Ste­fan Falke

Artist Luise Kimme, renowned for her larg­er-than-life wood­en sculp­tures, died on Fri­day at 74, af­ter a brief ill­ness. Ger­man-born Kimme had lived in To­ba­go since 1979 and es­tab­lished the Sculp­ture Mu­se­um, which was lo­cal­ly known as The Cas­tle, over­look­ing Mt Irvine Golf Course.

Her work was in­spi­ra­tional to many artists around the world, in­clud­ing Ger­man pho­tog­ra­ph­er Ste­fan Falke, her long­time friend, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and col­lab­o­ra­tor. Falke has kind­ly agreed towrite a short trib­ute to Kimme and share somepho­tographs of her work­with the T&T Guardian.

I met Luise Kimme by pure luck in To­ba­go in 1986, when I was just pass­ing through.Some­one in Scar­bor­ough told me about a Ger­man artist up in Bethel and I went to find her.Luise was sit­ting on a tree trunk in front of a shed, putting on make-up and ap­ply­ing bright red lip­stick with­out us­ing a mir­ror.

There were half-fin­ished wood­en sculp­tures all around her. She was not nice or invit­ing be­cause she was about to work rather than talk to a stranger. I was in­trigued.

To make a long sto­ry short, we be­came friends.

Over the years, we kept meet­ing spo­rad­i­cal­ly in New York (where I live) or in Ger­many (were we are both from) or in Trinidad (for Car­ni­val) and one day in the mid-90s she said to me, "You are my pho­tog­ra­ph­er now."

Soon af­ter, I had a tick­et to To­ba­go in the mail. So I went and our long and fruit­ful artis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion be­gan. Her house be­low Bethel was just slow­ly be­ing built.

Her grow­ing col­lec­tion of danc­ing sculp­tures kept de­mand­ing more space. Eight (re­al) dogs–Luise called them "my fam­i­ly"–were liv­ing there too. The Cas­tle kept grow­ing like a vil­lage.

Al­though she al­ways had won­der­ful helpers, no­tably her long­time as­sis­tant Ryan, it was dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand how one per­son could han­dle all the work. Luise could. She worked for 18 hours a day, every day.

What im­pressed me most about her art was the life­like move­ments of her wood­en sculp­tures, as if to just strike a pose for the vis­i­tor, on­ly to walk away when no­body was look­ing.

I re­mem­ber many nights when I was wan­der­ing around the stu­dios in the dark, think­ing I am def­i­nite­ly not alone and the sculp­tures seemed to com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er.

That was one rea­son why I had a great time pho­tograph­ing her art be­cause they were like work­ing with re­al char­ac­ters, peo­ple al­most. And all of them in a jol­ly mood!

I per­suad­ed a re­luc­tant Luise that her sto­ry could on­ly be told if I in­clud­ed her in the pic­tures for the cat­a­logues. She was so unique. See­ing her work­ing on a tree trunk with a chain­saw like a painter with a brush was re­al­ly fas­ci­nat­ing.

Be­sides her enor­mous phys­i­cal strength, the first "stroke" with the saw would blow life in­to the piece of wood. A new char­ac­ter was born, a dancer maybe, or a neigh­bour, or a dog.

They came to life be­cause of her vi­sion. It could take weeks, months or even years to fin­ish a sculp­ture, and then they would get a paint­ed dress or cos­tume which would of­ten be changed by her lat­er. I don't know how many times I saw the sculp­ture Boscoe (Boscoe Hold­er) in a new "out­fit."

Luise in­tro­duced me to many great lo­cal artists, like Boscoe Hold­er and Pe­ter Min­shall, both of whom don't need an in­tro­duc­tion in T&T and whom she ad­mired so much.

Boscoe's broth­er Ge­of­frey, who lives in New York, would lat­er write an in­tro­duc­tion to my book Moko Jumbies: The Danc­ing Spir­its of Trinidad, which on­ly came in­to ex­is­tence be­cause I found Min­shall work­ing with the Keyle­man­jahro Moko Jumbies in 1996 for his In The Be­gin­ning Car­ni­val per­for­mance.

It is safe to say that my life would have tak­en an­oth­er course with­out hav­ing known Luise Kimme. I vis­it­ed T&T dozens of times and I have been deeply in­flu­enced by this na­tion's peo­ple and its vi­brant cul­ture. She was the key who opened the door.

I would like to talk more about the many vis­its with her to the Buc­coo Sun­day School, swim­ming in Mount Irvine Bay, J'Ou­vert in Port-of-Spain, her sal­sa danc­ing, her won­der­ful wigs, her dogs, her con­ver­sa­tions with her dogs, her pa­tience, her im­pa­tience, her kind­ness, her fears, her hopes, her cook­ing, her am­bi­tions, her en­ter­tain­ing char­ac­ter, her straight­for­ward hon­esty, her ded­i­ca­tion, her liv­ing in the Now, her tru­ly amaz­ing and in­spir­ing work.

An­oth­er time, maybe.

So many things go through my mind when I think of her. I have nev­er seen any­body start­ing the day with such en­er­gy and clear vi­sion. She made me un­der­stand that art is hard work and be­ing tal­ent­ed is on­ly the be­gin­ning.

She worked every wak­ing hour of the many days of her life for her art. She al­ways knew that her time on earth was lim­it­ed and that she could not waste it in or­der to achieve her goals.

She left us with an amaz­ing amount of sculp­tures, paint­ings and the fan­tas­tic Kimme's Mu­se­um which hous­es much of her work and is a piece of art in its own right.

Every­body who has met Luise in per­son has at least one Kimme sto­ry to tell. One would not for­get her from the mo­ment she opened the gate to the Cas­tle in To­ba­go and guid­ed the vis­i­tor in­to her very own world, fol­lowed by eight dogs, who will un­doubt­ed­ly miss her as much as we all do.

I am for­ev­er grate­ful to Luise Kimme; she made my life so much rich­er.

n Ste­fan Falke is a New York-based Ger­man pho­tog­ra­ph­er. His work can be seen at his web­site www.ste­fan­falke.com or on his Face­book page Ste­fan Falke Pho­tog­ra­phy Prints.