In 2010, Adrian Augier was awarded the Caribbean Laureate of Arts and Letters by the ANSA McCall Foundation in Trinidad and Tobago. He was the first laureate from Saint Lucia and the Eastern Caribbean.
His financial award went to the establishment of the Pat Charles Endowment for the Arts (PCEA) to support the work of Saint Lucian artists. Many can give testimony to Pat Charles’s (1936-2010) great contribution and dedication to the development of the arts and culture in Saint Lucia. She was highly appreciated beyond Saint Lucia by many Caribbean artists, including the late Alwin Bully of Dominica, Ken Corsbie and Michael Gilkes of Guyana, Rex Nettleford and our own Derek Walcott, among many. In 1975, as Resident Tutor of the UWI Extra Mural Department, she published John Robert Lee’s first collection of poetry titled Vocation. She also published a first collection for Kendel Hippolyte in 1980, titled Island in the Sun – side 2. In 2006, when she was Chair of the CDF, where she did tremendous work, she published “Saint Lucian Literature and Theatre: An Anthology of Reviews” edited by Lee and Hippolyte. For those interested in the development of the development of our literature and theatre, it is essential reading. Copies are available at the CDF. Pat’s work in the arts with the Creative and Performing Arts Society, in heritage with the National Trust, small business with the NRDF and in other areas needs urgent documentation. In her first years in Saint Lucia, she was a teacher at St. Joseph’s Convent. She was influential in the establishment of the M&C Fine Arts Awards, which ran for twenty-five years.
The PCEA was seeded with funds from Adrian’s ANSA award. Jallim Eudovic, our foremost young sculptor today, with work on display all over the world, including China, was the second Saint Lucian artist to receive the now prestigious ANSA Laureate award. The establishment of the PCEA was supported by a grant from the Stephenson King government. The JQ Charles group of companies and the University of the West Indies have also contributed funds to help the Endowment. The PCEA welcomes other donors who can help support the not-insignificant work the Fund is doing.
The Endowment has been used in various ways to help a number of artists. The first grants went to students from the Saint Lucia School of music and to support overseas training in the performing arts. A number of publications have been supported, including a book of poetry by the late Charles Cadet. A forthcoming book will be by the late Irvin Desir, a very fine poet, admired by Derek Walcott and other contemporaries, who died recently. The Lady Leen concert ODYSSEY was also supported by the PCEA.
Ken ‘Scotty’ Lawrence is a veteran of Saint Lucian visual arts, much admired and encouraged by Pat Charles for many years. His work and steadfastness are on display in this exhibition, which presents work done over many years. ‘Scotty’ has also contributed art to covers of a number of Saint Lucian publications.
The Pat Charles Endowment for the Arts thanks the Alliance Francaise and others for their support of this important Saint Lucian artist and his present exhibition..
This exhibition by a senior and accomplished Saint Lucian artist encourages a call for the long-needed establishment of a National Art Gallery where the work of our artists can be on show for our people and visitors. We do need a National Museum too. A country’s development cannot be measured only by the number of tourist ships that fill our harbor, or the many great jazz artists that come to us every year, or the growing size of our kanavals. As beneficial as these are to our economic bottom lines, we need to invest in a more focused way in the long-term development of our people, older and younger, and specifically here, through the establishment of Schools of the creative arts – visual, performing, literary. Thankfully, we do have a School of Music. We need investment in well-designed performing centres for our dancers, musicians and dramatists, in educational curricula that teach our culture, history, arts and literature even as our very bright young people are trained for this AI time; we need national public media that can engage our people in meaningful public discourse about our lives in these fast-changing times. We must continue to meet the urgent and very important needs in health care, housing, public facilities, opportunities for young business entrepreneurs, national security, etc. As Derek Walcott once said at a Carifesta meeting in Guyana, it is not a case of providing bread OR shoes, it is providing bread AND shoes.
This exhibition, supported by the PCEA and the Alliance Francaise, is not unimportant. It does not have the turn-on of political ro-ro or the latest scandal or a bam-bam wall, and it will not make the artist a billionaire, but there is something important about the work of this major painter that speaks to other important sides of our being: Saint Lucian, Caribbean, world citizens, human. Thank you, Scotty! Your long-time friend and supporter Pat Charles would be very pleased.
Teachers are encouraged to organize visits for students to this exhibition. Members of the public are also encouraged to visit. It remains open till the 27th March at The Pyramid, Alliance Francaise Headquarters, Pointe Seraphine.