TRINBAGO SHINE ON
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| This banner from a 2019 San Juan Kiddies' Carnival band full-on expresses what I still believe about my nation. Bad press be damned. |
THIS IS A sword of sight and saying.
I
am a storyteller: a word warrior; and I am a visual artist.
Trinbago Shine On, as a blog, will thus be a fusion of these two abilities, as I try to tell my country well; and make sight and word stories that cut past the burgeoning belief that magic has gone out of my land.
“... this blog aims to ... show life and my nation, with more emphasis placed on sight than merely insight.” – Jhaye-Q Baptiste, notes from a recent post
In
Trinidad and Tobago (TnT) all things are a hodgepodge of multiple cultural
conditioning anyway, whether it would claim so or not. That makes everything
here under our Caribbean sun morphing and tricky to pin down.
Professionals
in every arena are not exempt from that rule of form (or rather, formlessness) and that includes
chroniclers like me. I love words more than anything past human beings on this
planet. But I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I need more “mass
accessible” means, other than the written word, to tell the stories I gather.
“... this blog is more than a window to my land. It is a searchlight into the soul of existence.” – Jhaye-Q
A
thirty year career as a professional Media practitioner has all but glutted me
with media literacy capability. To truly read the world is to better understand
it. To better understand the world is to more positively navigate it for the
good of self and others. Working in the Media has, at least, made me a better
person. It is what Media itself should do for anybody.
“Listen, I am aware of my world, and most times I walk around conscious in it. That is to say: I know the world is there and I know that I am here.” – Jhaye-Q Baptiste
There
is so much that I see: so much to share with others who don’t have the time to
look; the zeal to quest, or the ability to decode the semaphore living casts before
us like pearls every blessed day.
MY MISSION
The
double-edged sword of seeing is the thing I’ll be holding out with this blog.
Here’s to hoping I’m adept enough to hold it out hilt first.
Come
into my land Trinidad and Tobago via my images and my words. Know it, thereby,
as only a true child of the soil could know. Rejoice to see it, as I often do.
But I warn: you too might be wounded by what you are shown ... as I often am.
I invite you to hit the link, and welcome to Trinbago Shine On
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| Trinis are real troopers, selective though it be. Children, parents, friends and spectators wait out the rainfall for the parade of the bands to begin. And look closely: there's that special word and symbol right in the middle of everything. 2019 San Juan Kiddies' Carnival. ALL PHOTOS BY Jhaye-Q Baptiste |
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| Life resonates with visual metaphors. Like in this image we see our human needs to go in a different direction from others; to stand still though the world is rushing by; to sometimes hold back and let people make their own moves on their own terms. |
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| In every society around the world there are those who just stand out. Sometimes home here, even when the individuality is good and worthy, attacks can be launched at such folk simply for being true to who they are. Here's to hoping in this new year we aim for 2020 vision at heart, soul and spirit level, then express our wider perspective at mind and body level. |
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