SAN­DRA L BLOOD

mindup.slblood@gmail.com

“I’ve al­ways want­ed to be an artist. I know that sounds like some­thing every artist says, but it’s the mi­cro­scop­ic truth. I’ve nev­er lacked in­spi­ra­tion. I en­vi­sioned scenes be­fore me un­fold on can­vas, but I wasn’t good at putting it on a can­vas. In fact, I down­right sucked at paint­ing and bad­ly need­ed train­ing,” ex­pound­ed artist and au­thor, Vidya Birk­hoff.

She con­tin­ued, “I recog­nised some­thing spe­cial about the Trinidad and To­ba­go flag through the deep­er lens of the artist more than it be­ing red, black and white, but that the three colours of them­selves sig­ni­fy more than sim­ply the to­geth­er­ness of a peo­ple in T&T, but draws peo­ple, world­wide, to­geth­er.”

Na­tive Trin­bag­on­ian busi­ness­woman Birk­hoff, who re­sides in Ba­co­let Point, To­ba­go, said over the years, she watched oth­er artists blos­som with the most breath-tak­ing cre­ations and was jeal­ous.

Queen of the Blue.

COURTESY VIDYA BIRKHOFF

“I was jeal­ous be­cause the true cre­ative side of me was ‘hushed’.”

Birk­hoff al­so took note of the flag, or the promi­nent colour of it, red, por­trayed or dis­played in ex­ten­sive di­verse ways, es­pe­cial­ly in recog­ni­tion of T&T’s di­a­mond ju­bilee of In­de­pen­dence cel­e­brat­ed on Au­gust 31 this year.

Apart from typ­i­cal em­blems/mem­o­ra­bil­ia, cre­ativ­i­ty in rep­re­sent­ing the flag has showed up on na­tion­al he­li­copters, at Cae­sar’s Army’s pa­tri­ot­ic in.de.paint.dance fete, Caribbean rev­ellers dur­ing in­ter­na­tion­al car­ni­vals, Ni­a­gara Falls, CN Tow­er, fire­works lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, ex­quis­ite fash­ions, par­ty themes, and Google, among oth­er cre­ativ­i­ties.

Birk­hoff al­so joined the world in see­ing the flag flown out­side the British House of Com­mons and atop West­min­ster Abbey, but she said there’s an art sto­ry about the T&T flag that stems from 2015 that hasn’t been told, which prompt­ed her to tell it and com­plete a unique and pro­found piece of art.

Two Trinis residing in Hawaii, Amos and Terrance, blend-in with the T&T women’s football team in 2015, after giving them the only T&T flag at the match following their competition in the US.

COURTESY VIDYA BIRKHOFF

The Flag That Binds Us all start­ed when two Trinida­di­an men liv­ing in Hawaii, known on­ly as Amos and Ter­rance, met up to have a pot of pelau and some rum—a very Tri­ni thing to do. One of the guys took out a Tri­ni flag to bless it—wav­ing it on his roof in Hawaii. Lat­er, in said 2015, the two friends went to watch the Trinidad and To­ba­go women’s foot­ball team play the US, and of course, they took the flag and proud­ly waved it. It was the on­ly Tri­ni flag there and the guys were lucky enough to get a pho­to with the team. The team was over­joyed!

Four years lat­er, in 2019, Amos and Ter­rance heard about fel­low Trinida­di­an Shiv­ani Gob­erd­han, who was en­ter­ing the Caribbean Cup Roatan Free Div­ing Com­pe­ti­tion in Hon­duras. Gob­erd­han was al­so liv­ing and work­ing in Hawaii. As a ‘good luck’ charm, the two Tri­nis, now self-made am­bas­sadors, gave Gob­erd­han the flag. She dived, in­deed, with one, dis­play­ing the flag to the amaze­ment of a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Alex St Jean, who cap­tured it. Gob­erd­han went on to make div­ing his­to­ry af­ter she set four world records dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion.

Two were for the Caribbean Cup – at a depth of 35 me­ters in 1 minute 25 sec­onds and 38 me­tres in 1 minute 27 sec­onds, while the oth­er two were for World Cham­pi­onships—Free Im­mer­sion, reach­ing a depth of 35 me­tres in 1minute 36 sec­onds and 38 me­tres in 1minute 38 sec­onds.

T&T national helicopters fly from Trinidad to Tobago during T&T’s 60th Independence Day celebrations on August 31.

COURTESY VIDYA BIRKHOFF

Birk­hoff said she was re­sid­ing in An­guil­la at the time when she first saw the im­age of Gob­erd­han un­der­wa­ter with the flag.

“I sim­ply gasped and my first thought was that I need­ed to paint this, but I thought that I didn’t have the skill, but ear­li­er this year, 2022, I was fi­nal­ly able to paint the im­age ti­tled, Queen of Blue, af­ter con­nect­ing with the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, St Jean (@alexst­jean­pho­to) and al­so with Shiv­ani, for per­mis­sion.”

Birk­hoff ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the his­to­ry of the flag and how it made its way around the world.

“I feel like the flag has brought us all to­geth­er. I’m tru­ly ho­n­oured to have this art­work hang­ing in the gallery of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­sulate in Mi­a­mi. T&T has much to be proud of up­on hav­ing gained In­de­pen­dence – the flag and its colours.”