Visitors and residents in Anguilla, touring the newly-established Arts and Crafts Centre, at West End, east of the Alwyn Allison Primary School, are encountering imposing displays by two skilled craftsmen on the island.
One of them is Kenneth Richardson, a long-time thatched broom-maker, who is also a practicing artist and, more recently, a coconut shell carver. The other, simply known as “I-WassieI”, not long ago fell on an idea to carve various saleable objects from strips of gleaming pink and white conch shells.
Here are their own stories about their self-help work as told to The Anguillian newspaper, beginning with the first of the two craftsmen:
“My name is Kenneth Richardson and I am from West End. I got involved in the making of coconut shell craft after I realized that I could not do my normal work. I said to myself that I have to find something else to do. That work ended up being coconut shell carvings.
“The coconut shell work is unique, but one thing I can praise the Lord for is that everything I do in that craft is my own idea. I did not go to school for nothing like that. How should I end? All I would add is that when you see the work you will know what it is.
“Apart from that, the brooms I make go back to my small days. I left Anguilla a lot of years ago which I spent in St. Kitts. When I came back home I did not forget our broom-making craft, or our culture, in West End so I went straight back into that.”
Near Mr. Richardson’s display, was that of his fellow craftsman, “I-WassieI” who told The Anguillian newspaper:
“One day, as I walked along the beach, at The Forest Bay, I found a beautiful piece of conch shell. As I looked at it, I asked myself: ‘what if I were to take a whole shell and cut it in half?’ I also said to myself: ‘that would be beautiful.’ So I went and spent 237 US dollars to buy a grinder and a blade just to cut one shell. When I cut it, it was so beautiful that I had it in my truck for a few days.
“Later on, two elderly white ladies saw the halves of shells, fell in love with them and got them free from me. When I did that, I said to my wife: ‘this is a business’. From then, I began carving sail boats, fish, birds etc. from conch shells.
“Visitors, looking for a piece of Anguilla, have been responding great to my carvings. The market is not big right now, but we have a lot of visitors. I have given away many parts of shells and I have a lot of orders. Right now, I am doing some dishes and other stuff for a restaurant.-
“I do domestic cleaning but, with a number of persons doing conch-diving, I prowl around while also cleaning up the beaches. I take up the good, the bad and the ugly, and also get some of the conch shells for my craft work.
“Right now, I have also used some of the conch shells to help beautify the school yard.”
