After the settling in period, I’ve started to get down to business. I haven’t done so much as put pencil to sketchbook, but after failing to dent some of the dryer tomes I brought with me, I’ve finished one of my key texts, Abigail Solomon-Godeau’s fantastic Male Trouble. Even better, I’ve had a nostalgic trawl around the Oistins branch library, which was the first library I joined as a child. I found a couple of rather interesting books – the first a collection of essays entitled Gender: A Caribbean Multi-Disciplinary Perspective, and the second, The Barbadian Male: Sexual Attitudes and Practice. Although I doubt that either will actually fit the bill for my precise aims – perhaps too regionally specific – they’re still pretty fantastic finds. I don’t care too much if they don’t make the bibliography.
The main library has been moved to another part of Bridgetown, and the catalogue still isn’t computerised. I’ve yet to visit but I hope to tomorrow. I’m actually quite excited at the prospect – I didn’t spend too much time at the old library in town, and I’m wondering what the new one will be like. New and shiny? Or like the Oistins branch, only big? Calling the local library ‘retro’ would be unfair; it is what it is, and since my days of visiting probably hasn’t been altered beyond the two internet-connected computers for public use. It would be like calling the entire country ‘retro’. Which wouldn’t go down well. At all. Actually it’s very charming as it is, and you really have a sense of the purpose of a library – these books have been used – studied, underlined, pored over, really and properly used. The great thing about it is all the fantastic West Indian books you can’t get anywhere else! If I come across a copy of The Suffrage of Elvira by V.S. Naipaul, I’d be sorely tempted to let them keep my BDS $20 visitor’s library card deposit in exchange for parting the island with the book… but that would be theft, and premeditated, so I can’t. Sob.
I do wonder what it would be like having to research my essay from here, without the massive resources I have at home – the college and university libraries, the Kent libraries and the British Library… and to think I hesitate to travel to Canterbury to the university campus! After having a whinge to a Bajan friend about not being able to find any Lacan in the Ashford library a few weeks ago (and having to spell both “Jacques” and “masculinity” to the librarian) I think I should count my blessings instead.
Today I visited the Gallery of Caribbean Art in Speightstown. I’m naturally reticent when it comes to promoting myself, schmoozing or networking. However, this time I’ve decided to be bolshy Lee and introduce myself to the art community here. I’d surely have done it by now if I’d have stayed, and hey, who knows, I may find myself here again some day. And quite simply, I haven’t got a clue about the art scene in Barbados, which is pretty bad. However, on entering the gallery I knew it wouldn’t be a fit for me (nor I for them), but I decided to persist, as it was only an introduction. It’ll suffice to say that my work definitely does not fit the bill of “Caribbean art” as defined by that gallery. I definitely would never want to have my work defined by such a rigid term, and definitely have no plans to alter my methodology to fit the look proscribed by a regional hegemony. Neither would I want to be defined as a “woman artist” as though accepting the status of “Other”. I do think, though, that it raises very important questions about individuality, intentions, tropes, types and perspective. And, to be blunt, about who in this country can afford to buy art, and what they want and expect. It’ll be interesting to see what the other galleries hold. I don’t think that hegemony is too strong a term either, but I’ll hold off from making any further comments until I’ve seen more, and spoken to more artists. But it’ll be interesting to see if my gut feeling is right.
