Aba A Luke

A love for cul­ture and an un­de­ni­able thirst to bet­ter ex­pand on the art form that has pro­pelled his per­son­al growth over the years, has mo­ti­vat­ed wire ben­der ex­tra­or­di­naire Claude Jef­fers to reach out for the sup­port of those in au­thor­i­ty. Claim­ing that he is the best wire ben­der in T&T, Jef­fers, bet­ter known as Swa­mi among his peers, is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate T&T to as­sist with his goal of es­tab­lish­ing a wire-bend­ing and cos­tume-de­sign and con­struc­tion cen­tre in this coun­try.

No "just come"

Al­ready, Jef­fers has set up Swa­mi De­signs Work­shop in the Bel­mont area. There he de­vel­ops his craft dai­ly, us­ing wire and even wood to cre­ate mas­ter­pieces that are of­ten ex­hib­it­ed at events and func­tions here at home. Cur­rent­ly, he is work­ing on some cre­ative pieces for a one-man ex­hib­it he will soon host. For over 25 years, the mas mak­er has con­tributed to car­ni­vals both here in T&T and in the US. He is cred­it­ed for cre­at­ing the first Caribbean Cos­tume mu­se­um in Brook­lyn, which pre­serves the Labour Day pa­rade cos­tumes and pro­motes T&T's cul­ture. Jef­fers al­so con­tributed to the cre­ative pro­duc­tion of the 1991 Para­mount Pic­tures movie, Shaft Re­turns, in which he de­signed and built a cos­tume for the movie.

"My cos­tumes have been fea­tured in the NY Times, News Week and oth­er New York pub­li­ca­tions. I was al­so fea­tured in the Chan­nel 3 doc­u­men­tary, A Walk Around Brook­lyn," he told the T&T Guardian.

Ready to ed­u­cate

With a de­gree in Art De­sign and Sci­ence, Jef­fers said he had sin­gle-hand­ed­ly cre­at­ed a course of study that he as­sured could be taught in class­rooms and at wire-bend­ing cen­tres through Gov­ern­ment's in­ter­ven­tion. He, how­ev­er, not­ed that since his re­turn to Trinidad five years ago, he had ap­proached six gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, in­clud­ing for­mer Cul­ture Min­is­ters, Joan Yuille Williams and Mar­lene Mac­Don­ald, but to no avail. "I have sent out pro­pos­als to the min­is­ters. They've called me in but they all have the same sto­ry. They don't seem to re­al­ly read what I pro­pose to them and they want me to do work­shops all around the coun­try," he lament­ed, ex­plain­ing that wire bend­ing could not be taught in work­shops that had lim­it­ed time pe­ri­ods. "In every school, in every area, there are cre­ative and artis­tic peo­ple and I am look­ing for these peo­ple," he in­di­cat­ed, em­pha­sis­ing that wire bend­ing was not just a cul­tur­al part of T&T's Car­ni­val, but from an in­ter­na­tion­al per­spec­tive, the art of wire bend­ing could be treat­ed as a high-pay­ing pro­fes­sion.

"An in­dus­try can be cre­at­ed. Dif­fer­ent al­loys like cop­per, sil­ver, alu­mini­um and even gold wire can be used to make the work more ex­pen­sive, which would cater to the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket," he sug­gest­ed.

What about the fu­ture?

High­light­ing that the art of mas cre­ation is dy­ing a slow death, Jef­fers said he was fo­cused on the years ahead. "I'm won­der­ing who will be mak­ing wire cos­tumes in 2025 and 2030?," he ques­tioned, adding that with no at­ten­tion be­ing paid to the art form and no in­sti­tute for its de­vel­op­ment be­ing in­tro­duced, wire bend­ing may even­tu­al­ly be a craft of the past. "I am sug­gest­ing that wire ben­ders be giv­en their own stage, much like pan and ca­lyp­so is giv­en a stage for com­pe­ti­tion. Give the peo­ple an in­cen­tive and in­tro­duce a com­pe­ti­tion at Car­ni­val for the best wire ben­der. This would at­tract wire ben­ders from around the world and it would help the Car­ni­val," he urged. He said a com­pe­ti­tion of that na­ture would as­sist in rais­ing the bar, and it would help in de­vel­op­ing young wire-ben­ders for the growth and ex­pan­sion of the craft.

What are they re­al­ly do­ing?

Al­ready, the Bel­mont na­tive said, he'd seen the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the Car­ni­val in Brook­lyn where cos­tume bands have been re­placed, for the most part, by T-shirt bands. "That put me out of busi­ness," he stat­ed, adding that one of the few cos­tume bands that re­mained on the Labour Day route was Sesame Fly­ers. Jef­fers al­so ques­tioned the work of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion here in T&T. "They are get­ting paid for 12 months to put on Car­ni­val which lasts about two weeks, and they are yet to come up with an idea that will pro­mote the cul­ture of the is­land in a mean­ing­ful way. There are so many re­al­i­ty shows on tele­vi­sion. Why don't we have re­al­i­ty shows about as­pects of our cul­ture and com­pe­ti­tions with­in it?" he queried. With many sug­ges­tions and a wealth of knowl­edge on the craft of wire bend­ing and Car­ni­val in gen­er­al, Claude Jef­fers' pas­sion es­capes his be­ing with every word ut­tered. A gen­uine love for what he does and tremen­dous thirst to keep it alive keeps him go­ing. But with no as­sis­tance from the gov­ern­ment or cor­po­rate T&T, he won­ders if one day he'll have to stop and con­vince him­self that his ideas just aren't good enough for this pe­ri­od of time.

To as­sist in the de­vel­op­ment of wire bend­ing, con­tact Claude Jef­fers at 492-4880 or 625-5631.