This is my first post and I hope it incites thought leading to further artistic creativity. Yesterday I lost a great source of inspiration in my artistic and academic life, Professor Rex Nettleford was a cultural and intellectual icon of the Caribbean and I can say that I am who I am as an artist because he created so much opportunities for me to practice my art and moreover he linked it to the cultural fabric that is JAMAICA. I have gone on to be taught by a teachers who worked Professor (as he was affectionately called), also to work with Garth Fagan (a personal friend of Mr. Nettleford). His academic work as author and vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies brought out the intricacies of how the Arts was informed by culture.
To loosely make a connection to some his work would be like this” The flow of the rivers and ebb of sea were in the brush strokes and the mountains stood tall like the most gracious dancer connecting to it’s ancestral past. Those very mountains were home to the Maroons, who despite being slaves, ran away to the mountains to create an independent community” Now its not about the drudgery of black movements of opposition or tagging on to Black History month. it’s about the Arts and culture and where you find inspiration regardless of cultural background. I am an artist first and foremost.
Inspiration should, I feel be informed by your cultural past but also your culture present..its about the subway, Toronto, the cultures with whom you share a space, an identity, a world view, places travelled. How else can someone understand you inspiration? It should appeal to a humanistic part of their being and senses referring back to who you are. I challenge all who read to seek different source of inspiration, languish in the process of creation because as I have learnt from one such inspiration like Professor Nettleford “this is where experience lives..in the process of creation and understanding”
I hope that we all can realize that: when we make our beats, when we paint, when we dance, sing, act, teach. That we too like those who practiced before us are inspiring a generation to come.Interview from the 2009 Commonwealth People\\\’s Forum with Prof. The Hon. Rex Nettleford (Respect and Understanding)
The process of creation requires inspiration, but as Black history month drudges on and we seek to rediscover some ancestral past it is the cultural present that continues to be obscured. There are so many ways that we as people from the African diaspora creatively represent ourselves on the daily. Sometimes I see the most creative or inspirational things on the subway, or walking down Bloor street, but most people are not interested in creatively articulating our present. This is probably because the present is painful…R.I.P. Professor