St Peter's, Pointe-à-Pierre continues to celebrate its 320th anniversary. The parish turned 320 on the Feast of St Peter last June 29 and is seeking to incorporate art as part of its year-long anniversary celebrations.

To this end, parish priest Fr Urban Hudlin has artists in residence working on pieces that will be unveiled at an exhibition celebrating the anniversary of St Peter's as a parish.

Artists have been and will be in residence for a period of two weeks each at the La Romaine parish, creating artwork and interacting with parishioners and students from surrounding schools. The students get to spend time with the artists exploring the many media of visual art.

Fr Hudlin said, “When I was younger I didn’t think that artists were real. I thought of them as supernatural and that has been part of my motivation. I think it’s important for young people to meet these artists, get to understand the process and, hopefully, they will be challenged to explore art for themselves.”

At the end of the programme, the artists’ work will be unveiled at an exhibition and offered for sale at a special function to be held at Petrotrin Sports Club, Pointe-à-Pierre. The artists include Cynthia Mc Clean, Gregory Williams, Eddie Bowen, Andrea Hoffer and Emheyo Bahabba, fondly known as “Emba”.

“Another factor for me,” explained Fr Hudlin, “is that there is a definite connection between the divine and art, and I wanted to explore this connection.”

He noted that renowned artists like Michelangelo and Da Vinci painted divine scenes all day and night. “Imagine lying on a bamboo scaffolding, painting a ceiling!” exclaimed Fr Hudlin. He added: “This is what art meant but somewhere along the line people have forgotten this and have separated the two, when they are really one – because art is divine.”

One of the artists in residence, Emba, spoke with the Catholic News recently at the St Peter’s parish grounds about his art and his role in Fr Hudlin’s project. Emba presented a collage and explained his method of doing art and what the collage represented. He added, “I don’t like to take all the credit for my work, it is not all mine.”

Emba explained that he had been working on this particular collage for about three years and was still not quite finished. He said: “When I do something – draw, paint, write – I always let the work sit, and when I come back to it it speaks to me and I’m able to finish it. I open myself to it and let the work flow through me.”

Continued Emba, “I am hoping to use things like this (his collage) to encourage children to begin to use that beautiful imagination to explore the possibilities to present visual pictures. By using a collage I hope to really help expand their minds. Collages are not encouraged enough in school and hopefully, by using a collage, I can get the children to see the many possibilities in presenting visual art.”

Emba is an artist, calypsonian and writer. He has received international acclaim for his work and has been featured in many Caribbean anthologies of artists.

Keep reading the Catholic News for interviews with other artists who will be presenting work at the exhibition in honour of the 320th anniversary of St Peter’s parish