My MOTIVATION (Director's Statement)
by Mariel Brown

Throughout my life, I have been especially drawn to exploring people and stories that reveal both personal and universal truths, in particular, how these truths are made manifest through creative expression. I am also intrigued by the small moments that can come to define a life; the way in which these moments reveal themselves to us in hindsight; what do they say about the choices we’ve made and the tenuous line between perceptions of tragedy and failure versus success.

As a Caribbean person, I search also for those narratives in which people are simultaneously able (either by accident or through determination) to transcend the post-colonial ties that can bind one to a limited perception of the possibilities of the world and one’s place within it, whilst continuing to live and work in the Caribbean. (Too often, creative people make the difficult choice of exile, in part, because it’s only from the safety of outside the Caribbean that they are able to ‘see’ to create, and certainly it is in a Metropolitan setting that they stand the chance of gaining the most sought after kind of recognition – the recognition of the first world.)

What initially drew me to Barbara Jardine was her work, which I have known almost all my life. As a little girl I would sit in my mother’s bathroom, transfixed by her ritual of getting ready to go to a party. My mother has always loved jewellery, so invariably a piece of Jardine’s – some dangling earring with red coral beads and iridescent peacock feathers – would appear. It seemed to me that her work was supremely glamorous, but apart from admiring its aesthetic qualities, I did not consider it any further.

In 1994, I went to one of her exhibitions, the central piece of which was a pin called “In Memoriam”, a token to Jardine’s mother who had recently died. The piece took my breath away. It depicted a blood-red anthurium creeping up to an ebony skull. I didn’t know what to make of it. It was macabre, sensuous and irreverent – certainly not a typical memorial to an adored mother. “In Memoriam” suggested to me a willingness on the part of Jardine to plumb her emotional and psychological interior in the practice of her art. Indeed, it was the first time I had viewed her work as art as opposed to pretty bijou and it created a space in my mind for jewellery as a relevant creative vehicle for expressing a personal or political narrative. The pin spoke of lurking passions and obsession, a determination to create her own unique mythology and iconography, an unwillingness to surrender to cliché and a belief in the process of making something well. At the time, I made a mental note of “In Memoriam” and filed it away safely in my subconscious. I knew that Jardine was somebody I wanted to know more about – both her and her work.

In 2006, I was offered the job of editing a book on Jardine that was being produced locally. During the course of its production, I got to know her far more intimately. Her biography was fascinating to me, and the timing seemed right. She appeared willing to share her story in a public forum. But the book left me dissatisfied, skimming over, if not wholly ignoring key questions and dilemmas raised by Jardine’s life in art. It certainly did not suggest, in any way, that Jardine had doubts about the choices she had made in her life, and was frustrated and angry that her work was not more widely recognised and praised both at home and away. So I decided to do a documentary, in part to see if I could learn more about Jardine’s story than had been revealed in the book. Also, because I wanted to cast a light on what I believe to be work that is worthy of note and attention.

Barbara Jardine emerged as a jeweller amidst the din of nationalism, black power and a post-colonial political agenda which ascribed – almost exclusively – to Afro-Trinidadians the role of “culture producers”. Upon her return to Trinidad in the mid 1970s, having been applauded and admired for the jewellery she produced at the Royal College of Art in England, the young Jardine – middle class, white, female, jeweller – was largely ignored, by both the wider society and the same “culture producers”. What effect did her exclusion from the art establishment have on her ability to make work? For a person who enjoyed metropolitan recognition so early in life, could the small Caribbean island of Trinidad be enough? And given the acclaim she was receiving in England at the time of her departure, why did she decide to return to what she would have known to be a life of relative obscurity? Is it possible, or even advisable, to try to re-enter the international fray when so much of one’s life has passed? What happens, if, by all conventional accounts, you don’t succeed? Does this mean one’s work, and dedication to it are valueless? Is there a point to working hard at one’s art if one doesn’t get the kind of recognition one seeks? These are all questions that I am exploring in the documentary. Although they are questions that have great personal meaning, they are also issues that many creative people grapple with.

In this film, I’m attempting to touch the creative spirit: the wonder of it, the pain of it, and in so doing, reveal the intricacies of a life in art.

< Back