Irene Bacchus’ unsurprising appearance at last Sunday’s UncappeD event at the National Stadium at Providence was as much as a response to one of the creative sector’s rare local market opportunities afforded our local craftsmen and women as it was a tribute to her own sustained commitment to the sector for more than two decades.
On Sunday, what appeared to be a fresh collection of her own distinctive creations had been turned out at the Stadium. A host of assorted items made mostly out of wood and leather were assembled on her table. Hers was a cramped space amongst others, some of whom were newcomers to the local craft industry. Many of them have only just recently begun to travel the road that Irene has traversed repeatedly, though hers, she insists, is still an unfinished journey.
At Providence on Sunday, her work halted me in my tracks. It had happened previously, at other craft shows. Some time had elapsed since we had last spoken so I asked her whether she thought we could talk about where the sector had gone over the years that we had been talking about its development. Casting an eye at the traffic drifting through one of the many corridors created to accommodate the various vendors, she suggested that we “leave it for another time.”
“Another time” came quicker than we expected. On Monday she showed up in Georgetown, from her home and workplace in Linden, where, for a while now, she has ‘imprisoned’ herself in her preoccupation with new ideas, new creations and, it seems, an opportunity to reflect on the contemporary condition of a local creative sector which, she believes, has, up until now, experienced more troughs than peaks.
There were things about Guyana’s craft sector that were on her mind when we met on Monday… like the fact that the surfeit of creative talent in the country’s art and craft industry is yet to transform into a lucrative sector in which craftsmen and women can reap the deserved rewards from their creative pursuits. For the local creative sectors to thrive, she says, we have to find ways of ensuring that what we create “reaches a market that can make sense commercially.” It is her way of saying that however much we crow about craft being more about creativity than commerce, in the final analysis effort has to be set against reward.
Unhesitatingly, she asserts that what obtained ten years ago, still obtains today. “Creative people still work for the love of it and the rewards are still far from what they really ought to be.” She blames the prevailing condition on a “system” that has simply not afforded the creative sector sufficient opportunity to thrive and to grow. Here, she sees a contradiction between the intellectual keenness to embrace the creative sectors as themes for cocktail circuit chit-chat whilst conveniently ignoring the reality that “artists must eat.” It is, she says, the fault of a system that has always been prepared to parade local art and local craft as a reflection of what Guyana can do but has, over the years, done little to add value to the sector by creating an infrastructural framework within which it can thrive as a viable industry with an eye to seeking out and taking advantage of economic opportunities.
The sector’s failures, she says, have had to do with, among other things, official failure to recognise that creative people do more than create. They cannot survive purely on the talking up of their skills. The talent, Irene says, is there. “There is a market for local craft outside of Guyana. The problem is that we have been unable to get our goods to that market.” The stumbling blocks, she says, repose in the fact that the local craft industry has not, after many decades, been developed to a point where we can produce the volumes sufficient to keep the market supplied. There is, she says, “no good excuse for this condition.” Beyond that, she adds, “we have been unable to create, up until now, the infrastructure that allows an efficient regimen of on-line transactions. The creative sector, she says, is far from a ‘sure thing’ if you depend on it to make a living. “The industry is not a big money earner. It is not growing. The cost of production, particularly the cost of acquiring and preparing raw materials, is high and if prices are set in relation to cost of production creative work becomes unaffordable for a large part of the local market.”
It is, she says, a challenge that can only be overcome – and even then only partially – if our creative people can constantly re-invent themselves, as she herself must do from time to time. Here, she senses and exploits an appropriate juncture at which to ‘squeeze in’ a promo for her own line of leather jewellery, mostly attractively painted earrings, with affordability in mind, some of which occupied her table at Sunday’s UncappeD event.
Previous experience had taught me that once you draw Irene into a discourse about the challenges confronting the creative sector and how to respond to them you face a difficulty getting her to let go. “The people who do well in the creative sector are those whose livelihoods are already assured. Locals do not have financial resources to build successful creative businesses nor to buy what is produced. We desperately need a bigger market. There has to be a role for government here. The marketing of our tourism industry must take account of the importance of marketing our creative industry, as well. I believe that we have the raw material resources and the technical skills to get the job done. Limited markets is one of our main problems and this is where government has to come in. We need help in going out there and finding the markets.”
That, she insists, “is not all.” Some of the other challenges, she says, include “restrictive access to small business lending.” There are, she says, “too many conditions.” Then there is infrastructure, “If government does not finance the creation of the infrastructure that can help the industry to grow we will probably not go forward,” she says. In essence, Irene believes that we run the risk of the local creative industry being left behind. The Caribbean market, she says, is not what it used to be. “Barbados, for example, has done a lot for its creative sector so that the regional demand is not there.” She talks as well, about what she sees as a “lack of vision” at some important decision- making levels about “taking the creative industries forward.”
These days, Irene is in her own personal stride. By now, she is hustling our conversation along in a manner as if to suggest that time threatens to cut short what she wants to say; she talks about the lack of a labour force to support the requirements of the craft sector; the fact that the requisite equipment, tools and machinery are not on any national ‘priority’ list and the failure, over time, to create structures that allow for the marketing of art and craft, “spaces where tourists can find us.” She wants spaces for the production and marketing of craft in every region; specifically, she believes that the state must make deliberate efforts to develop areas like Bartica’s beach front. “We really need to get our act together.” Everything comes tumbling out hurriedly, as if what is being said today will not allow for repetition ever again. Irene’s own trading name, Amazon Authentics, was registered sixteen years ago. Since then, the quality of her work and, largely through her independent effort, the international exposure that she has acquired, has made her one of the ‘leading lights’ in the local creative sector. Her overall assessment of the local craft sector is that it is “still trying to get off the ground.” She is impressed with the doggedness and the determination of the vendors who ply their trade on the Main Street Avenue. Their importance, she says, reposes in the permanent visibility which they lend to the local craft sector. “They attract visitor interest as well, she says.”
That, however, is not enough. “I have bad news,” she says. “No money, no markets, mean that creative people are leaving the sector, or at least looking for earning options. Cheap, imported ornaments are replacing our local craft.” She appears frustrated, even mildly angry. Seemingly flustered, she ends our interview with a polite excuse, a premature ‘out’ to an interview that still had some way to go.
