Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine October 2019 | Page 56

“The
Caribbean
called me to
be present,
to be a part
of something
new, and as
old as the
ages” .
The Urban 80s
Click here to read more about
After college I looked for work
“The Urban 80s”
as a stage hand at the Lyceum
Theatre and began a new
chapter, the hard work of living,
that an undergraduate existence
never prepares you for.
Gordon Keddie
Gordon Keddie: “Five lives lead to the Caribbean”
Gordon Keddie is a professional artist and designer who lives and works in
Saint Lucia. The following five chapters describe his ‘life journey as an artist’
and his relationship to the Caribbean region.
The Journey begins
I was born in Scotland in 1957.
My mother’s father was a coal
miner and her mother was
in service to the family who
owned the mine. My dad’s
mum was a fisherman’s
daughter, known for her
pickled herring, with a husband
who was a baker.
My parents who brought
me into this journey were
remarkable, dour, down to
earth people who wanted
better lives for their five sons.
Edinburgh sophistication,
culture and private school
would be their recipe.
A pleasing selection of
architecture, languages and
Britain, was about to explode…
marketing, pure maths,
psychology and town planning
gave way to my desire for art
school. Artists, to this day,
appear to provide the building
blocks of culture, yet none of
the finer social qualities!
But they raised me to
understand who I was and
where I was from, how hard
people worked and fought to
give me what I had, and the
opportunities that were in front
of me and, never to take any of
it for granted.
So, college began in Aberdeen,
in 1975, where I witnessed the
evolution of a rural, agricultural
capital, overrun with the North
Sea boom. It was a joy to the
pockets of a Westminster
government, but the path to
social deterioration and living
standards in the North of
Scotland.
Colonialism had struck again,
at the heart of my country,
financing the fluctuating
fortunes of Britain, but not us.
Little did I know that another
life away, I would witness Green
Gold, the entrails of colonialism
and plantocracy which would
sound suspiciously like the
manipulation of my own
homeland. And then there were
the beginnings of Caribbean
rhythms …
Click here to read more about
“The Journey Begins”
Theatre was a place which
allowed me to feel the magic.
It still does. Those glorious
moments of your life when the
darkness gives way to a new
story, which unfolds and covers
you; colourful, bright, clever and
thought provoking; a comfort
blanket.
I learned how to construct,
build, organise and complete
tasks quickly and precisely. I
saw each facet which created
the performance, as materials
to create the painting. Life in
layers. Words, light, textures,
perspective, the dramatic pause,
timing and characterisation. I
felt like the artist’s brush and
swept many miles of stage in
the ensuing years.
The now ‘Royal’ National
Theatre, arrived for the
Edinburgh Festival, after
our gruelling stint with the
remarkable Australian Dance
Theatre. I was offered a position
on the crew of the Lyttelton
Theatre in ‘The National’ and
six weeks later, in the Autumn
of 1980, London was my new
home.
It was alive and divided. Brixton,
the West Indian capital of
The Art of the Islands
In November 1986, I was ready
to be ‘art’ again, in a different
way, in my next life.
I disembarked in Barbados,
where the palm trees seemed
as tall as the clouds, the sky as
blue as the sea and the heat
at 6 pm was like the air from
the dryers at the Herne Hill
Laundrette!
I had turned my back on
18 hour days 6 to 7 days a
week, and disconnected from
the civil service of British
theatre, in pursuit of personal,
practical art, constant heat,
radically different culture and
building a screen printing
business in St. Vincent and
The Grenadines, only a short
flight away.