Fascinating art stories at Potters Fair

The diverse art forms on display at the annual Potters Fair Art & Craft Show, held recently at the Jamaica Horticultural Society’s showgrounds, highlighted some fascinating art and stories among the over 90 artists and artisans who turned out for the event.

A showpiece for handmade pottery, ceramic and wooden sculptures, mixed-media paintings, pencil drawings, photography and jewellery, the event, which is widely known for its focus on local talent, treated scores of patrons to two days of art.

With a burst of colours against bright blue skies and an execution that showed off her business-savvy and bubbly personality, Shawn Ashman was among the early crowd-pleasers.

Women were a dominant feature of abstracts that packed a punch, like the piece entitled The Fighter Within, the artworks filled out the booth bearing her Shawn Ashman Art brand in a variety of sizes.

The intuitive artist two years ago left her IT job to focus on art, and has since been working with schools and major corporate entities.

“I wanted to share more of the therapeutic value of art, and so my ‘Draw It Out’ programme is to help children and teachers to draw out their stresses,”she said, of her reason for the career switch. It’s not so much about doing perfect art, but more enjoying the art-making process and to be transformed from it,” the artist, whose work is about “women’s empowerment, motivation and inspiration”, Ashman said.

Her love for vintage cars on full display, Crislyn Beecher-Bravo brought random images of everyday Jamaicans to life with her still-life compositions. An attorney for over 30 years, Beecher-Bravo, who appeared pleased her patrons had turned up as promised, also found her way to art after spending years as a collector.

The show also saw some impressive works by sculptor and wood carver Devon Garcia, who received rave reviews from a number of patrons.

Portrait artist Richard Smith and longtime Potters’ Fair painters Alphanso Blake, Lennox Coke, and Paul Blackwood, the latter blending coconut shells in his latest mixed- media works, were popular stops.

SENSE OF HUMOUR

Damian Cunningham, meanwhile, brought a wicked sense of humour with his Old But Mi Nuh Cold oil-on-canvas and several other pieces. Veteran artist Errol Walker’s painting meanwhile brought Jamaican country life.

Naseem Wildman, Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts photography major, however, optimistic for her fifth outing, noting the feedback was “awesome”. “They love my art,”she said of the beautiful images capturing slices of Jamaican rural life.

Ceramicists David and Allison Sinclair with their signature decorative vases and trophies, and David Pinto with his functional tableware, showed off their unique styles and approaches to moulding clay into impeccable works of art.

When we caught up with him on day-two of the fair, Pinto, who was arranging his neatly packaged plate sets, saucers and whimsical mugs on one of two display tables was in a good mood as he told us “several of the works are gone”.

Sinclair-Solomon was having a “good day” with his intuitive art abstracts dabbling in ceramic relief/mixed media, a nice mashup of burlap, clay and acrylic.

Devon Townsend got a thumbs-up and some encouragement from painter Blake, as the Potters’ Fair regular, who is now in his 10th year, made his way to a patron’s car with an oversized vase from his Stunning Art collection.

Other recognisable faces were ceramicists Leonia McKoy, Ramon Christie, Anna-K Cuffe and Aretha Facey-Dennis alongside Claud Hoilett with their eclectic vases and masks.

Around the ground the stories were varied as artists and patrons interacted, some skilfully negotiating sales.