A gift 'of flesh and salt and wind and current'

“From where I sit, watching Clarke paint for 14 consecutive hours, without rest, only asking for a change in the music, landscaping a consciousness appears to be a spiritual activity where one is transported in a series of oscillations between worldliness and other worldliness.”
Caroline C. Ravello

From Of Flesh and Salt and Wind and Current, a Retrospective on LeRoy Clarke. Caroline Ravello undertook a monumental task. She compiled a collection of reviews on LeRoy Clarke, one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most famous artists. The tome, a retrospective entitled Of Flesh and Salt and Wind and Current is her first published work, which was formally launched last year on September 26 by former President Arthur NR Robinson. It features many reviews, opinions and essays by some of TT’s well known journalists, writers and authors; some local, some foreign. The list includes such names as Professor Selwyn Cudjoe, Lester Efebo Wilkinson, Pat Bishop, Makemba Kunle, Sunity Maharaj, Judy Raymond, Lloyd Best... and Ravello herself. This project began with the decision by the board of the National Museum (in the 1990s) to honour TT’s master artists every two years (their Masters series), beginning with the Leroy Clarke Retrospective Exhibition, which was held in November 1998, to coincide with his 60th birthday. “Coming from that, there was always the intention that they will do a masters exhibition, then do a catalogue, so that is how this project found its roots. How it bore its fruit is another story.” (She gave a hearty laugh). “It had its setbacks (like life in general), but it was worth it.”

Creating a volume such as this was hard work, but it was a “labour of love”. The soft-spoken woman has a son (who also writes), and she is currently employed as a communications specialist at the Ministry of Legal Affairs. One can only imagine the body of research she undertook, which she admitted was all in her spare time, encompassing many years. But Ravello had been doing her own research even before then, going to the libraries, reading materials, collecting all that she could find on Clarke, including newspaper reports, opinions, copies of forewords and introductions, speeches and more. “My getting involved with this... you can say that I had been at a place where I had the research at my fingertips,” she explained.

“It was purely a research project. Not a project of art criticism (because I don’t propose to be an art critic at all). Of course, it’s part of the dream, to have that opportunity to be schooled in art criticism, because I don’t just want to talk about what people have said about the work, I want to talk about the work too. Talk about the upsweep of the brush, the making of colours, watch his brush strokes change, observe when he mellowed, and when he ‘dipped’... you know? I think if it’s going to afford me anything... maybe someone could give me a scholarship to do that? (She laughed heartily.) Luckily, I have a good eye, a good sense of what I do and who I am, and that helps me to have a good sense of the people I interact with. Having had the experience and a good eye for the work and a real involvement with Leroy, he was the one who recommended me to the National Museum as the person he would like to see researching and recording this project. Actually, I have a good relationship with him... I’ve known his work much longer than I’ve known him.” (And she does own a couple of his pieces.)

She went on to relate her first encounter with Clarke’s art at an exhibition held during the 80s where one of his pieces, “Rape” intrigued her. There would be a huge gap until 1996, when she came across a review by Judy Raymond in the Sunday Express, previewing an exhibition Clarke was having, entitled “Pantheon III - Sanctuary.” “What I remembered was the headline, ‘De Poet Summons his energy... on Mourning Ground’,” said Ravello. “Now I’m very familiar with the mourning ground, being from a very Afrocentric village (Moruga). Even though we were Catholic, we participated in the Baptist festivals, we never discriminated in terms of religion. We just covered our heads, took off our shoes and went. And that’s what caught my attention in the paper. I read it and I knew I had to go see it. It was there, at 101 Tragarete Road, I met Leroy.” And she was even more intrigued... thus began her odyssey. A lover of language, Ravello confessed that she always keeps a notebook around so she can jot down ideas quickly, and with a mechanical pencil. “You don’t have to sharpen them,” she said with a smile. “You see, I’m always thinking, always jotting down ideas, thoughts are always running through my mind. I love to write, I love language. So this project was a good one, in terms of developing that love. I was really looking forward to the completion of the book, because I’d been putting off pursuing my Masters degree and now that the book is completed, I’m closer to that goal.”

In selecting the pieces for the book, it was Ravello’s hope that it would inspire serious critical assessment of art in Trinidad and Tobago. From a literary standpoint it’s not just as a collection of reviews. What Ravello has gathered from these inspired writings is each one’s interpretation of a man who (in many incarnations) has been ‘de obeah man’ and the teacher. The poet, the Orisa devotee and the author. Her book (through photographs) shows him with dignitaries, as father, husband, son, good friend, poet, author and painter. Many consider him an enigma, but it is that which has fueled Ravello’s desire to do this, and see it to fruition. “People will always have their perceptions about Clarke,” she stated.

“Nothing I have done is about defending anything that LeRoy Clarke has said and done, I think LeRoy can do that for himself. I have my perceptions about the man, people will have theirs, but this project is bigger than people’s perceptions. It’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than I was at the point in time I began to do it. There are elements of this (art), that I know nothing of, yet I try still to bring something forward and make it something worthwhile, something truthful, something fecund, something that will be worthwhile for a long time. In reading the many essays, you’d come to realise that LeRoy’s voice has peeped through a lot of what people would say; he’s been so open about the philosophy and the phenomenology behind his art. He’s been so open so long about it that you cannot help but hear him. So when you go to say something about him, you’re almost certain to remember something he said about himself. Thus, the aim of the book, in Leroy’s mind... actually he was very sure that some students would use it as a tool for CXC projects, for the generations to come, and as a tool for teaching,” Ravello said.

The title Of Flesh and Salt and Wind and Current is a line from his poem “Archipelago”, from his book Douens, Poems and Drawings published in 1981. Her interpretation of it was about the journey of our forefathers, coming across the sea by ship. Her book is a journey as well, laid out in a style that is easy to follow (with assistance from Pat Bishop). And it delivers, with pleasant surprises. There is a photo taken in Harlem during a Douens poetry reading in 1972 of Clarke and his first son Kappel, asleep in daddy’s arms. Another of him at 16, yet another with a youthful looking Pat Bishop and her sister Gillian. Once Ravello thought it would have an impact, make a point and at the same time contribute to the consciousness of TT, there was no point for argument. In her mind, transparency lends to a person’s credibility. “Not that I want to philosophise or preach, but I feel my life should be one that can encourage people to be anything they want to be. I came from poverty and what I live now is a dream that I never thought I could touch. What I am able to do, what I’m involved in now, the fact that I’m able to do this, I really feel this is for my community, for Moruga. I can say to Moruga that ‘you can do it’. This book is my ‘give back’... I think this book is a way for me to honour Clarke for his hard work, regardless of what people say or feel. People work hard, they should be honoured. Therefore, this is my gift.”