Fresh Milk is happy to announce that we have recently taken on three volunteers – Versia Harris, Ronald Williams, and Amanda Domalene Haynes – as part of a programme we are developing to activate and cultivate interest in the Colleen Lewis Reading Room (CLRR), while giving young creatives the opportunity to gain work experience with a relevant organization, promoting critical thinking and artistic production.

One of the major projects our volunteers will be initiating is our new online space for the interactive exploration of the CLRR, Fresh Milk Books. This Tumblr site will exemplify our motto – Critical. Creative. Fresh. – and act as a hub of activity to raise awareness of our enthralling, diverse and ever expanding collection, becoming a space to have fun with the knowledge and pleasure that reading – whether literary, visual, or otherwise – can ignite.

Photograph by Dondré Trotman.

In addition to re-blogging engaging content, each Tuesday one of our contributors will create a short response to a good read from the CLRR. These responses can be written, visual, audio, video – the only requirement for #CCF Tuesdays is that the text and its accompanying submission be Critical. Creative. Fresh.

The experimental approach to Fresh Milk Books reflects on another facet of the FRESH Volunteer programme; stimulating creative production. As well as the pieces generated around the material in the CLRR, we also want to give the volunteering artists and writers involved time and workspace to focus on their own arts practices in a supportive environment with their peers. We encourage Versia, Ronald and Amanda to use part of their time on the platform to transfer knowledge and skills to one another, bounce ideas, collaborate, and view this as an informal but focused chance to incorporate meaningful exchanges and working sessions alongside their volunteering duties.

About our Volunteers:

Photograph by Omar Kuwas.

Versia Harris

Versia Harris is a Barbadian artist living and working in Weston, St. James. She graduated from the Barbados Community College with a BFA in the Studio Art programme in 2012, with an award from The Leslie’s Legacy Foundation. She participated in her first local residency with Projects and Space in 2011. Within the past year she has completed four residencies, beginning with a local residency at Fresh Milk, followed by her first international residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and two regional residencies at the Instituto Buena Bista, Curacao and Alice Yard, Trinidad in late 2013. In her work, Versia tackles perceptions of fantasy in contrast to the reality of her original character. She uses Adobe Photoshop to manipulate her pen drawings to create the animations.

Ronald Williams

Born in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1990, multimedia artist Ronald Williams developed an interest in art from a very young age.  His art education in the Barbados Community College’s Fine Arts program forced him to view art as a powerful cog in society. Currently, Williams’ work focuses on race and sociology, investigating how sports and the black athlete fit into popular culture. Ronald manipulates popular imagery to compose computer generated images, using digital collage to speak about a multiplicity of issues, i.e. society’s perceptions, stereotypes, fantasies and various nuances about the black athlete.

Amanda Domalene Haynes

Amanda Domalene is a creative writer, editor and emerging e-book publisher. She graduated from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus in 2013 with a BA in Literatures in English (First Class Hons.). Amanda has had diverse experience with publishing companies, adopting the capacities of content co-ordinator, public relations & sales executive as well as writing and editing. Her postgraduate research interests include media literacy and popular culture, especially in relation to the socioeconomic development of the Caribbean region.