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The Artist as
Social Activist
Guyanese-Canadian Claire Carew Reminds Us We Are All “Somebodies”
By Norman Faria
Claire Carew, born
in Georgetown has been in Canada for over 30 years, sits
in a coffee shop at Toronto's Bloor and Runnymeade roads
and gazes pensively at the Saturday morning passersby on
the sidewalk.
"How is Guyana
these days? I still try to keep abreast of what's
happening—when I see photos and stories of the Essequibo
River and the sea by the seawall on the East Coast,
Demerara , the old buildings in Georgetown, and the
people, things like that still bring back memories…" she
muses as she stirs her espresso.
Claire is presently
teaching at the Humber Summit Middle School in the
city's west end. But she is also one of Toronto's really
fine, sensitive artists. She is one of the few who uses
art to highlight pressing social issues especially
involving Canada's visible ethnic minorities and the
struggles of those in the developing world for a better
life. She has already done many acclaimed works,
exhibiting them at exhibitions in the Canadian cities,
Mexico and other countries.
She was brought to
Canada by her mother Patricia when she was 11. Her
father, Ronald Carew had come to Canada in the mid
1950s.
Mr. Carew,
(otherwise known by his "call names" Tiger, Preacher and
Lord Ronald back in then B.G.) had a remarkable working
life, travelling to Vancouver in British Columbia
province on the Pacific coast where he worked in the
lumber industry , to Nova Scotia province on the
Atlantic side and then to Hamilton in the province of
Ontario where he was a steel worker.
Claire still
remembers fondly her loving father sending first class
tickets for herself, Mrs Carew, and sisters Vivvette,
Corinne and Debbie to travel from Guyana to Canada in
1967. Luckily, they visited EXPO-1967, the world
exhibition held in Montreal in that year, before moving
on to their new home in Vancouver. Mrs. Carew is the
"political one who gives me all the news hot off the
press", says Claire.
Claire went to
secondary schools in the provinces where dad worked .
Art, she explains, came to her "naturally". A distant
relative is renowned Guyanese novelist Jan Carew. In
Toronto, she graduated from the Ontario College of Art
and then did a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of
Guelph, also in Ontario province, where she was an
outstanding student.. Last year, she completed her
Masters of Art at Institututo Allende/ University
Guanajuato in Mexico.
The exhibitions and
overseas activity between 1988 and 2005 included a mural
on a building in the Athens 2004 Olympiad complex.
The latter work,
with the help of students from her school and the
Gracedale Public School in Toronto and depicting as it
did the unity and common aspirations of peoples
worldwide, was typical of Claire's outlook. Other works
depict Canada'a indigenous peoples (The Amerindians of
Canada) and other "people of colour" as she describes
them. Characteristically, on the day of her interview
she wore a sweatshirt with the image of the great
Chiricahua Apache leader Geronimo on front.
This social
consciousness extends into other situations in civil
rights, immigrant rights and developing world's ongoing
efforts for social reforms, better standard of living
and democracy. She did a painting on the 1983 death of
Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop ; among others,
on the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima in
World II, on US civil rights leaders Paul Robeson,
Dr.Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson.
Her "Artist's
Creed" on her website succinctly sums up her outlook: "I
create art filled with cultural and historic imagery to
uplift, heal and energize its viewers to take personal
and political action".
She further
explains: “What I am trying to do is not art for art's
sake. There must be a social context. When Bishop was
assassinated I tried to convey the pain I felt when he
was killed. On my feelings on Hiroshima, I am very
concerned about the question of peace. It is absurd for
us to continue in our daily existence without ever
considering that we are in danger, especially when we
know what happened at Hiroshima and the Japanese people.
Were they not somebodies, if I may use Jesse Jackson's
term?"
Among other world
traveling, Claire attended the International Festival of
Youth and Students in Moscow in the then Soviet Union in
the 1980s as a delegate from the Partisan art gallery in
Toronto.
Carew, who is of
African, Amerindian (Arawak) and European descent, also
works with Canadian Amerindian groups in addition to
those of the wider Canadian people of all races.
Tellingly, her
mural in Greece includes an Amerindian figure, in
addition to a little pre-teen girl dressed, like she
remembers, in a white dress and ponytails on a Sunday
afternoon in Georgetown.
In Mexico, she
spent a happy six month stay last year in the town of
San Miguel de Allende, studying and painting. Her M.A.
thesis at the University there was on aboriginal
spirituality, or shamanism.
Out of that sojourn
came several vibrant, incisive paintings, photographs
and sculptures, "fusing", as she relates, "ancient
symbols and contemporary imagery". Jan, who lived and
worked in Mexico during the 1980s , wrote to her
observing that "[Your] artistic imagination is fed and
nourished by the Mexican experience”.
A soft spoken,
beautiful woman in every sense of the word, Claire has
her own distinctive artistic style. But there have been
some influences. One notices some of (French painter)
Paul Gauguin for example. Whom does she admire today ?
What of other Canadian artists ? "I like the work of
Canadians Norval Morrisseau and Arthur Shilling of the
Ojibway nation and the Mexican muralists Diego Rivera
and his wife Frida Kahlo."
Readers may view
some her work on her website
www.clairecarew.com. Claire shows respect to all
religions and spiritual beliefs from all over. At night,
before retiring, she makes a point of following Jan's
advice and saying thanks for six special things which
has happened to her, things which have given her
inspiration, during the day.
Aside from the
homework associated with her teaching and working on her
paintings, she enjoys listening to the classics (jazz
and others) on radio and writing poetry during her spare
time in her modest semi-detached wall house in the
traditional Portuguese/Italian district. in Toronto's
west end. . . .
“When you get back
to Barbados I want you to send me some photos of that
beach on Carlisle Bay you are always walking on. And
when you go to Guyana also send me some from there. Tell
my friends I haven't forgotten the beauty of the land,
smiles on people's faces, the passionate discussion on
politics. I haven't forgotten the scent of the earth,
the sounds of the water as I walk along the sea wall,
the kisskadee whistle, the botanical gardens and the
kissing bridge. I haven't forgotten my dear land of
Guyana...” she says as she bids me farewell outside the
little coffee shop, still pensive to the end.
(NORMAN FARIA IS GUYANA'S HONORARY CONSUL IN BARBADOS
Source:
http://www.guyanachronicle.com/pepperpot.html
posted 19 November 2006 * *
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updated 4 November 2007 |
