Rankine // Signs

Randy // Love

While walking along a peaceful stretch of beach in St Elizabeth I met Randy. We talked for a while and he told me that he writes poetry. 'Love inspires me,' he told me. 'I didn't grow up with love, I spent a lot of time by myself as a child.'

Randy told me we wasn’t taught how to love, but it has been something which he has found strength and purpose in.

Randy is soft spoken and very shy. He explained to me that finding people to trust and be able to talk to is hard within his community and that when you find true friendship it’s something you must hang onto.

Rankine // Signs

Rankine took up painting after he broke his leg slipping on a banana peel. Determined not to let his injury hold him back, he traveled to Kingston and took a courses in sign painting. Using biblical references, photos, images from books, warnings, cautions, historical fact and his imagination, Rankine has developed a large collection of designs over the years.

Displaying his work along the roadside in St Elizabeth, Rankine links his signs together with wire, stringing them between a wooden frame to make one large installation, catching the attention of passersby. Rankine believes that his true purpose is to create signs that will educate children and pass on important messages.

Georgie // Lignum Vitae

Born in the fishing community of Treasure Beach, Georgie captained boats for most of his life. An injury to his back prevents him from going out to sea, and now Georgie now relies on his carvings to survive.

Although Georgie carves a variety of objects, his life as a fisherman continues to inform a lot of his work. Georgie carves Jamaican canoes, which resemble the traditional dug-out canoes his father used to build by hand from cotton trees. This is a practice passed down from Jamaica’s indigenous Tainos.

Georgie works with lignum vitae (wood of life), a high quality wood native to Jamaica. Nicknamed 'iron wood’ it is a labour intensive building material which requires a lot of time and energy to shape. With limited resources and tools, Georgie continues to use a completely hand-based practice of carving and whittling.

St John // Craft Work

St John has been creating bead curtains for nearly 30 years. Over time he started integrating found plastics from his community such as lighters, rum bottle caps and hair beads. St John combines the colourful plastics with natural Job’s tears, a seed collected at certain times of the year from along Jamaica’s riverbanks.

Slicing his lighters up and creating vibrant zig-zagging patterns, St John's curtains reflect the sounds of deep reggae and dub which is constantly pulsating through his workshop.

Bingy // Hats

Trained as a pastry chef, Bingy took up weaving late in life after having a stroke which left him without movement in three of his fingers. Over time he has developed a hat design which uses locally harvested calabash with a brim of woven screw pine. Bingy exhibits his work from a roadside rest-stop in Annotto Bay, hanging his piece on wooden beams and bamboo posts along the outside of the building.

Bingy’s calabash surfaces are left rough, raw and natural; highlighting their organic textures and unique characteristics. With limited tools Bingy works slowly and methodically to create each hat. To create the ventilation holes on the side of the hats - along with all the holes to weave into -Bingy uses a small razor to bore through the calabash.

Wildlife // Mermaids

Ever since he was a child Wildlife has been dreaming about mermaids. They visit him regularly. Sometimes a single female, sometimes a whole family of them. Wildlife has never met a mermaid but he’s on a mission. When dark comes he takes his goggles and flippers and dives in Port Antonio Harbour. The bigger fish are sleeping so he told me it feels safer to explore by night.