to find my own way to do it (pan), because it is a subject matter that drives a lot of Trinidadian art, logically, because it's integral to our lives. And I wanted to find a way that I felt was genuinely my vision and not influenced by other people. So it's taken me a while to formulate a way that I wanted to do it,” told WMN. In addition, Beckett said she usually had an overall theme around which the work wove, but this exhibition grew out of a collection of poetry that reflected her journey. So a lot of the paintings were new, but some were developments of paintings she did in previous series. Beckett had been writing poetry for the past 30 or 40 years and her work had been printed in several publications in Australia, TT and the UK. [caption id="attachment_1096122" align="alignnone" width="989"] Sarah Beckett's In The Blue Incense of Evening. - Photo by Faith Ayoung[/caption] But on July 8 at her exhibition opening at Tapas, she launched the first collection of her work, Iere: Living in the Land of the Humming Bird, which was interspersed with photographs of some of her art over the years. “In my own life I’ve always been very shy about my poetry. It took me a long time to dare to speak it out loud. Actually, Joan Dayal, owner of Paper Based Bookshop, was the first person to ask me to read in public, so I have a lot to thank her for. “So I sort of had the poetry on one side, which was under the radar, and obviously I’ve been painting all my life. I’m not quite sure how it happened but gradually I began to see, ‘Hang on, these are different expressions of a similar idea. The poems are verbal paintings. And the paintings are silent poems.’” Beckett spoke to WMN at Tapas restaurant on July 10 surrounded by her work. She said the author’s notes of the book best expressed what drove her work. It said Trinidad cradled her as both a poet and an artist. It was where she found her voice and the book was her love song to the island. It celebrated the beauty of its physical aspects, its contradictions and various cultures, and grieved its suffering. [caption id="attachment_1096126" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Artist and author Sarah Beckett says Iere is both a journey of the heart paying homage to TT, and a meditation on how our surroundings shape us and how we shape the place in which we live. - Photo by Faith Ayoung[/caption] “Iere is both a journey of the heart paying homage to this land, and a meditation on how our surroundings shape us and how we, in turn, shape the place where we live. However modest our efforts, I believe that our grace, the ability to write, paint, make music, it is our duty to nurture the soul of the world. And in the words of poet John Keats, ‘I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of imagination.’” Iere (pronounced eye-ee-ree), not to be confused with the Jamaicans' "irie," was the First People’s name for Trinidad, thought by some to mean "Land of the Hummingbird." She said she was not looking at Trinidad through rose-coloured glasses but with clear eyes, so several of the poems are “quite dark.” They speak about the land, how people related to it, the weather, moments of humanity, domestic violence, about Mayaro and the road from Arima to Blanchisseuse. There are also poems for young men who got involved in gangs and some mourning people who died. Beckett, 78, fell in love with Trinidad when she, her three children and her Trindadian husband arrived from Southampton when she was 20. She said Derek Walcott’s poetry had a lot to do with her permanent return to TT after living in England, Colombia, Singapore and Spain, especially the quote in his reinvention of The Odyssey: “...harbour after crescent harbour closed his wound.” [caption id="attachment_1096121" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Sarah Beckett painted Hibiscus Serenade using oils and gold leaf on canvas. - Photo by Faith Ayoung[/caption] She even wrote a poem about reading it. But after all her years of living in and painting about Trinidad, and feeling the pull to return when she left, she still could not pinpoint why she has always loved the island. To her, it was a mystery. “The only thing I can think of, in some ways, is that I actually passionately believe that the imaginative drive in the world is going to come from what I call the New World, which it used to be called when it was originally ‘discovered’ by all those raiders. I don’t want none of this ‘Third World’ business. "I do actually believe that there is a lot more soul in the southern hemisphere. I'm not talking about this in some drifty ‘it's so pretty and the people are so nice and the palm trees are so pretty’ way. I’ve lived here and I’ve paid my dues, and we know it’s not always easy. "But anywhere you live there are going to be problems and challenges and things that drive us crazy.” Beckett said over the years she would write and sometimes share her work with friends. Some of them encouraged her to put some together and get it published. And while she put together four or five collections reflecting different times in her life, she never had them published. That was until a friend, a poet from Australia, kept telling her to just do it. So she decided to try, and Iere was self-published, with the assistance of Marva Mitchell of EnKryptions. “You only live once, and I’m so old now. I’m not out to make a grand charge or something. I just figure I could say, ‘Well, I had a go.’ And the kids were pleased. They’ve been enormously supportive.” She said people had the wrong idea about poetry. Many believed it had to be serious and difficult to understand and the reader had to be literary, but that was not the case. She said poetry should not be read cover to cover. It was something to be “dipped into for nourishment.” It asked the reader if they felt the same way, so it was like having a conversation. That, she said was how she wanted readers to feel about her work. She also sent a special thanks to Rui Pires, the owner and chef at Tapas, for allowing her to use the space to create a special atmosphere. Iere: Living in the Land of the Humming Bird is available on Amazon and at Paper Based Bookshop, St Clair.   The post Sarah Beckett exhibit pays tribute to Trinidad and Tobago appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.