Sunday, September 12, 2010

why me? why this topic (First thoughts)

My embroidery project done in the environment on the status of crime in a paradise that is Trinidad and Tobago

The Bookmann in character as Betsy Ross Trinidad style

Tibor Kalman's excellent campaign for Benetton

When I was asked to be one of the presenters for the symposium on Art,Design and Architecture in our Space: New Perspectives on Art and Design Practice in the Caribbean, at first I was a bit taken aback by the request. I may be one of the lecturers, teaching part-time at the University of the West Indies, but I am also an Artist and a Graphic Designer.
I came about my career through a very crocked path. I never wanted to give up Art to pursue Design. In the time that I studied the subject at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, I was fortunate to encounter lecturers and teachers who were conscious of the very new splintering of fields.
Today it may not seem like such a big deal,these fields appear seamless, but back then, in the early nineteen nineties, as was the case with the invention of the home computer years earlier, there was the issue of new ways of seeing and creating. Some names that quickly come to mind and definate pioneers whose work cannot be denied were such people as David Carson,Neville Brody and Tibor Kalman (d.1999) who created design for magazines like Spy,The Face and Emirge.

Emirge magazine


These people helped push the boundaries of using drawing, painting, photograhy and Photoshop.
The beauty of all of this is that there is great design and design experiences happening all the time, you must just be well versed to see it. Here in Trinidad it comes out culterally, and my partner in design, Richard Bolai, alias The Bookmann, now deceased, and I spent a great deal of time looking and seeing, as well as making.
So it is with thoughts of my own experiences and goals for my career that I bring forth my process, my concerns and hopefully solutions and observations for the future.

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