My grandfather was a policeman and a joiner. Apparently, back in those days, men were encouraged to have both a job and a trade. As a child, I had been told that he built the house I knew as my grandparents’ house. But it is only as an adult that I understood that he built almost every piece of furniture in it as well. My grandparents were not very sentimental or prone to public displays of affection. Like typical Bajan couples of their era, they didn’t even hold hands. [As a side note, holding hands was such an uncommon thing in Barbados that I remember when I returned home from studying in the UK and was so struck when I saw what appeared to be a young, Bajan couple walking down the street holding hands that I literally stopped in my tracks and stared.] I never heard the story of how they met or courted or any of it. So imagine my shock when I casually asked my granny about the hutch in her dining room and she proceeded to tell me this, to me, very romantic story.
When my grandparents married, they did not have anywhere to store and display the gifts they received. They were poor and living in a rundown house (the house that preceded the one I knew as a child). My grandfather made money on the side as a joiner. One day he was asked to make a hutch for a wealthier family. What my grandmother did not know was that every day when he toiled away in the makeshift shed in the yard, he was making two hutches. And that year for Christmas, he gifted her her very own hutch. The one that still stands today and was eventually passed on to my cousin. He said that there was no way he was making these things for other people and his wife did not have them. Aw. Cue the violins.
There is a story behind almost every piece of furniture in that house, even the ones that he just rushed and cobbled together to meet an urgent need. He also gifted furniture to my mother and aunts that they still use today. I am actually writing this post from my dining table, which is really a pretty basic table that he made quickly for my mum and never finished. But I LOVE it and have used it as my dining table for more than a decade. Mummy does not even remember why he made it for her. This table sat in my parent’s laundry room for decades until I inherited it (which is a nice way of saying I stole it). It has seen countless games of dominoes and cards, all my school art projects, all my adult craft projects, and every mundane household task. If you look closely, you can still see paint stains, nicks, pen marks and dents. It is a part of my life. And my grandfather, who has been gone now for more than a decade, remains a very present part of my daily life because he made it.
We used to all have these stories. All throughout the Caribbean, we have inherited furniture, either because family members made them or commissioned them to be made. Somewhere along the line, we stopped investing in crafted pieces and switched to mass produced items from halfway around the world. It is actually rare now to go into a ‘modern’ home and find crafted items. And then we complain about the quality of the items and how frequently they have to be replaced. And this goes beyond just furniture. We can’t find good mortar and pestles, fruit baskets, vases, placemats, doormats, hammocks and the list goes on. But the artisans are still there, using more modern tools, sure, but still very much around. We just have lost the ability to connect with them.
And that is why WI Artisan exists. The days of everyone having an artisan in their family or neighbourhood are gone. And, for many of us, the convenience of going into a store and walking out with the object we need is too appealing to go back to the days of waiting weeks or months for a custom item. WI Artisan bridges the gap by providing access to artisanal products from throughout the West Indies that have been designed and created by us, for us. We also want to tell our stories. I know I am not alone with the sentiment I feel for my grandfather’s table or the curiosity about how these items are made and the homes they eventually go on to reside in. We always boast about the rich diversity of the Caribbean and the uniqueness of our heritage. It is time we showcase it in our homes.