REMEMBERING HAITI - Clare Brett Smith

REMEMBERING HAITI Clare Brett Smith

Remembering Haiti Then and Now THEN was 1961 and NOW is 2013, the span of years when Haiti was work and travel, art and commerce, and adventure too.

This book, in my Work & Travel Series, is mostly a photographic portfolio and only partly a memoir.

CBS

Remembering Haiti Clare Brett Smith

1

Text & Photographs of Remembering Haiti by Clare Brett Smith Library of Congress Card Catalogue # ISBN 978-1-4675-6968-2 â’¸ Copyright 2013 by Clare Brett Smith All Rights Reserved

Some of these photographs and a similar essay have previously appeared in HAND/EYE magazine

Clare Brett Smith 80 Mountain Spring Road Farmington, Connecticut 06032 USA

2

CONTENTS PORTFOLIO, 1961-1990 Haiti, Land and and People 4 - 27

ARTISANS 1968 -2011 Steel Drum Sculpture

26 - 35

Wood Carving

36 - 45

Bright Color

46 - 58

History & Commentary

59 - 70

3

1976 Port au Prince 4

Beside the road to Jacmel 1988 5

Artibonite 1988

6

1988 Near La VallĂŠe 7

1988 Rasta Band 8

1988 Artibonite 9

1988 Sugar Cane Cutter

10

1976 Carrefour

11

1976 Carrefour

12

1968 Laundress, PĂŠtionville

13

1968 Port au Prince

14

1976 Leogane

15

16

1976 Jacmel

1976 Jacmel

17

1976 La VallĂŠe 18

1976 Port au Prince 19

1976 Port au Prince

20

1976 Port au Prince

21

1976 Kenscoff

22

1976 near Jacmel

23

1976 Port au Prince

24

1976 Pétionville

25

Steel Drum Sculpture Croix des Bouquets, a few miles from Port au Prince, is the center of steel drum sculpture in Haiti. An original art form that has developed within our lifetimes, it was carefully documented by Seldon Rodman.

In the 1960s, the very first such sculptors were alive and working. We were lucky to meet some of the early masters, particularly Georges Liautaud. We also met the painters at the Centre d’Art, we saw the murals in the Cathedral, and we were amazed at such an explosion of art.

By 1968 my husband and I had, in a roundabout way, become importers of folk art from Haiti. Haitian art production is still a major export, and Haiti is by far the most art-oriented of all the Caribbean countries.

Some years later, after we sold our company and had taken on the operations of Aid to

Artisans, we were involved in economic development projects in Haiti, based, obviously, on crafts. We are still involved, through HAND/EYE and the Alliance for Artisan Enterprise in Haiti, which in spite of disasters, embargos, revolutions, hurricanes and earthquakes. remains a dynamic and creative country.

Sculpture by Seresier Louis-Juste, 1960s, private collection 26

Sculpture by Murat Brierre, 1950s, private collection

27

Georges Liautaud was the first to make sculpture from discarded oil drums.

A metalsmith, he had previously made crosses for the nearby cemetery.

28

1976 Clare with Liautaud in Croix des Bouquet

29

1976 Croix les Bouquets 30

1976 Issa’s Gallery, Port au Prince 31

32

1976 Seresier Louis-Juste and family

1988 Croix les Bouquets. (This looks like the work of Damien Paul and this must be the artist himself on the left.)

33

2003 Painted steel drum bowl, designed by Frederic Alcantara for export 1950’s Bicycle, also steel drum, by Murat Briere, private collection

34

2011 Post-earthquake housing, incorporating Haitian artisan elements

Haiti

35

Wood Carving Haiti was once a fertile and forested land. As France's wealthiest colony from 1767 to 1804, worked by thousands of slaves from West Africa, it produced sugar, coffee, cotton and timber, but mostly sugar cane. Cane was a mono-crop. it exhausted the soil and Haiti became nearly barren. The few trees remaining were, and still are, often burned for charcoal. Mahogany trees, slow to grow and valuable, were sold long ago, and Haiti, known for woodcarvers, imported wood. In the 1950s the Einstein family, producers of unusually handsome bowls, planted Gommier trees, fast-growing and suitable for manufacture, and now the family has several large plantations and an export business, and more business than they can yet supply.

The carved boat above, said to be the work of the sculptor Nacius Joseph. is signed Joseph N, but it’s more primitive and not as polished as his usual work. I like it better. It made me think of the Haitian “Boat People” who were, in those hard times, trying to escape poverty and persecution on any kind of boat, most of them not at all seaworthy.

The masks at right were in The Red Carpet Gallery in Pétionville, and were typical of what you’d find in Port au Prince galleries in the 1960s. When I tried to match the style with what I knew of West African masks, guessing at DNA links to the slave trade, the dealer quickly deflated my excitement when he told me that they were simply copied from an American museum catalogue.

36

37

38

1976 Port au Prince

39

1968 Port au Prince

40

1968 Port au Prince 41

1988 Charcoal production in the mountains 42

Barren land along the road to Jacmel 43

1976 Haitian rush-seat chairs, called Cathedral chairs, and used throughout the Holy Trinity Cathedral. Photographed in transit and at luncheon in the home of Jean Claude Armand Bottom left, chairs in 2011, the same style, but painted blue, in the temporary courtyard of what’s left of the Cathedral after the quake.

44

Bowl from Einstein’s workshop, made of Gommier wood, laminated, sealed, smoothed, and polished into beauty.

45

Bright Colors This portfolio, with predominantly black and white photographs, misses the rainbow vibrancy of Haiti. Ever since the U.S. consultant, DeWitt Peters, arrived in the 1930s with his paint box, Haitian artists have loved color. On the opposite page, a secular use of color in the bar of the Hotel Oloffson. Paint is expensive, even a luxury, but you don’t have to look far for color. It’s everywhere - on trucks, TapTaps, houses, shops, signs and clothing, and, of course, paintings and voodoo flags.

Painting by Blanchard 1960s, private collection 46

2011 Hotel Oloffson bar

47

2011 Haiti’s own “Pantone” colors, Port au Prince

48

2011 “Pantone” clothing, Carrefour

49

1988 On Truman Boulevard, Port au Prince

50

2011 En Plein Aire Galleries 51

52

1988 Sequin costume

2011 Side panel for a “TapTap� ( Haitian for decorated transport, a bus, a truck, a jeep)

53

1987 “Tigaâ€?, standing, a founder of the Saint Soleil art movement in Port au Prince, was a much admired artist, teacher and mentor to young artists in any medium, like this young man creating a pink sisal macramĂŠ heart.

54

2011 Sequin eyeglass case

55

Holy Trinity Cathedral Ta k e n i n 1 9 8 8 , t h e s e t wo photographs show murals at the altar of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port au Prince. Painted by Haiti’s best known artists under the direction of DeWitt Peters and Seldon Rodman of the Centre d’Art, they were finished in 1950.

Castera Bazile painted the Ascension, Philomene Obon the Crucifixion. The murals were badly damaged when the cathedral collapsed during the earthquake, but not completely destroyed.

Some sections are being restored with the help of the Smithsonian Institution..

56

57

from a private collecton 58

1988 Presidential Palace in Port au Prince, and ruins of the Palace after the 2010 earthquake

59

60

Jasmin Joseph made many ceramic panels for the cathedral. They too were destroyed in the earthquake. These were typical, each about the size of a brick.

Haiti

2011 Ruins of the Holy Trinity Cathedral

61

Citadelle Henri Christophe Haiti’s history is a dramatic one. It was the first independent nation in Latin America and the first black republic in the world, when it gained independence from France in 1804. The new republic was named Ayiti, said to be both a Native American and African term for high mountainous land.

The Citadelle, a landmark in Haitian history, was an immense fortress built in northern Haiti

by Henri Christophe, a leader in the Haitian slave rebellion. Near Cap Haitien, on the North Coast, it was intended to defend against the French forces.

Haitians are indomitable and their art and spirit survive human events and natural disasters that are almost unbelievable in their ferocity and frequency.

62

Remembering Haiti, Then (1961) and Now (2013) Was it really more than fifty years ago that my husband, and I

Novices in importing, we had a lot to learn. Invoices, cash flow,

flew off in our one-engine Cessna, headed for Jamaica for rum

import duties, distribution, trade shows, all were mysteries, but

and Calypso music? It was our honeymoon, a last fling before

learn we did. There’s no stronger motivation than investing your

coming home to the challenge and joy of melding our two

own money. Haiti-based production was the basis of our business

families, six children, ranging from seven to fifteen years old.

for many years: first with wooden plates (They still had treason

Well before Jamaica, needing gas, we made an unscheduled stop

Haiti then), love beads, paintings, carvings, carnival masks,

in Port au Prince. As night fell, Burge landed on the closed

sequined bottles, rush-seated chairs, baskets and brooms, rough

airport, where soldiers with fixed bayonets confronted us.

wick white cotton upholstery material and, most importantly,

Arrested and mistaken briefly for Cuban spies, we were paroled

sculpture chiseled and hammered from used oil drums. After we

to the Hotel Oloffson and detained more than a week while

sold the company, the lessons we had learned became the basis of

waiting for permission to land. In that week we were celebrity

Aid to Artisans’ timely and effective “Market Link” program.

prisoners, almost the only tourists in Haiti in the era of Papa

There was more life, creativity and talent, history, art and music,

Doc, and hospitable Haitians took us in. We learned to dance the

more variety in Haiti than in any other Caribbean island, as we

meringue. We attended fashion shows at the Villa Creole, voodoo

learned when, in the next few years, we searched many of them

evenings in Petionville, and, oh yes, we were offered the

for handcrafts to import. A few of the people we came to know

opportunity to invest in Haitian handcraft businesses. We said

and like and to work with follow.

yes to everything, even the investing part, although that came

Clare Brett Smith, April 2013

later when we brought Haitian entrepreneur, Gerry Thomas, and our new venture, Primitive Artisan, a folk art import company, to the U.S. markets.

63

1961, Clare and Burge Smith and their Cessna. en route to the Caribbean, and, right, Captain PierreThomas and his staff at the jail in Port au Prince

64

Hotel Oloffson in 1961 and right, in 2011 on the hotel veranda with Keith Recker, Colvin English and Anne Pressoir

1998 Left, Florence & Georges Celcis, Clare, Giselle Fleurant and right, 2004 Stijn Albregts, ATA board member with Jean Wilbert Bruno, metal artist 65

Haiti in the 60s & 70s

1960s with Issa, gallery owner and right, with Hedwige Jorgensen, founder of Haitian crafts organizations

1970s Left, Gerry Thomas, founder of Primitive Artisan in his New York showroom and right, Clare in Croix des Bouquets 66

1998 With designer Larry Peabody at his home in Port au Prince, and sculpture by famed Serge Jolimeau on the porch 67

2010 Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

Marie Bernard, Papier MachĂŠ 68

2011 with the HAND/EYE Fund’s Artisan Business Network

2011 André Paul LaFond’s cowhorn workshop and Magalie Dresse of Caribbean Crafts

Haiti

Cyril Pressoir and Keith Recker at an experimental housing project and Recker with Colvin English at the cowhorn workshop rebuilt with the help of the HAND/EYE Fund.

69

La Sirene at home in Connecticut having traveled as “baggage� from Haiti wrapped in paper and classified as a surfboard

70

2010 Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

Serge Jolimeau’s steel drum sculpture always sells out.

71

72

Where does a journey lead? How casually one takes that first step. In our case, first a honeymoon, then more than fifty years of crafts importing and international development, both economic and cultural, and a lot of travel.

Š 2013 Clare Brett Smith

Murat Brierre sculpture

at the National Museum, 1968