Crafted Kinship: Inside the Creative Practices of Contemporary Black Caribbean Makers

by Malene Barnett

Overview

A visual journey of Caribbean art profiling more than 60 contemporary Caribbean artists, curated by award-winning textile designer and artist, Malene Barnett.

Through powerful interviews with more than 60 artists and designers of Caribbean heritage, accompanied by gorgeous photographs, Crafted Kinship takes readers on a unique journey through the world of Black Caribbean creativity. Each maker crafts a kinship with the land, the people, the culture of their country of origin. Their art explores and reflects deeply on themes like African origins, ancestors, Black womanhood/Black manhood, identity, joy, memory, and the complicated and painful history of migration and diaspora. An art that is more often than not multidisciplinary, created by makers who eschew traditional labels by reshaping the boundaries around art and design.

Curated by Malene Barnett, an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and textile surface designer of Jamaican and Vincentian descent, Crafted Kinship is the first book in which Caribbean makers share the intimate stories of their art-making process and how their countries of origin influence and inform how and what they create. Included are makers working across all mediums. Meet Anina Major, a Bahamian visual artist whose work attempts to reclaim the significance of straw basketry through her ceramics; Basil Watson, a Jamaican figurative artist and sculptor famous for his stunning bronze figures that are exhibited outdoors all over the world; Renee Cox, a Jamaican photographer whose work celebrates Black womanhood; La Vaughn Belle, a multidisciplinary artist from St. Croix who draws from archival sources to interrogate colonial legacies; Sonya Clark, a textile artist and educator of Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Bajan heritage who works with hair and other meaningful materials to explore issues of power, race, and gender; and Nyugen E. Smith, an interdisciplinary artist of Trinidadian and Haitian ancestry whose fluid stream of consciousness is expressed through objects, performance, music, and moving image.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781648290992
Publisher:	Artisan
Publication date:	10/29/2024
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.03(d)

About the Author

Malene Barnett is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, textile surface designer, and community builder. She earned her MFA in ceramics from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and undergraduate degrees in fashion illustration and textile surface design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Malene received a Fulbright Award to travel to Jamaica in 2022–23 as the visiting artist at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston.
 
Malene’s art reflects her African Caribbean heritage, building on her ancestral legacy of mark-making as a visual identity, and has been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling in New York City, the African American Museum of Dallas, and Temple Contemporary in Philadelphia. Malene’s art and design work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Galerie, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest, Departures, and Interior Design. In addition, Malene hosts lectures on advocating for African Caribbean ceramic traditions and has participated in residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Greenwich House Pottery, Judson Studios, the Hambidge Center, and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
 
Malene is also the founder of the Black Artists + Designers Guild, which supports independent Black makers globally. When she’s not traveling the world researching Black diasporic aesthetics, Malene resides in Brooklyn, New York.

 

Table of Contents

Introduction 
Themes and Materials 
Collective Dedications 
 
On Ancestors and Future Generations: Sights/Sites of Divinity 
Tiana Webb Evans
 
The Makers 
Alison Croney Moses, Guyana 
Allana Clarke, Trinidad and Tobago 
Alvaro Barrington, Grenada + Haiti 
Andrea Chung, Jamaica + Trinidad and Tobago 
Ania Freer, Jamaica 
Anina Major, The Bahamas 
April Bey, The Bahamas 
Arthur J. Francietta, Martinique 
Basil Watson, Jamaica 
Billy Gerard Frank, Grenada 
BOA, Antigua and Barbuda 
 
Material Practices of Caribbean Artists Throughout the Diaspora 
Christine Checinska
 
Closing the Gap: A View of Contemporary Caribbean Art and Design 
Dr. Marsha Pearce in conversation with Malene Barnett
 
Camille Chedda, Jamaica 
Charmaine Watkiss, Jamaica 
Chelsea McMaster, Antigua and Barbuda 
Cornelius Tulloch, Jamaica 
Cosmo Whyte, Jamaica 
Dana Marie Baugh, Jamaica 
David Gumbs, Saint Martin 
Davin K. Ebanks, Cayman Islands 
Deborah Jack, Saint Martin 
Dianne Smith, Belize 
Donald Baugh, Jamaica 
Fabiola Jean-Louis, Haiti 
Firelei Báez, Dominican Republic + Haiti 
 
Words to Live By 
 
Collecting Contemporary Caribbean Art and Design 
Dr. Kenneth Montague
 
Curating Contemporary Black Caribbean Art and Design 
Michelle Joan Wilkinson
 
George McCalman, Grenada 
Giana De Dier, Saint Lucia+ Barbados 
Ibiyanε: Elodie Dérond and Tania Doumbe Fines, Martinique 
Ishka Designs: Anishka Clarke and Niya Bascom, Jamaica + Guyana 
Jasmine Thomas-Girvan, Jamaica 
Johanna Bramble, Dominica 
Joiri Minaya, Dominican Republic 
Juana Valdes, Cuba 
Katrina A. Coombs, Jamaica 
Kelly Walters, Jamaica 
Kraig Yearwood, Barbados 
 
Places of Inspiration 
 
Ways to Rest and Rejuvenate 
 
La Vaughn Belle, Saint Croix 
Lavar Munroe, The Bahamas 
Leonardo Perez, Haiti + Dominican Republic 
Leyden Lewis, Trinidad and Tobago 
Lisandro Suriel, Saint Martin 
M. Florine Démosthène, Haiti 
Malene Djenaba Barnett, Jamaica + Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 
Mark M. Fleuridor, Haiti 
Marlon A. Darbeau, Trinidad and Tobago 
Morel Doucet, Haiti 
Nadia Liz Estela, Dominican Republic 
Nina Cooke John, Jamaica 
Nyugen E. Smith, Trinidad and Tobago 
Ouigi Theodore, Haiti 
 
Ancestors 
Althea McNish 
Christine Checinska
Ronald Moody 
Sandy Jones
 
Paul Anthony Smith, Jamaica 
Pauline Marcelle-Johann, Dominica 
Renee V. Cox, Jamaica 
Robert A. G. Young, Trinidad and Tobago 
Roberto Lugo, Puerto Rico 
Sandra Brewster, Guyana 
Sharon Norwood, Jamaica 
Shenequa Brooks, Saint Kitts and Nevis + Saint Martin 
Simon Benjamin, Jamaica 
Soca Architecture: Tura Cousins Wilson and Shane Laptiste, Jamaica + Guyana  Grenada 
Sonya Clark, Jamaica + Barbados 
Storm Saulter, Jamaica 
Studio 397: Samantha Rafilia Josaphat and Luis Medina-Carreto, Jamaica + Haiti 
Terry E. Boddie, Saint Kitts and Nevis 
 
Things to Be Remembered For 
 
Resources and Organizations of Note 
Endnotes 
Acknowledgments 
About the Makers