It was the end of the 1990s, and I was in my 20s working as a legal academic at King’s College London, but I wasn’t in love with the law. I needed a change. During a sabbatical, I saw a newspaper advert for a foundation course at the Slade School of Fine Art. In a moment of madness I applied.

I arrived at the entrance interview, my hands swinging. Apparently, it was customary to offer a portfolio for scrutiny. Unfazed, I said I didn’t have one. Nor did I mention that Mrs Ali, my high school art teacher, expressly forbade me from pursuing the subject, citing a basic lack of talent. But she was 4,000 miles away in Trinidad, unable to stop me now. I told the interviewers I was enthusiastic. Would that be enough? I still don’t understand why, but they took a chance on me. I started a week later.

It was a baptism by fire, with long life-drawing sessions followed by group critiques. Every lunchtime I cried into my sandwich. My sketches were stick figures compared with the brilliantly rendered drawings my classmates produced. Mrs Ali was right: I didn’t have an artistic bone in my body. But I’d already paid a couple of thousand in fees, so contracted with myself daily to show up just one more time. The days became weeks that morphed into months. Eventually, I was hooked.

I emerged from those intense months of immersion in art and its history convinced that this was my calling. That crazy decision made me quit my job. It took me back to university, only I was now a Goldsmiths College art undergrad. This was followed by a masters in fine art at Central Saint Martins in London. Oh, and somewhere along the line we had twin baby boys.

Safely ensconced in institutions of higher education, I acquired bits of art teaching and occasionally exhibited work. This mix of teaching, art practice and parenting felt brilliant. I wore black, dyed my hair rainbow colours and believed I was one of the cool kids. One look at my hubris and the universe doubled over laughing. Before I could turn around twice, the twins’ father decided city life was too confining. We had ties to Barbados, and with a heavy heart, I packed our life into boxes while grieving for the London art scene I was leaving behind.

This was the mid-2000s; Barbados’s art landscape has since been radically transformed, but when I arrived I didn’t find an obvious tribe. Artists were mainly producing large, colourful narrative paintings. I’m a conceptual artist with zero painting skills. Most of my time is spent on the idea. Typical of my work is a piece inspired by the capture of a sniper who plagued Washington DC. After the suspect was caught, the police spokesperson said: “We were looking for a white man in a white van. We found a black man in a blue car.” I programmed each sentence into a separate ticker tape. As they scrolled, the colours changed, so that you might see “We were looking for a white man in a black van” alongside “We found a blue man in a white car”. I never did collect that piece from the small gallery where it was exhibited.

My new island home was also tiny, a mere 14 by 21 miles. I was desperate to make work but didn’t know how. At a petrol station, I politely inquired if the manager would consider having me as an artist in residence. I would create art out of interactions with employees as well as the endless stream of customers. He watched me cut eye and muttered something about how he had never heard anything so stupid. I should pay for my gas and move on, please. I was holding up the line.

I had more success at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, which gave me an unpaid month-long residency. I was ecstatic. It meant I could roam the museum freely, interact with staff, archives and exhibits and then produce work out of my reflections. Again, things have since improved there, but back then it struck me as a fossilised space. Displays appeared untouched for decades. Actual bookworms had munched through various archives, rendering them barely legible. Decay was everywhere.

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I took a deep breath and did the only thing all my years of art school training suggested. I set to work sweeping the floors, careful to store the dust collected from each room in separate glass jars. I then cleaned cabinets, storing and labelling the detritus. Since the bookworms had bitten through the archives, I knew I had to bite back. I etched the patterns left behind by the worms on to prepared metal plates, which were then dipped in an acid bath. The acid “bites” into the metal plate, etching the drawing into it. The plate is then loaded with ink and the pattern pressed on to paper.

My residency exhibition consisted of a makeshift apothecary, filled with the jars of collected dust, framed etchings of bookworm drawings, an installation of fabricated archives and a sound piece listing donations made to the museum over the years. A good 50 friends and museum well-wishers showed up. I was not asked back.

A little disheartened, I dug deep for other art strategies. There was the time I set out on what the French theorist Guy Debord called a dérive, an unplanned walk through an urban landscape where one observes the everyday anew. The island’s lack of pavements means that no one walks. So I got in my car, chose a random vehicle, and drove behind it for a couple of hours. The day ended when the driver pulled over, got out of the car and glared at me menacingly.

Then I followed up a series of classified ads, making work out of the things offered. I bought oils with names like Boss Fix, Court Case and Jezebel Spiritual, repurposed them with my own written spells and offered magic potions for sale. I didn’t get any takers.

Gradually, I found my best interrogation of this new home was not from making objects but through words. For a couple of years I produced a weekly blog, Notes from a Small Rock. Published every Friday at 10am, it had quite a following on the island of 270,000. One day, after a meal out with friends, I started a short story inspired by a dessert on the menu called Death by Chocolate. I could feel the play of art and the discipline of law finally combining. A voice that had been lurking somewhere inside poured on to the page. I submitted it to some competitions and won two awards.

Then I moved on to a novel, and that got published after a seven-way auction. It was the beginning of a journey to full-time writing. But I continue to be inspired by art and probably spend most of my free time in galleries, rarely leaving without a yearning to make work. I still keep a tiny sketchbook and pencils in my backpack. At the Hay festival recently I got an idea inspired by the variety of bookish tote bags everywhere.

But hard choices must be made, and the manuscript of my next novel begs for attention. I open my laptop and begin reading the draft, knowing I’m in a space where what I do feeds my intellect and nourishes my soul. I’m finally home.

Source: theguardian.com