I’m still on my Chihuly kick and this one’s particularly relevant because as the song goes, “it’s Carnival time again” in Trinidad and Tobago. This year, our world-famous festival, literally translated as “farewell to the flesh” (carne vale) will have hundreds of thousands of locals and visitors alike jumping and wining (explained in Cote Ce Cote La, the official dictionary for Trini-isms as “rotating the waist and hips in a suggestive manner”) in the streets of any city, town or village that has the inclination, the creativity and the sound system to “play ‘mas”.
Come Carnival Monday and Tuesday, (this year they fall on February 27 and 28, but are always the two days preceding Ash Wednesday) as Jour Ouvert (pronounced Jou-vay, patois for “the opening of day”) ushers in the official start of the celebration with traditional characters like the Jab Jab, Trinidad’s capital, Port of Spain, is both literally and symbolically transformed from darkness into light as the “pretty mas” takes to the streets in a rush of colour, fuelled by the seductive, pounding rhythm that overcomes you and makes you surrender to its heady spell. It’s positively intoxicating, even without the Angostura bitters.
What does this have to do with Dale Chihuly’s art, at least a three-hour plane ride away? His Carnival Boat embodies the spirit of T&T Carnival, the greatest show on earth. I love the way the dark, lurking waters give way to the festive spectacle of the boat, filled with glass of all shapes, sizes and colours, revelers in a band. There is celebration, unity, regardless of colour. In fact, its diversity is what makes the piece special. The stunning reflection of the boat on the water underlines the connectivity of light and darkness, the surface and what lies beneath, often portrayed in our Carnival as the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane.
It also doesn’t matter what forces have conspired to shape the glass; they’re all in the same boat, going in the same direction – something to keep in mind as T&T struggles with an upsurge in crime and people cut themselves off from one another, building stronger fences and higher walls. Trinbagonians have often been accused of having a “Carnival mentality”, but this can be a good thing if we take the best of what Carnival offers us – vision, dedication, creativity, inclusiveness, joy, hard work followed by its pleasurable rewards – and perhaps most importantly, as Brother Marvin so eloquently put it in his calypso Jahaji Bhai, brotherhood.
Trinidad and Tobago: Carnival Boat
An exquisite sculpture by glass artist Dale Chihuly inspires Francomenz to rhapsodize on Trinidad and Tobago’s famous Carnival, which is gearing up virtually as this is being written. “It. . . doesn’t matter what forces have conspire…