Interviews and Updates - Blue Sky, Children's Lit and Ink

I decided to make a post of words today.

It's an intense sensation when you realise that you work has taken on its own life and that what you put into it is no longer important. The importance lies in what someone else has found or taken from it.

I was linked to TheFeelofFree where there's a tattoo of my Mythos piece. I'm most honoured. It's a really unbelievable feeling to know that someone (Zara E.) was so inspired by something I made that they have it permanently inked...I'm blown away! So to Zara, thank you and I appreciate you contacting me personally as well!

I was recently featured on two Caribbean blogs - Blue Sky Tie Dye and Summer Edward's Caribbean Children's Literature- which is awesome. Check them out. They're quite excellent.

SUMMER EDWARD'S CARIBBEAN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

If you read my last post, you know I'm a sucker for Caribbean illustrators and have made it my business to promote the work they do. It would be remiss of me if I didn't include Brianna McCarthy in that campaign. McCarthy is a young lady from Trinidad and Tobago whose talent can only be described as dazzling. In her genius-like mastery of a single subject matter, McCarthy reminds me of the great Impressionist painter Edward Degas, who obsessively depicted dancers (ballerinas) in his art. Only with McCarthy, it's girls. McCarthy repeatedly draws and paints girls. Beautiful, colored girls. In doing so she displays her mastery in the depiction of African, East Indian and creole physical features. Truly, in her art I see the working out of a Caribbean aesthetic which recognizes and affirms négritude (black consciousness), antillanité (West Indianness), and créolité (transcultural fusing.) Her art simply radiates color consciousness and métissage.

This is the first time McCarthy work is being featured on a children's literature blog. Indeed, when I contacted her to solicit an interview I could sense a sort of pleasant surprise in her response. I see great potential for children's illustration in McCarthy work and can easily compare her skill and style in watercolor to that of award-winning African-American children's illustrators, Sharda Strikland, E.B. Lewis and even Jerry Pinkney in some respects. There is such a need for illustrations like hers--unapologetic, eloquent images of beautiful, black people-- not only in the general universe of commercial images, but in children’s illustration in general and Caribbean children's illustration in particular.

I guess you can tell that there's just not enough good things I can say about her work :-)

Read on here...

BLUE SKY TIE DYE

This beauty discovered her artistic ability at a very young age. She joked that, “I come from a resourceful family; a low income background has a tendency to provoke that!”

Read more...

Blessings and keep good!

Paper Places - Alice, Woodford and Clifford

These are my Paper Queens from Paper Places.

It's a new thing I'm working on using materials I collect at different locations and my modest collection of scrapbooking stock. I do believe I love them.

Blessings and keep good,

Red, White and Yellow

I've been a bit busy. Fashion Week Trinidad and Tobago is happening now and I'm interning with The Cloth; it's a fascinating experience so far and I'm looking forward to more to come.

These three are Marli, Francis and Phaedra.

Be Blessed,

Sketches: Tantine Atie and Tusca

I've been playing with what I like about breasts, shoulders, and faces. I've found that I like all kinds of things -- few things are more lovely than shoulders. I've also discovered that I love Atie and Tusca like daughters. It's a very strange thing.

I'm re-reading Breath Eyes Memory by Edwidge Danticat.

Senses

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” - Khalil Gibran

I felt these two when I closed their eyes. I call them Nesta and Magda.They gave me the feeling that they could sense things others couldn't. I haven't painted anything colourful in a bit...it's my mood. I'm sure it'll pass; I can't create without colour for long.

I don't usually have much to say and I especially don't talk about the people who support me, so I think it's high time I say how great it is to get your emails and messages. That's constant inspiration. Speaking of which, the talented and fly Essence interviewed me for her blog You Inspire Me.

Keep good,

Interviews and Features - A Few Things

A few features recently:

Diasporique.com:

I love these cheery, yet pensive watercolors from Trinidadian artist Brianna McCarthy. Browse her collection and be inspired.

Au Courant Daily - Who Wants Some Passion.Fruit?

Cane rows - or corn rows, if you prefer - never looked so elegant! Just love the ladylike, demure quality of Trinidadian artist Brianna McCarthy's brown-skinned Passion.Fruit illustrations. Makes me feel like finding some Bougainvilleas for my hair...

New Naturalista - Passion Fruit

Like her favorite fruit, artist Brianna McCarthy is vibrant – her illustrations awaken the senses, lively, sweet and colorful. Her motto: More fruit, more passion, more life.

Hope you dig. Be blessed,

Ghislaine Remedios

I'm reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Forgive the post title. I might be heading into a few years of self imposed solitude myself.


Do stay lovely and be blessed.

Sketch: A Girl and her cat

Blessings and stay lovely,

Nothing New

Passed my 26th birthday quietly a couple weeks ago.
Something is with me today; What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

Keep good and blessings!

A Sketch Of Two Girls

Reading: Say You're One Of Them by Uwen Akpan - Fantastically sensitive collection.
Listening to: Bjork's Heirloom

Be blessed and keep good,

Strangely Lovely

This is Rebecca. I think she's lovely and odd. Odd beauty delights me.

I've had a momentous weekend.
I hope you're good too.

A Promise Is A Promise

Aye.

Needless to say...I enjoyed Carnival. It was my first Carnival, if you can believe it, and I thinkI get why some say Carnival is their New Year celebration. It's rejuvenating and above all, therapeutic. The physical masks go on and the emotional masks come off. It think it's beautiful. Mas is beautiful.

Keep good,

Images in order (top left- bottom right): a Jam-it outside the NAPA, a burst of orange powder, Cobos rest on Nelson Street. Up top: possibly my favourite image, I love the texture.