SAN­DRA L BLOOD

mindup.slblood@gmail.com

“Art and any­thing cre­ative came nat­u­ral­ly to me from as far back at the ten­der age of five,” says Kadaf­fi Rom­ney, a for­mer dancer mod­el and beau­ty queen whose paint­ings now adorn the walls and ceil­ings of Kafe Blue, at Wright­son Road, Port of Spain. Her art­work has al­so been fea­tured in pro­duc­tions by cel­e­brat­ed mas de­sign­er and pro­duc­er, Bri­an Mac­Far­lane.

How­ev­er for Rom­ney, a self-taught cre­ative, the path to be­com­ing an artist has been filled by di­ver­sions and dif­fi­cul­ties.

Over the years she has been a dancer, fit­ness in­struc­tor, and a mod­el for top lo­cal de­sign­ers.

As a dancer, she start­ed at age five, and has stud­ied un­der the leg­endary Beryl Mc Bernie, Car­ol LaChapelle and No­ble Dou­glas. She was al­so a mem­ber of the Caribbean School of Dance where she trained in bal­let.

How­ev­er, she al­ways found time for oth­er cre­ative ex­pres­sions and in her for­ma­tive years she hand­craft­ed bags, belts, and ear­rings from leather and made hand-paint­ed Tee shirts.

“Cre­ativ­i­ty flows nat­u­ral­ly from me but I came from a fam­i­ly of ed­u­ca­tors and oth­er types of tra­di­tion­al ca­reers – teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, CEOs, man­agers, etc. – so dis­ap­point­ing­ly, art was nev­er seen as a ca­reer,” Rom­ney said.

She earned cer­tifi­cates in hair­dress­ing and cos­me­tol­ogy and in her ef­forts to do “nor­mal work” was al­so a man­ag­er and su­per­vi­sor, and a clerk at a post of­fice.

“It just nev­er felt right!” she ad­mit­ted.

There were stints liv­ing and work­ing abroad, in­clud­ing in Switzer­land and the Unit­ed States.

Rom­ney al­so be­came a moth­er of five but af­ter the trag­ic deaths of two of her chil­dren in 2017 and 2022, she strug­gled to find her foot­ing un­til she re­turned to her God-giv­en gift, art.

“I re­mem­ber many moons ago, I felt very elat­ed when one of my small pieces that was next to the late, in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-renowned artist, Bosco Hold­er’s awe­some work, was sold at Hori­zon Art Gallery on Mu­cu­rapo Road,” she re­called.

“In my 20’s I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sit for Bosco. Not on­ly was it an ho­n­our to sit with him, but to see him at work, first-hand.”

Rom­ney has al­so worked as a pros­thet­ic make­up artist, but says mu­rals and can­vas pieces are her main fo­cus as she builds her brands, Kadaf­fi and Ar­tiZEdge Cre­ations.

“I paint any­thing, and on any­thing but above all, I am tru­ly pas­sion­ate about my na­tive land and its cul­ture and tal­ents, which are re­flec­tive in my burly col­lec­tion of work,” she said.

More about Kadaf­fi Rom­ney and her art can be found in her so­cial me­dia space, Ar­tiZEdge.