Pictures

Last year (2010), we did a visual arts component of the Wadadli Pen competition for the first time. Mark Brown assisted with setting that up and put a team together to select the winners. Last year was also the first time, entries were theme-specific, and that was mostly because Wadadli Pen after a three year hiatus was returning as part of a Black History Month programme I was spearheading with a small grouping of Antiguans (Zahra Airall, D. Gisele Isaac, Kush DaVid, Cedric Holder, Mark Brown, Brenda Lee Browne, the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda, the Best of Books). The visual art competition – which consisted primarily of mixed media pieces – was more successful than the lit arts competition, last year, I’ll be honest. The lit entries have picked up considerably this year (though it’s nowhere near what it was during the competition’s first run and in particular 2005) but 2010 was dismal. The art entries in a way kept the competition alive. So, it’s always bugged me that I didn’t have them for posting here. But thanks to ByZIAPhotography, the indefatigable Zahra Airall, I have at least some of them – albeit not properly tagged. If any of the artists venture here and can identify their pieces, I’d appreciate it. Everyone else, enjoy. And if you’re a budding Antiguan and/or Barbudan artist (35 or younger) who hasn’t yet registered for this year’s art competition (creating illustrations for the short listed stories), I hope this will provide inspiration and you’ll email your name, gender, age,  location, school, phone and email contact to wadadlipen@yahoo.com to be registered. I have to admit, even more than the stories themselves, I’m eager to see what images artists come up with in response to them. I may be a writer but I have a deep appreciation for all the arts. However, don’t worry, I won’t be judging the 2011 art pieces; that task falls to art teacher Renee Philip and her team.

   

Who Won in 2010?

The Wadadli Pen prize returned in 2010 as part of a series of Black History Month activities (with the theme ‘Black and Beautiful’). For the first time, it also included an art component and a breakdown of winners by additional age categories; also the age limit was pushed from 18 to 35. Additionally, whereas the literary competition had previously accepted entries only in the fiction writing category, it opened up to other genres in 2010.

*In adddition to the prizes listed, several winners received a Ladybird bag from the Best of Books, and all winning artists had their pieces displayed both at the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda (during the Black History Month visual arts exhibition) and at the Art Loft where they also attracted buyer interest.

Literary Arts Winners:

Best Writer in the 12 and under age category:

Terrikia Benjamin – 12 – AGHS – Title: Happy to be Black

Prize Package:

• EC $50 (gift certificate) – Cedric Holder for the Cushion Club
• EC $100 from D. Gisele Isaac

Best Writer in the 13 to 17 age category:

Shakeema Edwards – 16 – AGHS – Title: Skin Deep

Prize Package:

• Books – a copy of Ladies of the Night by Althea Prince (courtesy Althea Prince); and, courtesy Best of Books, The Festival of San Joaquin by Zee Edgell and Marlon James’ John Crow’s Devil
• EC $200 from D. Gisele Isaac

Best Writer in the 18 to 35 age category:

Hilesha S. Humphreys – Black and Beautiful

Prize Package:

• Book – a copy of Being Black – Althea Prince
• EC $200 from D. Gisele Isaac
• EC $100 gift certificate – The Best of Books

*No overall winner was selected and as such no name was added to the challenge trophy sponsored by the Best of Books.

Visual Arts Winners:

Best Artist in the 12 and under age category:

Déjà Phillip – 11 – Foundation Mixed School

Prize Package:

• Gift certificate for two hour art tutorial with Jane Seagull and a copy of the Debbie Eckert print ‘Fatawi’s Birthday Balloon’ – courtesy these artists and the Art Loft
• EC $100 gift certificate – The Best of Books
• EC $100 from Raeburn Generator Services

Best Artist in the 13 to 17 age category:

Ashley Clendenen's winning entry quickly attracted buyer interest when on show at the Art Loft

Ashley Clendenen – 17 – Antigua State College – Title: Pride

Prize Package:

• Gift certificate for art tutorial and a print of ‘Daria’s Friend’ both from Debbie Eckert of the Art Loft
• EC $200 from Raeburn Generator Services

Best artist in the 18 to 35 age category:

Akeem Barry – 18 – Antigua State College

Prize Package:

• EC $100 gift certificate – Stephen B. Shoul’s
• EC $200 from Raeburn Generator Services

Overall winner in the visual arts category:

Shem Alexander – 17 – ASC

Prize Package:

• EC $250 gift certificate – Harper’s
• EC $500 cheque – Daily Observer
• Gift from Jeweler’s Warehouse   (value US$135)
  

  Shem Alexander collects his gifts from Museum director Michelle Henry.

Happy to be Black by Terrikia Benjamin

Terrikia accepts her prize package from the Museum's Michelle Henry

[winner under 12 age category 2010]

Nebula yawned and opened her eyes to the white walls of her lavishly decorated bedroom. She reluctantly pulled herself away from her comfortable, white, blanket and stepped into the cold, Saturday, February morning. Nebula quickly took a bath and brushed her teeth. When she was finished, she stared with disgust at her dark face in the mirror. “Why can’t I be pretty like my white friends?” she thought as she hurried downstairs.

As she entered the room, her father greeted her, “Good morning my beautiful daughter.” Nebula frowned and mumbled, “yeah right.” She sat down and savoured the sugary cereal. Her dad got up and gave her the newspaper. “Read page 13, it will interest you,” he said as he hurried out into the chilly weather.

Nebula flipped to page 13 in the newspaper and saw an advertisement for   the ‘Black and Beautiful’ teenage pageant. “This is not for me. I am not beautiful,” she muttered. “Don’t say that, you are a pretty young lady,” her mother shouted. Nebula screamed, “How can I enter that competition when I look like a black…”, “Ring, ring,” the phone interrupted.

“Answer the phone then read the book from the shelf called ‘My Black Heritage’,” said her mother as she walked into the kitchen.

“Hello,” Nebula answered the telephone. “Hi this is Chelsea. Did you hear about the ‘Black and Beautiful’ pageant?” Chelsea said. “I heard about it,” answered Nebula. “Well I’m going to enter and win. If you decide to enter you’ll need lots of practice and bleaching cream,” Chelsea said as she hung up the telephone.

Two hours later Nebula sat on a black leather sofa and read ‘My Black Heritage.’ She read about the essence of beauty. She read about her black African roots, Rosa Parks and Barack and Michelle Obama. “Wow!” she said to herself as the last words of the novel “beauty is inside of you” repeated themselves in her mind like the beat of an African drum. “Yes I can!” Nebula shouted as a beam of sunlight beamed through the blue curtain and saturated the room.

“Mom!” Nebula shouted as she ran to find her mother. “Yes Neb, what’s wrong?” her mother anxiously asked. “Thanks for the book mom. I learnt so much about my black identity and beauty. I want to enter the beauty contest,” she rambled. “I am so happy and proud of you,” her mother said. “My talent for the pageant will be a dance to the song ‘I am beautiful’.” “How do you know that you are black and beautiful,” asked her mother. Nebula stood confidently with a winning smile on her smooth black velvet face and answered, “I know that I am black and beautiful because I am a confident black girl who is proud of my African heritage and identity”. “You will win the pageant” shouted her mother. “Even if I don’t win, I am happy to be black and beautiful,” Nebula whispered as she hugged her mother.

THE END

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION & TERMS OF USE

Copyright of the winning Wadadli Pen stories and/or art work featured on this site belongs to the creators of the individual works and are used here purely for promotional and educational purposes. Other blog content, except otherwise noted, is created and/or maintained by Joanne C. Hillhouse – coordinator of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize, and author of The Boy from Willow Bend and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight. Site content should not be copied, distributed, transmitted, used for commercial purposes, altered, transformed, or built upon without the consent of the copyright holders.

Black and Beautiful by Hilesha S. Humphreys

[winner 18 to 35 age category 2010]

Deep within lies the unseen,

The Black that is me.

Not the simple skin, but below, between,

The crevices, the depths of who I am and shall be.

The strength of body and mind handed down through, and by blood.

This hidden pearl is the glow I wear.

A misunderstood joy, peace in the times of tear.

It is hope running in the red of my black

That which marks grace and endurance in my back;

The outward and inward curves; defiance, submission, but ne’er breaking.

Beautiful, is the diversity of the black;

Standing, solid African, in appearance, in voice,

Sitting, mixed with the world’s content,

The black beauty rises.

Skin Deep by Shakeema Edwards

 [winner 13 to 17 age category in the 2010 Wadadli Pen lit awards]

Shakeema Edwards at the 2010 awards ceremony

He rose his fist into the air but said nothing, yet a deaf-man’s ‘S’ echoed all around them, they heard screams of unity and peace ringing through the air; some were afraid. The[y] stood silent, they stood still, they felt oppression whipping at their bones, they felt the shackles on their feet and they knew they could not escape it. They cried, those who couldn’t help it; they saw children being beaten, there bodies weak from hunger, their empty mouths crying for death, they saw them bleed out in the distance, the red blood pouring from their wounds changed colour. It was now as black as its surroundings.  They felt the pain, deep in the pits of their stomach. They heard an old lady cry out for them. “Little Black boy,” She said, “whose face blends into the shadows of my dreams. Why have you forsaken me?” They felt ashamed. Standing where their Father’s had once stood, fighting for an independence they so quickly neglect. They thought about their fathers; starving away on slave ships, slaving away till death. They heard Bob Marley sing ['Redemption Song'], they heard the bullet ringing in the air that shot Martin Luther down; they had pulled the trigger. They had disowned their heritage, bleached their skin and blended in; they debased their brothers and made their mother weep. He lowered his fist and finally he screamed, “Brothers, Africa weeps.”

 I understood, I thought about my own sins and pains to do everything I could to disown my heritage, I thought about the contents of my medicine cabinet; my bleaching cream, my hair relaxer and the bandages from my surgery. I, who would soon be called to educate my children; what could I possibly do or say or teach them. What, when they asked about Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey, would I say when I knew nothing of them.

He raised his fist into the air as he told us, “I think somewhere in the progress you misunderstood, Black is not the colour of our hearts but our complexions, it is the shadow on our past but the shade which our bright futures will cast.  My brothers, return unto your mother’s bosom and repent, let her know that the days when we fight among ourselves would soon be gone and that the heart of Africa will always remain strong. Repeat after me, he shouted, “Hadharani Ni Umbika,” we repeated, “louder, Hadharani Ni Umbika,” we shouted, “again, Hadharani Ni Umbika,” we believed it.

THE END

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION & TERMS OF USE

Copyright of the winning Wadadli Pen stories and/or art work featured on this site belongs to the creators of the individual works and are used here purely for promotional and educational purposes. Other blog content, except otherwise noted, is created and/or maintained by Joanne C. Hillhouse – coordinator of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize, and author of The Boy from Willow Bend and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight. Site content should not be copied, distributed, transmitted, used for commercial purposes, altered, transformed, or built upon without the consent of the copyright holders.