Fay­ola K J Fras­er

The re­launch of Va­lerie Bel­grave’s mem­oir, Art for the Peo­ple, de­tails the his­to­ry of the pro­lif­ic, mul­ti­fac­eted Trinida­di­an artist, au­thor, and com­pos­er.

Bel­grave’s son, Che­nier Bel­grave, de­cid­ed to re­launch the book be­cause “the na­ture of Val’s con­tri­bu­tion to the fab­ric of this so­ci­ety, so­cial­ly and ar­tis­ti­cal­ly should not be for­got­ten.” Aside from her pro­fes­sion­al artis­tic pur­suits, Bel­grave was ac­tive­ly in­volved in the 1969 stu­dent sit-in at Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da, a piv­otal event that led to the 1970 Black Pow­er Move­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Born on March 3, 1946, in Pe­tit Bourg, San Juan, Bel­grave pur­sued her sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion at St Joseph’s Con­vent in San Fer­nan­do and lat­er at­tend­ed Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da, where she earned a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in Paint­ing. Bel­grave was one of the six stu­dents in­volved in the “Sir George Williams Af­fair”, al­so known as the Sir George Williams Com­put­er Cen­tre In­ci­dent, a sig­nif­i­cant event in 1969 at the uni­ver­si­ty in Mon­tre­al, now part of Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty.

It be­gan when six Black Caribbean stu­dents ac­cused a pro­fes­sor of racism due to un­fair grad­ing prac­tices. The uni­ver­si­ty’s in­ad­e­quate re­sponse led to es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions, cul­mi­nat­ing in over 200 stu­dents oc­cu­py­ing the ninth floor of the Hen­ry F. Hall Build­ing. This in­ci­dent is re­mem­bered as the largest stu­dent oc­cu­pa­tion in Cana­di­an his­to­ry, a piv­otal mo­ment in the fight against racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in Cana­da and al­so a cat­a­lyst to the Black Pow­er Move­ment in T&T.

The re­launched mem­oir chrono­log­i­cal­ly fol­lows her life sto­ry and the way she pro­duced art that was ac­ces­si­ble to all peo­ple. Bel­grave re­calls her ear­li­est days in pri­ma­ry school, mak­ing pa­per dolls, chan­nelling her “in­de­pen­dence of spir­it and pre­co­cious con­scious­ness” in­to her art. As she grew and de­vel­oped her skills, she would lat­er be known for her di­verse tal­ents, span­ning paint­ing, batik de­sign, and writ­ing.

Her lit­er­ary works in­clude the nov­el Ti Marie (1988), of­ten de­scribed as a “Caribbean Gone with the Wind,” and Dance the Wa­ter (2002). She al­so wrote a play ti­tled Night of the Wolf (1991) about the 1990 coup, and a chil­dren’s book, Ad­ven­tures of the Mag­ic Steel­pan (2007).

Her con­tri­bu­tion to batik art was ex­treme­ly sig­nif­i­cant. Bel­grave re­calls in her mem­oir her “first for­ay in­to the lo­cal art scene up­on re­turn­ing to Trinidad in the ’70s came with the sub­mis­sion of “my etch­ing, Dirge of the In­di­an Woman,” which ul­ti­mate­ly won a prize at the an­nu­al Art So­ci­ety’s Ex­hi­bi­tion. Torn be­tween ab­strac­tion and re­al­ism, Bel­grave found her stride in “se­mi-re­al­ism”, a “folksy aes­thet­ic that had rel­e­vance to my na­tive cul­ture.”

When she found her stride, she took a class at the UWI on tie-dye and batik, im­me­di­ate­ly drawn eas­i­ly to the art form. De­vel­op­ing an in­stant affin­i­ty for batik, she held a batik ex­hi­bi­tion at the Trinidad Hilton, which was de­scribed as the “talk of the town,” un­der the theme “the Medi­um is al­so the Mes­sage,” ex­hibit­ing art that was a so­cial com­men­tary, re­flec­tive of Trin­bag­on­ian’s an­ces­tral lines.

Ac­cord­ing to her son, it was al­so im­por­tant to re­launch his moth­er’s mem­oir be­cause of this very con­cept that the medi­um was al­so the mes­sage. He said that she “al­ways made sure that peo­ple from all walks of life could par­take in and un­der­stand her in­tent and mes­sage.” Not on­ly was this in a sense de­moc­ra­tiz­ing art which may have seemed in­ac­ces­si­ble to some, but it al­so paved the way for oth­er artists who would go on to ma­nip­u­late and har­ness their artis­tic tal­ents to pro­vide pro­found so­cial com­men­tary.

For young artists, this book pro­vides a strong prece­dent for what they can be­come, show­cas­ing the abil­i­ty of art to be far more than vi­su­al, a thread wo­ven del­i­cate­ly in­to the fab­ric of a so­ci­ety’s his­to­ry.

On Oc­to­ber 18, 2001, The Hori­zon Gallery in Port of Spain host­ed Bel­grave’s first one-woman ex­hi­bi­tion of paint­ings. Bel­grave pro­duced a col­lec­tion of paint­ings of “fa­mil­iar-look­ing peo­ple” who ma­jes­ti­cal­ly filled the can­vas, seek­ing con­ti­nu­ity and jux­ta­po­si­tion of the past and present. In her book she de­tails that she was not in­ter­est­ed in paint­ing on­ly the past, say­ing that “I`m not averse, for ex­am­ple, to the jux­ta­po­si­tion of a biki­ni-clad win­er girl next to a head-wrapped mar­ket woman, with a bas­ket on her arm. It is a cre­ole ethos that I have been seek­ing.”

All of Bel­grave’s paint­ings were sold out on the open­ing night of the ex­hi­bi­tion.

In ad­di­tion to her artis­tic en­deav­ours, Bel­grave con­tin­ued to be in­volved in so­cial and cul­tur­al ac­tivism. Her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Sir George Williams af­fair and her sub­se­quent works re­flect­ed her com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing is­sues of racial and so­cial jus­tice. Her con­tri­bu­tions to the arts and her ad­vo­ca­cy for equal­i­ty made her a re­spect­ed fig­ure in Trinidad and To­ba­go and be­yond.

She has left be­hind a lega­cy of artis­tic and lit­er­ary con­tri­bu­tions that con­tin­ue to in­spire. By re­launch­ing this book, her son hopes that “the el­ders who re­mem­ber what was pos­si­ble could show these youths that their lives could be worth liv­ing and that they at their age are now start­ing a jour­ney that can end with not just rewrit­ing his­to­ry but shap­ing a world worth liv­ing in.”