Dr Glenville Ash­by

The Sticky Wick­et se­ries was well re­ceived by crit­ics and en­cap­su­late the grow­ing pains of the sport in the US. It show­cas­es the col­lec­tive ex­pe­ri­ences of im­mi­grants from the for­mer British colonies where crick­et is de­fined as the na­tion­al sport. "Crick­et in the sub­urbs in New York and New Jer­sey is go­ing through the same chal­lenges that Car­ni­val did. It is tak­ing some time be­fore we get full ac­cep­tance," Rouse opined. In Sticky Wick­et the truth is said in jest. "There is a lot of clean hu­mour," he added, "but the over­rid­ing theme of the books is about over­com­ing ob­sta­cles." Min­utes lat­er, he spoke briefly about the clash of cul­tures and the re­sis­tance ex­pe­ri­enced by im­mi­grants bent on en­joy­ing their pas­time. "We still have to fight with soc­cer moms and lit­tle league base­ball for space on city owned grounds...and they out­num­ber us and have more po­lit­i­cal clout. But we have to fight back for recog­ni­tion," he said, up­beat about the fu­ture of the sport in the US.

Life­time mem­o­ries

As Rouse signed his col­lec­tion, Chap­man, a for­mer US sol­dier and art grad­u­ate, was not to be out­shone. His deeply rich and colour­ful pho­tographs were every­where, de­pict­ing the colo­nial and con­tem­po­rary ar­chi­tec­ture of his na­tive land, along with its pris­tine and nat­ur­al fea­tures. "As a young man I can't re­mem­ber walk­ing with­out a cam­era," he said. At 49, Chap­man, who was raised in Port of Spain, is a sin­gle dad whose tal­ents have al­so touched his son. "He does great work but seems more in­ter­est­ed in soc­cer," he said. At the mo­ment, Chap­man is an­tic­i­pat­ing greater ex­po­sure in his home­land, and is lay­ing the ground work for an ex­hib­it there. He de­scribed his work as "artis­tic pho­tog­ra­phy," where he fash­ions his craft "through the lens of a painter."

Pho­tog­ra­phy he said "cap­tures and saves mo­ments and places and things for a life­time, and be­yond," re­call­ing his pho­to­graph of the twin tow­ers just be­fore they were knocked down in 2001. Evok­ing bit­ter-sweet emo­tions, he al­so rem­i­nisced on "the gems" he cap­tured in Haiti be­fore the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake. The evening was far from over but Rouse and Chap­man had al­ready made last­ing im­pres­sions.

(Dr Glenville Ash­by-For­eign cor­re­spon­dent)