Guyana SPEAKS: Stanley Greaves - The Maker of Things (Part 2) - Sunday, 27 Nov 2022

This Guyana SPEAKS event, in honour of Stanley Greaves's birthday, continues discussions that begun in 'Part 1'. Writing in 1995 at the time of a retrospective exhibition to celebrate Greaves's 60th birthday, Rupert Roopnarine stated: "It may be that no major Caribbean artist of our time has been more fecund and versatile than Stanley Greaves of Guyana."
Of his own creativity, Greaves stated: I still don't talk about myself as making art! Other people do that. I am a maker of things. In the early days, I found empty matchboxes, cigarette boxes, bits of string, wire, empty boot-polish tins, whatever, and made things. Drawing was just another activity, and it still is. My favourite medium is still wood, of course. My hitherto secret preoccupation with writing poems, which has now come to light, is another form of making." (For Stanley's poems See Peepal Tree Press UK: Horizons, The Poems Man, Haiku.)
Our special guests - Aubrey Williams, Dawn Forde, Major General Joseph Singh, Joselyn Dow, Therese Hadchity and Ohene Koama - were invited to to lend their voices to Stanley's celebration.
Aubrey Williams was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1946 and attended St. Stanislaus College (“Saints’) where he first met Stanley Greaves in 1958. Stanley taught him Art and Nature Studies at secondary level. Aubrey probably owns the oldest oil painting done by Stanley in 1955, a gift when he visited Stanley’s home as a young teenager. Aubrey has painted in oils and acrylic. Aubrey emigrated to New York in 1963. He attended Bronx Community College, City College of New York, New York University and, last, to Yale University on scholarship where he received a MPhil degree in Political Science and Economic Development.With a grant from the Ford Foundation, Aubrey did his graduate research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971-73. He joined the World Bank in 1976 where he helped pioneer the Bank’s entry into analytical work and lending for health services’ development in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Tunisia,Trinidad & Tobago, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Indonesia.
Dr Dawn Forde Arno is a multi-media artist with an affinity for working with textiles. Dawn received the Ed.D in Educational Administration from Teachers College Columbia University, NY, the MBA from Columbia‘s School of Business and is a graduate of the London College of Music in England where she majored in flute and piano. In 1970 she was appointed Music Master at QC where she founded the QC Steelband Orchestra -for her, music-making was integral to the curriculum. Dawn also taught at the Pre-Service and In-Service Teacher Training Colleges in Guyana. Now retired as an educator in higher education and K-12 school systems in the USA, Dawn devotes her time to music-making, quilt-making, poetry writing and grandmothering. Dawn is a graduate of the Bishops High School for Girls, (BG) and actively maintains “those ties that bind”.
Major General (retd) Joseph G Singh is the Special Assistant to the President of Guyana and Chairman of the Board of the Natural Resource Fund. He was a former Pro-Chancellor of the University of Guyana and Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force.He attended Queen’s College, the University of Guyana, and is a post-graduate of the University of Greenwich, the British Army Staff College, and the Royal College of Defence Studies. He has been involved for five decades in natural resources management, biodiversity conservation, and scientific exploration.
Joycelyn Dow is the founder and managing director of Liana Cane furniture factory. She has served as a board member of the Caribbean Conservation Association and was also appointed to the United Nations Secretary General’s Panel of Eminent Persons for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2022. She is a founding member of Red Thread, a woman’s collective in Guyana and has been a member of the External Gender Consultative Group of the World Bank. She is also a lover, supporter and collector of Guyanese art and a close friend of Stanley Greaves.
Therese Hadchity grew up in Denmark and studied Art History and Modern Culture at the University of Copenhagen. In 1990, she moved to Barbados, where she worked as a freelance curator and visual arts commentator until she opened the Zemicon Gallery in 2000. After its closure a decade later, she enrolled in the Cultural Studies programme at UWI Cave Hill and wrote a PhD dissertation, which was to become the basis for her book “The Making of a Caribbean Avant-garde” (Purdue Uni. Press, 2020). She presently lectures at UWI and the Barbados Community College.
Ohene Koama is the Curator at The National Gallery of Art, Castellani House in Guyana.
Contact Guyana SPEAKS, co-founded 2017 by Rod Westmaas & Juanita Cox, at [e-mail], via Twitter @JCWestmaas or via Facebook / 1594883130589796