Tag: Barbadian artist

Ronald Williams’ Fresh Milk Residency – Week 3.5 Blog Post

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Barbadian artist Ronald Williams, the recipient of the 2018 Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Artist Residency, shares his blog post for the three and a half week mark in the studio. This part of the residency was largely focused on production, taking the research and influences of previous weeks to experiment with pattern-making and digital collage. On Tuesday May 22nd, Ronald also led a collage & portrait workshop with a group of Class 4 students at Workmans Primary School as the community outreach component of his residency, where the children looked at African masks for inspiration and got creative and expressive with materials. Read more below:

Week 3 Monday saw me start what I fully intended to be a productive week in solitude. Both Katherine and Daisy were out at the Barbados Museum and the Jewish Synagogue respectively, so I took advantage of my little alone time and was a DJ for a while. Side note: K. O. D. and Without Warning are hard and I’m a lot late to the party but Migos’ two albums are better than I thought they would be. Judge me.

So, first order of real business was to create the pattern I had in mind. The base design is actually the amalgamation of various prints, cut and pasted together in Photoshop and laid on top of a photo of a piece of black fabric. Took much longer than I needed it to. That base image was then flipped, duplicated, pieced together and the process repeated until I got what I wanted. With that, the day was almost up.

I worked on this piece for the rest of the week, getting lost midway, questioning what exactly I was trying to say with the piece and if I could properly translate how I felt without the reading of it going very left. We’ll see.

Week 4 Monday was spent preparing materials for an African mask inspired portraiture collage project that I, along with Katherine and Daisy, would conduct  with the Class 4 students at Workman’s Primary School the next day. This project, which was my community outreach portion of the residency, was my personal highlight of the last week and a half. Daisy, Katherine and I all ended up making one. It was fun.

All things considered, a relatively complicated week and a half where everything didn’t go to plan, but an ultimately satisfying one.

Ronald Williams’ Fresh Milk Residency – Week 2 Blog Post

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Barbadian artist Ronald Williams, the recipient of the 2018 Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Artist Residency, shares his second blog post. In addition to catching up on his research using publications in the Colleen Lewis Reading Room, Ronald made site visits to the St. James and St. George Parish Churches as part of his interest in religious iconography and the relationship between spirituality, decadence and materialism. These visits, while awe-inspiring on the one hand, also prompted further thought around the role of organized religion in Barbados’ colonial history. Read more below:

Since week 1 didn’t go exactly as planned, week 2 was spent playing catch up on the research I wanted to do the prior week. In my mind that leaves me square with where I wanted to be at this point when the residency started. In reality, I’m probably quite a ways off the mark, but I won’t realise that until later when I can’t do anything about it. No sweat, right?

The highlight of the week was definitely my field trips to the St. James and St. George Parish churches. I intended to do St. John’s as well but time didn’t permit. Maybe I’ll do that this weekend. Those spaces felt like an alternate reality; the contrast from the draining heat outside to the refreshing chill inside, the various sounds of life outside to the deafening silence of reverence.

There’s something to be said, for me at least, about the energy in the Parish churches when you’re completely alone. There was a pressure I can’t quite describe; I felt small, like who I am was insignificant in the light of those grandiose stained glass renderings. Maybe I am.

I understand the effect those structures are meant to have—and boy do they work—but it’s my knowledge of this that makes it hard for me to ignore the fact that the churches were built in the 1600s, that in their pomp and circumstance are enduring symbols of colonialism and imperialism.

The architecture, which carries specific elements which have endured through every great period of history was also very interesting to me. That led me to do some research on sacred geometry and the symbolism of shapes.

As it is, I believe I’ve got enough pieces to play with so it’s time to make this work. I think this week will be good.

Ronald Williams’ Fresh Milk Residency – Week 1 Blog Post

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Barbadian artist Ronald Williams, the recipient of the 2018 Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Artist Residency, shares his first blog post. Fresh Milk is by no means foreign territory for Ronald, as he has volunteered with us and participated in a number of our projects in the past, but as this is his first residency within the space, the focus of his work while here has shifted – leaving a familiar platform open for new encounters & experiences. Read more below:

A new old space. That’s how this familiar environment feels. I’m used to the wind chimes, the mahogany pods licking shots on the roof intermittently and the moo-mooing along with the rest of nature, but something‘s different in this country atmosphere. It’s not a sense of purpose, as I’ve always felt that here, nor would I call it pressure; but maybe it’s an accountability/responsibility to get cracking and produce as much as possible in these four weeks. This is perhaps/most definitely driven by the fact that I’ve got a certain goal by the end of the year. More on that later.

My initial plan was to gather as much potential reading material from the Colleen Lewis Reading Room and start doing some research in this space that I’m sharing with the quiet (as far as I can tell) and quite nice international resident artist Daisy Diamond. Given her focus on Judaism in Barbados and my ideas of decadence, materialism, mortality and their relation to religion/spirituality, I think there are interesting things to come.

I must confess to veering from my plan, as Sonia Farmer’s extremely dope work and setup kept calling for my attention. As a result, I put more of my energy into working on a piece I’d laid the foundation for just before the residency started. My time since has been split unevenly between producing and research.

Then Friday came, and with it Amanda Haynes who was setting up for Fresh Milk’s reading room open day. And the critical conversations started, with it the jokes came too, and it was a throwback…no, a Flashback Friday if you will. An old face in an old space where new things are happening.

Announcing the Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Resident Artist 2018 – Ronald Williams

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Fresh Milk is very pleased to announce Barbadian artist Ronald Williams as the Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Resident Artist for 2018. Congratulations Ronald!

Ronald’s one-month residency runs from Monday April 30th to Friday May 25th, 2018. Ronald will focus on issues currently affecting Barbadian society, exploring how the glamour associated with materialism, drugs and violence breeds a certain vanity, with a particular focus on the poorer “ghetto” class.  Inspired by the Vanitas paintings of the 17th century, he will work on contextualizing similar themes in today’s society, looking at decadence, insecurity, swagger & pretension, and their connection to religion/spirituality.

About Ronald Williams:

Ronald Williams is a digital artist, born, raised and working in Barbados. His digital collages; created through the manipulation of photographs, print and online media as well as computer generated images, investigate race, class and culture; particularly representations of ‘blackness’.

Since earning his BFA in Fine Arts from The Barbados Community College, Williams has participated in various local, regional and international group exhibitions.

Ronald Williams, Shoe Game #1, Digital Collage, 2018.
Ronald Williams, Shoe Game #3, Digital Collage, 2018.
Ronald Williams, Guns x Roses, Digital Collage, 2017.
Ronald Williams, Out of Sync, Digital Collage, 2016.

Kraig Yearwood’s Residency – Final Blog Post

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Barbadian artist Kraig Yearwood shares his final blog post about his Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Residency 2017, which took place during March this year. Kraig gives an overview of the residency and final thoughts on the experience, including the workshop he held with Class 3 students at Workmans Primary School, and his participation in our public event FRESH MILK XX, which took place on May 9, 2017. Read more below:

A view of the Colleen Lewis Reading Room as well as a few of my reading materials

The Lost Blog

Okay, the title is a bit of a misnomer – I guess it’d be more accurate to say that life got in the way of writing this final blog post.

Once again, I can’t believe how time flies. As I cast my mind back to when I started the My Time Residency, it’s strange to imagine that my 1st week at Fresh Milk seemed to drag on endlessly and I was in a constant battle with myself about not doing enough. This was despite my using this week to work on possible directions as well as researching some of the materials I was hoping to work with.

A few of the experimental pieces which were made during the 2nd week of my residency

I’ve stated previously, on commencement of my residency, that I had no solid ideas other than I’d known I’d wished to play with materials I’d never used before and also wanted to explore the use of collected trash items. As I got deeper into my stay, I started to focus on exploring themes of materialism, mass production, excess and what we leave behind.

Knowing that I still had to develop ideas for the social outreach component of the residency, I decided to create an environmental awareness programme which would be geared towards primary school students. The aim of this workshop was to educate the children on the importance of proper waste disposal, drawing attention to local and global environmental issues, community activism and the importance of teamwork in tackling such issues. Workmans Primary was selected mainly due to having a very limited arts programme as well as the existing relationship between the school and the residency platform. The workshop began with a with video presentation focusing on environmental awareness and recycling tips, and was followed by a question and answer segment. The children were then split into groups where they were invited to colour and collage bits of trash items on to a poster which was illustrated by myself, depicting an appropriate method of waste disposal as well as the consequences of litter. To conclude, the class was given a smaller version of the poster to take home, as well as a handout which included interesting facts on the environment and a small activities section.

The poster for the “This! Not This” campaign

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FRESH MILK XX Event

Target, Mixed media, 2017
Aquifer, Mixed media, 2017
Gated, Mixed media, 2017
Remnants #1, Mixed media, 2017

On Tuesday May 9th I wrapped up my time at Fresh Milk with a showing of the work made or conceptualised during this stint, as well as participating in a Q & A with international curator Pamela Lee. Pamela also delivered an eye opening presentation on the connections between the areas of Art and Science. This well attended event was brilliantly capped off by the then current resident, US-based poet drea brown, who spoke on her residency experiences which was followed by an engaging poetry reading.

Fields and Hills (Construction Column), Mixed media, 2017. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)
Fields and Hills (Construction Column), Mixed media, 2017. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)
Detail of Ghetto Moon, Mixed media, 2017. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)
Detail of Remnants #2, Mixed media, 2017. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)
Kraig Yearwood and Pamela Lee in conversation at FRESH MILK XX. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)
drea brown performing at FRESH MILK XX. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)
The audience at FRESH MILK XX. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)
drea brown speaking to guests at FRESH MILK XX. Photo by Dondré Trotman (http://dondretrotman.com)

Although this might be the 1st time that I’ve perhaps failed to complete a body of work, I do believe that the Fresh Milk platform has provided me with an invaluable experience. It has allowed me some much needed time to focus on making artwork, experiment and introduce new materials into my practice in a new and supportive environment.

Much thanks to Annalee Davis and Katherine Kennedy.