Jamaica's National Gallery

I had a wonderful surprise this week: I got a call from the past. Back in '84 Gina and I were in Kingston Jamaica, we had a Rasta friend there who ask'd us to come to his community: Waterhouse, probably the roughest, toughest area in Kgn to meet his friend the local elder, Jah Vic, an old Rastaman. So we went and spent the first of several visits with him. At some point during the day a little girl, about 8, wandered into the garden where we were sitting, her name was Nicola: Gina started talking to her and I remember her telling the little girl that "we were going to the National Art Gallery" the next day. "Can I come?" she promptly asked and I remember Gina saying that she'd have to ask her mother: they left to go across the street to ask. Apparently when the mother said OK, the little girl said "Can my brother come also?" Of course! By the time they returned the group had grown to about 14 young neighborhood kids who all wanted to go with us! Jah Vic entered into the spirit of things and volunteered to take us all in his "new" car: This was 1984 and Jah Vic's car was an early 1950's Hillman that didn't have a trace of paint left on it, though there were several places with large ares of Bondo filler. There were, in several places, pieces of wire twisted around various parts just to keep them in place; the windows didn't raise or lower, there were no lights, there were holes in the floorboards where exhaust gasses flowed in and the seats were in pretty sad shape! It was such a "classic" that I shot half a roll of film on it. But it was Jah Vic's first car and he was righteously proud of it and also of his being involved in the trip to the National Gallery.
The next day we arrived early and every kid was ready and waiting. Three adults, Jah Vic, [driving] plus Gina and I got into the car and then we had to get the kids in: don't ask me how we did it but I have photos of us all standing next to the car outside the Gallery! My main concern as we departed was that the car wasn't capable of making the 4-5 mile journey regardless of the load, but it did and we finally entered the National Gallery. The administrators were very intrigued, they'd never seen anything like this before, they followed us around everywhere we went. We had to tell the kids about looking but not touching etc. and they all caught on immediately and were wonderfully behaved. What I remember more than anything about that day was how this bunch of ghetto kids all related so clearly to the art. Jamaican art is so interesting because it is directly related to the history of the people, the culture and the places, there's no European art there and the kids picked up on it immediately and I remember them talking animatedly amongst themselves as they stood looking at the paintings. I shot several rolls of slides of all this and afterwards we all went out and bought ice cream for everyone from a vendor along the waterfront and sat on the grass and had a good time.

Thursday morning the phone rang and a woman's voice said "I'm looking for Tony and Gina Brennan who used to live in Long Beach" "That's us" I said and she went on to tell me that we'd met some years ago in Jamaica! When I asked her where and she said Waterhouse and went on to tell me about going with us to the National Gallery I realised who it was: it was little Nicola! Except she's now 29 and lives in Connecticut! Apparently Gina had bought her a dress and some trinkets and had given the mother our address and phone number in LB. Nicola moved to the US 10 years ago and when her mother one day came across the paper with the address on it she sent it to Nicola. The story that she told us was that the trip to the National Gallery was the most important and memorable event of her young life; what she remembered most of all was that this couple of total strangers made such a fuss of her and turned her on to something she hadn't known existed! It changed her life and she'd thought about us for all those years so when she got the address she tried to contact us only to find we were no longer there. So she started searching for us online and suddenly there we were: in Sebastopol! So we've had two long and interesting conversations, catching up on all the details of the last 20 odd years and all our friends in JA. It's been a wonderful experience.

She's very smart, very politically aware, has a decent job and a steady boyfriend; she uses the internet for everything and visits NY regularly to go to the museums and galleries! We invited her to come for a visit and we have a tentative yes for this summer. You might recall that I mentioned some weeks back that I was trying to get some callalloo seeds [a Jamaican spinach] I tried online and had one suggestion that didn't lead anywhere. I mentioned this to Nicola and she said "You want callalloo? I've got lots of it growing in my garden, I'll send you some plants and seeds" So everything that goes around comes around, it's a small world!