Travel with JoY

We leave for Grenada, in about six days. Excited anticipation is building to see what it will be. Will the bed be comfortable?  Will the water outside our door be good swimming?  How will the locals treat us?  What will I paint? Last year in Trinidad the birds were so beautiful and abundant I had to paint them. The spectacular national bird of Trinidad, the Scarlet Isis painting went back to the islands, to Barbados as a gift for for and from relatives.   The first bird influenced painting, Hummingbirth which was inspired by my little companion, the Copper-rumped hummingbird, will be in an exhibit while we are away, at the Janet Carson Gallery in Eau Claire,WIsconsin. Fabulous Florals is an exhibit of floral designs by area florists inspired by a work of art. It'll be interesting to see what they do with Hummingbirth .  I found a nice heavy canvas bag designed to carry golf clubs on a plane. I'm planning to load it with acrylics , rolls of canvas and stretche...

Back to the Upper Midwest I've been meaning to write this follow up since the day we returned but for some reason, just kept it in my head instead of pressing the keys. Meanwhile my memories and thoughts are loosing their clarity. But one memory that will not die is that of the wonderful Midwestern 'can do it-ive-ness' we encountered the day we were flying home. We got to the Miami airport and realized that the car key we were going to need to get into our car and drive home in, was missing; probably back in Trinidad under the desk. So I got my cell phone charged up and called our son Nick who gave me phone numbers and suggestions. I then called our insurance company who gave us the VIN number so I could call Trail Dodge in Menomonie to get a new key made. Of course, making a key is no simple operation. The newer cars need special keys so the service department called and found the proper type and had it brought to Menomonie. Then they had our Jeep towed to ...

Pan Finals and Carnival: Trini Style We were excited to have our daughter Ella and her husband Ken and our grandson Liam come for five days over Carnival. Carnival in Trinidad is Over the Top! Many of the citizens devote days and dollars in preparation. If they are in a Steel Pan Orchestra they are rehearsing nightly sometimes until as late as two or three am. If they are in a group (called a band) in the parade, they are either making their costumes, working to pay for their costumes (some of the more elaborate costumes run as much as $2000 USD),or possibly working out to get in shape (the parade route goes from early am until late pm, and is in scorching heat). Or it they are 'playing Jouvert' as Ken and Ella did, they are trying to get a little extra sleep for the parade that starts about 4am and goes until about 9am, marching the streets of downtown Port of Spain in a band whose members are slathered in either cocoa, paint, mud or possibly chocolate; following a ...

Jean and I attended the Pan Music Semi-Finals competition a week ago.  There were 14 Medium Bands of 80 players or less, and 15 Large Orchestras of 120 players or less.  The Large Orchestras have 210 pans of various sizes (tenor, double seconds, 7 bass, 9 bass, etc), cut from 55 gallon drums, and loaded on wheeled carts with covers.  In all, there were 5,000 pans played during the day.   In attendance, there were 8,000 people in the North Stands and 3,000 people in the Grand Stand.  We were among the two thousand wandering the "drag" to hear the bands rehearse before playing on the Main Stage, and heard most of the Large Orchestras.     The bass drums are heavy and require lots of help from community members, so Jean and I were "pan pushers" as we helped Phase 2 Pan Groove push a 7-drum-bass down the street for about half a mile.  At one point, we found ourselves positioned in line with the front row of lead pan melody players during ...

 PAN YARD MUSIC There are so many accomplished musicians on this island as it was the birthplace of “steel pan” music and claims to be the birthplace of Calypso, but other West Indies Islands may also lay a similar claim. The pan is a 55 gallon steel drum used for transporting oil or chemicals, and many years ago when this instrument was being developed, were readily available to local citizens (many of them poor) once discarded. They pounded out the steel tops to create notes, and surrounding themselves with many steel drums, developed songs/melodies by drumming on them. Over time, the tradition expanded to orchestras of 120 players, all playing different sized drums with unique mallets, under the direction of a leader and a section captain. They rehearse one song of 8 minutes in length each night for several hours for about a month, making changes and developing parts in the neighbourhood pan yard. Local citizens assemble to listen, and are free to walk around the...

I'm sitting up in bed in our little cottage in Trinidad, writing this post. One of the things I find so amazing is that there is no glass in the window behind me. A bat just flew in and flew out the french door at my side. I'm inside a mosquito net in a sleeveless gown, barefoot and very comfortable after a shower. It was a bit warm today, maybe up to 85 or so, but we rarely felt it since we are under the canopy of large trees and our deck is on the north side of the house. I painted out there today while Yata wrote a song in the study, a room with another glass-less window overlooking the plains and mountains to the north. This sort of lodging wouldn't be for everyone; in fact, Nick, our son, asked me how we kept the rats out. Actually, we have a resident guard cat Lulu and two dogs besides. There are too many dogs in our neighborhood, a common problem on many of our trips to less developed countries. But regardless of the bats, and such, we love being in such c...

We've been here for over two weeks now. There is a really thriving art and music scene here. Almost daily we meet more artists: painters, musicians, potters, writers, film-makers and more. Rory and Bunty took us to a concert at the National Academy of Performing Artists for a concert of the faculty and some visiting faculty from the US. We followed that up with a trip a few blocks away to the “pan yard” of Phase II, one of the favorite Pan drum Orchestras. They were in “practice-mode” preparing for the first phase of competition which will culminate in a huge show, Pandemonium, in the main open air stadium downtown Port of Spain in less than a month. Pan orchestras are something really exceptional about Trinidad. They are made up of up to 125 players playing anywhere from two to nine drums at a time. Each drummer's drums are positioned into a metal rack on wheels. They practice their one song that they will compete with each year, specially composed for them, over a...

Trinidad I Yes, we are in the West Indies, Trinidad to be exact, having come from frosty Wisconsin (WI) we are lavishing in tropical warmth, barefoot. Sorry to incite any envy, but how else can I tell you what we are doing without mentioning this. The weather is one of the main reasons we leave WI in the winter. But the weather has been interesting here. It's supposed to be the beginning of the dry season but instead the rainy season is lingering into January. What that means is that its been raining a lot! A couple days this week it rained in sheets most of the day and all night. The ground is soggy and the air is humid to say the least. We tried to go for a walk but got rained on and came back to our sweet cottage. The cottage is situated on a four acre tropical garden in the center of the country, in the countryside. We have a deck off the kitchen which looks out towards the hilly grasslands and to the mountain range in the north. Trinidad is also a bird watcher's ...

Trinidad Tobago in the south eastern Caribbean was our destination. We were flying out of way sub zero Wisconsin. The morning we left to catch our airport shuttle to MSP it was 17 below zero Fahrenheit. So cold that when you drew air in to breath, it actually made your cold-sensitive teeth ache. That was a first! But we could put up with that knowing we'd soon be in a steady equatorial climate, warm and humid, for two months! I was transporting artist's materials (warned not to tell TSA that they are paint) acrylics to be exact. I have been a watercolorist – the easiest to travel with, an oil painter- not so easy- and a pastel artist- the pastel sticks show up on the xray machines looking like bullets or shells as they are composed of heavy metals such as cadmium and cobalt-which need to be left out like a lap top if carrying through security. I have recently started using acrylics which have the advantage, or disadvantage of drying quickly. I hadn't had ...