Ta-shea sharing art through travel

by CHOISELLE JOSEPH and THEA HERBERT ARTIST TA-SHEA BROWN is spreading her passion for art to the Caribbean youth through Travel and Paint, a free summer camp for children ages nine to 12.

Brown holds a bachelor’s of fine arts from the Cooper Union, and is completing the final year of her Master’s of fine arts in New York City.

Born and raised in Jamaica, she migrated to the United States at the age of ten where she pursued her studies at an art high school. She has held a deep passion for the arts for as long as she can remember.

In addition to her background in art and design, Brown also has experience in youth development, having taught art and activism at Girls’ Club, a youth-centred non-profit organisation in Manhattan. Her passion for the development of black and brown children was rekindled following three consecutive yearly visits to Barbados.

This summer marked Travel and Paint’s inauguration. The programme ran from July 21 to August 2 with a humble cohort of four students. Brown hopes to extend its reach to Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadiness, the Cayman Islands and many more.

‘A kid with talents’

“I was once a kid that had all these talents, but no one to nourish [them],” Brown told Nation Y. “I [thought] there might be some kids who were not doing anything for the summer and within two days of me reaching out to different tour guides and parents, I got a really positive response.”

She added: “Barbados is where is the inception [took place] . . . This is the first run . . . I really love the island. I’ve been coming here for the last three years and Barbados just has such an energy that is very peaceful. I think Barbados is a place that helps me to think and helps me to kind of like realign what it is that my goals are.

“I definitely will be back; that’s without a doubt. And it may be sooner than summer.”

Self-funded project

Though Travel and Paint began as a self-funded project, Brown hopes to expand the programme’s scope and resources in the years to come.

“This is something that I intend to build out as much as possible into a fully-fledged non-profit that takes root in the Caribbean and [which I] eventually lead to brick and mortar, where I can have a creative art space where people can come, where students are welcome to learn these practices on a day-to-day basis, if necessary, and just use that as a life skill to get them to the next stage of the chapter as young adults.”

Brown emphasised that Travel and Paint is not “a daycare”. Rather, she described it as a “pre-college” programme, where students are taught what they would learn in their last year of high school before entry into a creative arts college.

Students said Travel and Paint had been nothing short of exciting, inspiring and fun. The ability to see and paint historical sites such as Bathsheba, Morgan Lewis Windmill, Bath Beach Waterfall and much more was transcendent.

Tahir Jacks, a seven-yearold pupil of Arthur Smith Primary School, said his favourite attraction and painting was the Bath Beach Waterfall. He explained the colours used to create the painting.

“It was white, green and blue and I enjoyed it.”

Passionate about art

Thirteen-year-old Khaden Holford of The Ellerslie School is deeply passionate about art and aspires to one day pursue it as a career, believing that art “might change the world”.

At Travel and Paint, Holford learnt how to mix colours to paint Morgan Lewis Windmill and Bathsheba, but outside of this programme he has experience sculpting with modelling clay and other media.

“I like to paint, draw and sculpt. I want to be an artist,” he said.

Bri-Hanna Johnson, an 11-year-old pupil of Arthur Smith Primary School, is not a newcomer to the world of art and enjoyed exploring the various historical sites.

“It was pretty complicated to find the colours of those direct things, but it was pretty exciting to paint those places,” she said.

She discussed her favourite things to paint, among which were the surfboard and waterfall. She hopes to return to the camp next year for more exciting experiences.

“I would want to come back to Travel and Paint.”

More than a series of painting workshops, throughout the five-day course of Travel and Paint, students were taken to a wide range of local historical sites, from Bathsheba to the Morgan Lewis Windmill, where they not only painted these scenes from observation, but unfolded their historical origins through curious research.

Brown believes strongly in the importance of art in affirming identity and cultural heritage.

“A lot of laws and policies and rights that we have today [were] started because of an artist that used their voice. Art has been at the forefront of so many movements. [It] transcends time. It’s the vehicle that gets us through time.

“Not only am I interested in how this would impact them in the way they communicate, but I also hope that this impacts them in the way that if they decide to go to a career path that has creative arts in it, that they would already have the tools and the credentials to enter into advertising, to enter into becoming a teacher, to enter into becoming a designer, whatever it is that is within the creative arts.”

Choiselle Joseph and Thea Herbert were on an internship programme at The Nation Publishing Co Limited.

(second left) and students of Travel and Paint, Khaden Holford (left) and Bri-Hanna Johnson, looking at some of the work done during the

programme. (Picture by Reco Moore.)