| Author's Notes (click on images to enlarge) |
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| "Inside" Acrylic 30 W by 24 H |
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Whenever anyone I meet learns that I grew up and spent most of my life in the Caribbean, they invariably ask what it was like. I then find myself at a loss for words. How does one explain an experience so complex and so privileged?
I began painting scenes as I remembered them from my childhood in St. Thomas, and the idea of the book evolved. Perhaps "Time Gone" will give people an idea of what it was like. Researching the book for authentic details put me in touch with old friends, and the project became a reward in itself. I tried to make the illustrations in my book as true to the period as possible, relying on old photos, postcards, and materials in some of the commemorative issues of local St. Thomas newspapers.
The first picture “Inside” is nowhere in particular, a composite to evoke the mood of the islands. You may recognize the “planter” that is an old KLIM tin. This was a brand of powdered milk widely used in St. Thomas at the time, and the empty tins were often recycled as planters.
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| Water catchment above West Indian Company dock |
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| Looking towards Sugar Estate from Raphune Hill |
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In the background, you’ll see a galvanize water catchment. There were several throughout the town area, all of which have since grown over and disappeared. Rainfall off these large surfaces filled public cisterns and provided water for the many homes still without plumbing in the 1950s. It was the chore of many a young child to carry a bucket to the cisterns and fetch water early in the morning, before school.
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| "WSTA" Acrylic 24 by 36 |
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I approached anyone I knew who had ever worked at the WSTA radio station in French Town, looking for a photo of the station as it was then. I never found one, so I decided to do a composite and capture French Town and the kids’ activities described in the narrative, and I relied on anyone’s recollections. My brother, Dee Wesley, remembered the tower. Wendy Weber recalled the boards over the puddle, which never seemed to dry up. I was pretty sure that the building was set back from the main road that ran through French Town at that time. Ultimately, I hope I captured the essence of the radio station and French Town, but it’s certainly not authentic.
Some of you may remember the contraption pushed by the two boys in the foreground. Young boys made these toys out of wood, wire, and old paint can lids (for wheels), and “drove” them around. My brother told me they were called “beels”, which my son informed me stems from the Danish word for car, “bil”. (click photo to enlarge)
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| "Market Saturday" Acrylic 24 H by 36 W |
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This stylized rendition of the market is meant to focus on the activity of the place, so I purposely painted the structure itselft as a “prop”. Surprisingly, I found old post cards and photos of the market hard to come by. When I mentioned my frustration to an old friend, Larry Bailey, he sent me slides he had taken years ago. He had come to St. Thomas in the early ‘60s as a member of the UDT, the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Team, which trained on the island every spring. Larry had grown up on a farm in Texas, and was overwhelmed to find himself in a place so relatively exotic as St. Thomas. Larry would venture into town on his days off to take photos, and his old slides were a big help to me.
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Morris Paiewonsky and his son, Irving, gave me a wonderful old photo of the Center Theater, taken in 1953. The top part of the building was cut off, so I created the rest from memory, which is, more often than not, unreliable!
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| "Good Friday" Acrylic 22 W by 28 H |
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| Carnival Parade 1955 |
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A few years ago, Harley Smith showed me a photo of the Carnival parade, taken in front of the theater, showing the entire building. It was completely different, and I did a new painting of the scene.
In the book's illustration, the Carnival parade is marching up Main Street directly across from the market. I had an old photo, given to me by Heidi Maas, with a tree branch blocking the lettering for Greaux’s Hardware Store, and couldn’t remember the form of the G. Greg Kirchoff sent me an old shot he had of the Sea Chest, and there it was!
The king and queen in the painting are actually taken from an old family snapshot of Fay Moon and John Jowers, the royalty in 1955. Fay Moon was a senior at Sts. Peter and Paul School, and I was in the fourth grade that year. She was one of the upper classmen I looked up to, along with Micky Griffith, Diane Mawson, and Leah Sasso. Fay died while I was working on the book, and including her was my own little homage and memorial to a beautiful spirit.
The spectators at the parade probably look like a very sparse group compared to the crowd that gathers now. But in the 1950s, Carnival was still very much a hometown (versus a tourist) event, and the population was much smaller than it is now.
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| "Carnival Parade" Acrylic 28 H by 39 W |
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As with WSTA, I had a very hard time finding a picture of Lockhart’s Department Store. No one I approached in the Lockhart family seems to have one. Barbara O’Brien sent me some great old postcards to work from, but none had a good view of the front of the store. I ended up working from an old “Here’s How” magazine that Greg Kirchoff sent me, and, like the Center Theater, the store was in the background of a Carnival parade picture. I can’t tell you how happy I was to get it!
There were a few “flower ladies” who strolled Main St. at the time, balancing huge arrangements of flowers on their heads, and posing for tourists “for a quat”. The sailors taking her picture are meant to be a contrast to the Carnival photo postings described in the narrative.
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| "Carnival Pictures" Acrylic 22 H by 26 W |
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