| "Jacmel is bursting with talent"
"A lot of important works were destroyed." said prominent Haitian artist Patrick NarBal Boucard. Yet here in the picturesque coastal town of Jacmel, art is being created, not plundered. On Feb. 14, just two weeks before Aristide's fall from grace, Boucard inaugurated a contemporary, 185-square-meter (2,000-square-foot) gallery at his evolving Centre d'Art de Jacmel. The gallery is part of a much bigger fund-raising project aimed at keeping Haiti's rich artistic heritage alive in the face of continuing political and economic chaos. "We've had no problem here for the simple reason that Jacmel is not as divided, and there's not as much hate here as in the rest of the country," said Boucard. "We have very good relations with the community, and we don't even need security, because people protect our space." The center is located in a renovated 743-square-meter (8,000-square-foot) brick warehouse that was used to sort and stock coffee, back in the 19th century when Jacmel was a booming port city and its famous gingerbread houses were built. The back of the two-story Centre d'Art faces the beach, with views of Jacmel's fishing wharf and the Caribbean Sea. Inside, space has been arranged to accommodate 10 studios for art students, and 10 for visiting artists. Boucard, a 47-year-old Jacmel native, grew up in Haiti and Mexico, studied art in England and served for a time in the US Navy. He says his goal is to upgrade the quality of art in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. "Haitian art is losing its credibility around the world, for a few reasons," he said. "Because of market forces and economic difficulties, artists here tend to paint what sells. They're selling mostly stereotyped Haitian art - mass-produced market scenes, voodoo scenes and landscapes. It's diluting creativity." "Haiti has changed a lot in the last 50 years, but that's not reflected in the art," he said. "Artists are not really expressing themselves. There is no cutting edge, no avant-garde. We're not creating things anymore." Part of the problem, he said, is that "artists don't have a support system. They don't have schools, they don't have access to markets." The Centre d'Art hopes to address those shortcomings. Initially, it will start with 11 young Haitians studying only painting, but Boucard says "we'll expand every year and add a new discipline: film, sculpture, photography, printmaking and voodoo flagmaking." Students pay a symbolic fee equivalent to US$3 a month. They also pay the center a small commission on sales of their work. In return, they receive all the materials, support and exposure they need. Eventually, the art center could have as many as 30 or 40 students enrolled. "We plan to demystify art, by organizing tours for the local schools," said Boucard, "For the inauguration of our art gallery, we did a photographic exhibition of Jacmel. We went around town, taking pictures of over 100 people. When they came to the show, we gave them a small picture of themselves. The reaction was fantastic." The Centre d'Art de Jacmel will help aspiring Haitian artists sell their work on the Internet, via the center's own website. And the center's gallery will be open seven days a week and staffed by the students themselves. That alone could lure more tourism to Jacmel, since more and better art will be available - thereby giving a boost to the stagnant local economy. In order to make his dream come true, Boucard needs to raise $150,000. So far, he and his South African wife, co-founder Kate Tarratt Cross, have spent $50,000 of their own money and have collected $40,000 from outside sources. To come up with the remaining $60,000, the couple has formed a Miami-based non-profit organization, Hybrid Art Centers Inc. The Foundation Hope for Haiti Inc., another non-profit group, is one of the art center's initial sponsors. "Jacmel is bursting with talent, but woefully short on opportunities for artists, both aspiring and established," said the group's president Florence Bellande Robertson. Patrick Slavin, a New York author who has written extensively on Haiti, said that the Centre d'Art de Jacmel will be a godsend for the local economy. "Jacmel's historic isolation from the turmoil in Port-au-Prince has done wonders for the town. It's the only place that literally hasn't burned down since Haitian independence," he said. ______________________________________________ |