TO ROBERT WILMOT

0XQ4PKN9 (245 KB)

Dear Mr. Wilmot,

Mr. Joseph Dunne has recommended that I contact you regarding a vision of land use. planning, preservation and tourism that is more evolved, and more appropriate for our times, than the tourism paradigms holding sway in Jamaica and beyond. My emphasis is on the "cultural landscape" with its twin tributaries of the natural and the historic (built) landscape. 

Acknowledging the unprecedented interconnection of the global economic system and its dependence on dwindling cheap fossil fuel energy, I emphasize low tech, reuse, and a conservationist approach to development. 

No Demolition:

Building materials of the past are comprised of a great deal of natural and human energy that might be referred to as "embodied energy." As fossil fuels get harder to find and cost more to produce, we can assume that it is finite and will be much less available in the future than now. Since money is a token of future energy supply, we can't expect to have money to find affordable alternatives to run industrial society for a growing population and generally depleted natural and other vital resources. Given the energy/economic dynamics of our time, we can't afford to knock down buildings and dump their material into landfills. We need to take a different path. 

Radical Acceptance

We can no longer afford to indulge the myth of progress. While we might discuss the notions of progress, we can clearly see there is no linear progress in human affairs. The built environment should reflect that. Even structures deemed tasteless or "wrong" can have an educational benefit for tourism. T^hey demonstrate the struggles and inconsistencies of our global system, and Jamaican tourism can act as the laboratory for the world for ways to address global environmental and economic crises, even as we adapt bad buildings gently in the direction of harmony with their varied contexts.

THE PARADOX OF NON CHANGE

The paradox of changing everything while leaving everything exactly the same.

Leaving everything exactly the same isn't strictly possible, and paradoxically, it can generate a great deal of work. Any building you leave unattended quickly deteriorates.  If you work to repair small deteriorations on a regular, or even daily, basis, a building will last as long as it is treated that way. The religion of progress says buildings can only last 40 years, and then they are worthless and have to be torn down. That is as much religious hocus pocus as telling us that God is an old bearded man up in the sky. It is simply a belief that cannot stand up to scientific investigation. 

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DOING WITH LESS

Seeing doing with less as deferring gratification doesn’t seem to explain everything. In the visual arts, very broadly speaking, less is generally more. I think it was said first by Mies van der Rohe: Less is more.

More can simply be junk that reduces effectiveness, and less can weed out the unnecessary and increase effectiveness. So doing with less can produce better, more economical form, while being pleasant and compelling to deal with. (If beauty and elegance didn’t serve some human purpose, there wouldn’t be so much of it in history.) While beauty can often require more, it seems that elegance, by definition, requires less.

WATTLE AND DAUB

aNN hODGES, ARCHITECT FOR gOLDEN eYE hOTEL AND rESORTS is enthusiastic about this direction

Jamaican custom that can be widely understood

Might have enough support already and be markatable as a truly native technology to educate the tourist.

https://www.thewarecollective.com/?fbclid=IwAR3CEuHNkV-bMECxxXF8jRexYejkrYjVhhXrzJfrp4W_PIpwaIOHwt3XXFc

JAMAICA AND NEW ARCHITECTURE

Trevor Burrowes The problem with celebrating the new is coming up with a sensible notion for what IS new. Building (supposedly) in the international style is not new. It is in every ambitious country in the world. It was one thing when Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created the international style in architecture. I was taught in a program created by Josef Albers, a colleague of "Mies" at the Bauhaus who also emigrated to the US. These masters were indeed original, highly educated, idealistic, visionary, thinking for the first time about an architecture for the industrial age that they hoped would bring in a better way of life for humankind. 

It didn't do that, unfortunately, and instead degenerated into a banal formula that every builder can generate. It was very common in communist countries, but just about everywhere else too. It is by now nothing new or creative. It has become ANTI creative, forestalling new thinking. Now, people are waking up to the fact that the ubiquitous concrete box is not what they want, is a mistaken direction, and must be replaced by a renewed examination of past heritage. Paradoxically, to look to the past IS new. It is not what we've been doing since the war, and the influx of super abundant cheap oil to make those bad designs work, to power the air conditioners, to manufacture the cement, is now coming to a close. These buildings show no sign that they understand that. They are behind the times, clinging to a reality that is slipping away. 

All the choices for the parliament building show the same sickly lack of new thinking. All are formulaic and banal. All say nothing distinctive or aspirational about Jamaica, or about the new direction it must take.. None of this is new.

The Weeks Neighborhood in the minority-majority city of East Palo Alto, next door to Facebook's world headquarters in Menlo Park

The Turquoise Trail that I live on (get proper terminology) falling under the juriusdiction of the County of Santa Fe (surrounded the world famous city of Santa Fe).

The entire island of Jamaica

Concern with the public sphere...circulation corridors of various intensities and scale which can act like the the circulation systems of the body, nourished by the blood of tourism. It is a case of working from the visual (my background) to the social and political.

Various interpretations of preservation from stabilization to full scale restoration

Use of students at various levels

work with established layers of government as a connective overlay attempting to harmonize and rationalize routine governmental processes

VISUAL DETERMINISM--IN THAT WHAT EXISTS IS FULL OF INFORMATION OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIS IMPORT

Since the mistakes are an aspect of tourism but aalso are symptoms of problems, they need to be framed or contained, while better development goes on behind the scenes, and which will also cater to aspirational and educational tourism

In a time of environmental calamity, energy must be conserved to tyhe utmost, which means leaving what is there intact, mining it for tourism

the natural landscape must be also scrupulouslyu preserved.

the importance of photography

MY bio

greenways'bhutran

namibia protected coast

education away from kingston

doing more with less

The use of Facebook: KC, VJ, JCHS

centered on creativity

more writing to come

Pete Hubbard Collaboration

Town and Country

graphics

Restoring St5. Ann's Bay

Infestation of academism. non populist, technocratic

Bhutan

https://epicureandculture.com/bhutan-tourism-model/

Trevor Burrowes

Admin · July 7 at 10:17 PM

COULD THIS BE THE STARTING PLACE FOR DISCUSSING JAMAICA'S EXISTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

(toward a methodology for addressing the multiplicity of problems--the emphasis here is the Cockpit Country and St. Ann, Jamaica--instead of a disunified and fragments approach more akin to vain attempts to extinguish fires in the absence of a plan to prevent them)

Apart from the two-party split, Jamaica has another critical divide: those who are Africa oriented, and those who are not. An African orientation is a radical shift from: a) a British Colonial orientation, where our fate is ultimately tied up with Britain as our ultimate destiny; b) an independent orientation--Jamaica standing alone, assuming that it is essentially First World, and can hold its own against competition from other global powers. A third position outside of these two is c) Jamaica as a part of Africa (however that is defined).

There are problematics concerning all three, but I propose that our best choice is the third (c). In a country that is easily defined as black African, with little to no ethnic distinction from black African nations from which we derive, I don't see any external, compelling force preventing us from declaring ourselves to be an offshore African nation. That would be radical. That would imply that we are at liberty to throw out the parts of our current governance system that are a thought-free hangover from colonial times. And while the colonial government has abandoned physical ownership of the island, and only the deluded can assume an independent Jamaica that can withstand international domination, a Jamaica linked to the African nations would be a different matter. Since there is no unified African nation, we would be one of many African nations, and just as entitled as any to assume leadership toward defining and bringing about such a unity. Such a unity would be the fulfillment of Marcus Garvey's vision, and bring some real meaning to having him as our first National Hero..

But this is all easy to say. Meanwhile, we have the SYSTEMATIC conditioning of our people to contend with. One can point fingers and blame the individuals, but it is the system we must blame. And the system works through numbers. If you can get the majority to behave a certain way, then democracy and voting will only ensure that this behavior will be perpetuated by leaders voted into power. Promoting individualism over collectivism is one way the system seems to keeps us weak and divided. St. Ann's Bay is an example of how "the system" has succeeded in creating abject, universal ignorance and apathy in one geopolitical African unit.

If we are to promote collectivism, we might best place the governance of given geographic units as the primary governance structure of the island.. This is why I originally suggested making St. Ann (the Garden Parish) and Trelawny (host of the Cockpit Country which supplies 40% of Jamaica's water) as a World Heritage Park, perhaps modeled after the Blue Mountains World Heritage Park. We could go into all this with infinitely greater depth, but we have to start somewhere.

A further suggestion is that we engage in this discussion as an intentional international group of expatriate and local Jamaicans, using Facebook as a primary tool of communication, organizing and 

COCKPIT COUNTRY

Not sure why his is a bad idea, although it probably is: Since Falmouth is already a Heritage City (but managed badly), could it be mutually beneficial, while calling for a stop order on further Cockpit mining, to bring up the issue of making the whole of Trelawny (or at least Cockpit) a World Heritage Park? Could it be a matter of seeing how Falmouth was done, then spreading a wider net to extend the vision to the parish? Thereby attempting to correct what is wrong with the Falmouth management and giving the government an added justification to stop mining in Cockpit?

EAST PALO ALTO (EPA) AS A CENTER OF HISTORY

http://www.urbanecology.org/dow.../WeeksNeighborhoodPlan.pdf

Within the space of a few years during the 90's, I conducted over 500 driving tours centered on the historic Weeks Neighborhood. I used my own car, and asked for no payment. I didn't get around to considering a tourist program for EPA HAS, much less one for the entirety of EPA. I would frequently tour the whole city, since it in its entirety offered something different and historic for my outsider tourists.

I left town just as IKEA, Home Depot and the rest were being constructed. A nearby housing development was also in its early stage, managed by EPA CAN DO. By the way, what does the N in EPA CAN DO stand for? If it's part of the following title, East Palo Alto Community And Neighborhood Development Organization, it fell down on the neighborhood part. There has been no consideration of neighborhoods, and no plan that I know of, for any of EPA's traditional neighborhood other than the one done by EPA HAS for the Weeks Neighborhood by means of the Weeks Neighborhood Community Plan.

So why was the plan ignored? What harm did it do? None that I can tell. It allowed for the same number of residences as the neighborhood was zoned for. What was wrong with that? The unit sizes envisioned were varied, allowing for diverse incomes. The old Weeks lots with their elegant deep lots with long views down it past large trees would be something any right thinking person would appreciate.

But this perfectly sensible plan that would have created a parklike neighborhood that all income levels could afford, was cut to ribbons for all kinds of foolish reasons. It was zoned residential, although neighborhood businesses on the wider avenues were valued and planned for. So why has it become chock full of large charter schools? Why were buyers able to imagine they could just sit on the land until large apartments could be persuaded to be built on them? One hears talk of making the neighborhood look like Manhattan. What is wrong with EPA to allow for these travesties of action and intention?

Bay Road was always there. It might have been an Indian track before Isaiah Woods built the village of Ravenswood along it around 1850. And the entire town west of Bay Road was laid out by Charles Weeks around 1920. That included University Avenue, extending all the way to Stanford. Weeks and Stanford worked together on this, and Weeks advertised the Weeks Poultry Colony, AKA Runnymede, now called the Weeks Neighborhood, as a University town. Rail lines ran along University. The next oldest neighborhood is Palo Alto Park, built in the 1920's. So the Weeks Neighborhood, with some extension into what is now Menlo Park (including O'connor Avenue, for instance) made up the great bulk of modern EPA up until the 1950's. And even including those 50's additions, the city's built environment is older than anything else around and is more deeply historic than anything else around. Palo Alto and the entire Mid Peninsula have been going about demolishing anything predating 1980. That makes EPA the last bastion of history in the region. The whole city could be a heritage park, and gain income by so being.

But who cares about history?

WHAT IS EDUCATION DOING TO HELP?

Without education, property owners can't see the value in their broken down wooden buildings. The buildings are broken down because they cost a lot to repair, and the people who know how to repair them conventionally are now few and far between.

In society we seem to follow programs. Slavery was a program, and was once widely seen as the way it was. British colonialism was a program, and once seen as normal. Since colonialism, a new program took over: It was an American system of consumerism and "modernism" based on concrete construction. That seems to still be the acceptable program in SAB. There are no end of supermarkets, it seems. Lot's of white concrete buildings with air condition. The ones I saw sold foreign products that were cheaper than Jamaican ones. The air conditioning was soothing on a hot day. The food was tasty, no matter if it was loaded with empty calories. It might have spiked diabetes, but I lack specific information.

But it doesn't have to be that way forever. Things do change when they're not working.

The foreign Chinese supermarkets are tearing out SAB heritage buildings. And SAB is supposed to be a historic city, right? Jamaica's first capital, correct? Something is clearly wrong with this picture. Tourists don't go to Jamaica to see what looks like Miami or Phoenix.

So where is the education program that trains people to repair and maintain the wooden buildings? Those wooden buildings are part of the heritage of my family and thousands of other SAB families. We don't have a tourist attraction if we tear that heritage down. We don't have a historic city if we tear those buildings down. We lose reference to the place Marcus was born and grew up in. But who is training the young people to value and maintain this heritage?

My thoughts run to the Marcus Garvey Technical High School. Does their program support the material heritage of Marcus Garvey's birthplace? If not, why not? What does their program support instead? The principal, Steven Golding, is also the local head of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was created by the greatest son of SAB, Marcus Garvey. Does the SAB branch of the UNIA support preserving the material heritage of the UNIA? If not, why not? What does it support instead?

Does Mr. Golding support the preservation of Marcus Garvey's birth home? If he does, why does he not support the preservation of Garvey's hometown? If I didn't get it wrong, Garvey was taught early on through a program associated with 6 Bravo, recently torn down to build a Chinese supermarket. Is Mr. Golding aware of the Garvey and UNIA heritage that SAB is losing? Where is he? What is he up to? Does anybody know?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.quora.com/What-is-Rural-development-planning

http://www.cityofcalabasas.com/pdf/agendas/planning/2017/060117/item3-exhibit-a.pdf

https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3362/

https://planning.lacity.org/complan/specplan/pdf/mulhol.pdf

networking.

MY JOHNSON'S GALLERY WEB PAGE

https://johnsonsofmadrid.wordpress.com/2020/05/30/trevor-burrowes/?fbclid=IwAR38st_tD2grukN9hECWrVGh_ydkzMLGRSrR5jQQKVgMqkdsQqgpQOsli4I

KGN GRANTS

Dear Kingston Grants,

I hope you are holding up well under our current emergencies.

If I may presume to share more of my views on what I consider to be in the best interest of St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, America, Africa and the world at a time of cultural and environmental peril, I would further recommend the following:

- If a transaction were to be arranged between the US Ambassador and the Jamaican Prime Minister, one hopeful scenario might work along the following lines:

- Since cultural preservation in Jamaica is consistent with British/American heritage preservation, a pardon for Marcus Garvey could be reciprocated by a "pardon" for the material colonial heritage that now faces a virtual death sentence, due in no small measure to National China's predatory policies to capture territories through "economic imperialism." 

- This pardon for colonial heritage could range from requiring extensive documentation of any existing structure prior to its demolition, all the way to a version of eminent domain that prohibits and penalizes any form of destruction or demolition of colonial material culture.

- Some similar project might bring together two extremely (but unnecessarily) divided constituences:

1) Anti colonialists who believe (very wrongly) that all traces of colonial material heritage must be disparaged (and destroyed) for how it reflects on racial subjugation and slavery during colonial times. 

2) Pro colonials who somehow miss the fact that Jamaica has a massive black majority  who see colonial heritage in negative terms. 

Both groups tend not to see any relationship between the heritage Garvey was born into and his message of self determination and uplift for black people. But if a Garvey pardon is tied to a pardon for heritage structures, neither group can claim that their interests have been ignored.

Thanks for allowing me to share my thought.

Wishing you the very best,

Trevor Burrowes

 

RESTORING ST. ANN'S BAY, and other artist follies

The point is that we need thinkers here. One is trying to develop a clean, clear blueprint for Africa, starting from scratch. We don't have to fight for the right to conceive of Africa (othr than just the continent), since that right has been won. But what we conceive of it AS BEING has not, IMO, been done. It is strategically propitious to begin with Garvey. If you begin with Garvey, why not begin with the town of his birth (which happens to be "beginning point for Jamaica)? If you begin with the town of his birth, why not, simultaneously, with the country it is part of? If you begin with Jamaica, claiming it to be a keystone building block for a future Africa, you have to define your terms, and show how this building block works to prefigure a totally new concept of a place. The town therefore takes on global responsibility. If takes on global responsibility, then ALL of its ethnic connections to the planet become part of the African constitution. Jamaica, with its relatively harmonious intermingling of ethnicities either leads the way or reinforces or supports similarly harmonious relations throughout the African Diaspora/provisiona/African Unity. Africa becomes, simultaneously, a hub of the Global South and a hub of the world. I'm still trying to think this through. I see an Africa that is extremely diverse and spread out. It would be ungovernable from a central point, and therefore it must have a highly decentralized governance system. It would seem to behove the USA to be a very close partner and ally with this Unity, perhaps serving to back up (but not dominate) its military posture. "Africa" might come to mean places with very black, marginalized people that are part of other national unities: south India, south Iran, parts of Australia. I'm reaching here. There is also the prospect of shared nationalities.; what do you do about Africans in the US or in South America? If you have hope for Indian heritage somewhere, where is that somewhere? I'm suggesting that it, and other similar hopes, might be strengthened in a vast, new entity that you can help to define.

NORWICH PRESERVATION

Andrew Shekell Trevor Burrowes A mix, some are holiday flats, or local people who work elsewhere in the city. Some are privately owned or occupied by tenants. The area attracts tourists and locals alike. If anyone is interested in planning, the preservation of Norwich is very interesting. In the 60s and 70s it was a dying town, major factory closures and flight of Young people.

Africa doesn't exist. What we have is the African continent, and a large number of independent nations within it. Garvey didn't live to see the Diaspora independence movements, and we can't expect a clear definition for Africa from him. But if you look at his travels and the location of hundreds of Liberty Halls in the Americas, there is no indication that he limited his definition of Africa to the continent. So when I propose that we start from scratch to define Africa in the way that suits us (and seems to be in the spirit of Garveyism), people may think I'm joking, but I'm serious. So I can start to build a concept of Garveyite Africa starting where he was born. My concept is not to go to the continent, but rather to let the continent come to us. Due to time and convenience, I'll follow with an excerpt of what I wrote to someone else about this. As I say at the end, I'm reaching, but what I say should be enough to make clear whart sort of Africa I'm NOT thinking about. "The point is that we need thinkers here. One is trying to develop a clean, clear blueprint for Africa, starting from scratch. We don't have to fight for the right to conceive of Africa (other than just the continent), since that right has been won. But what we conceive of AS BEING Africa has not, IMO, been done.

It is strategically propitious to begin with Garvey. If you begin with Garvey, why not begin with the town of his birth (which happens to be "beginning point for Jamaica)? If you begin with the town of his birth, why not, simultaneously, with the country it is part of? If you begin with Jamaica, claiming it to be a keystone building block for a future Africa, you have to define your terms, and show how this building block works to prefigure a totally new concept of a place.

The town therefore takes on global responsibility. If takes on global responsibility, then ALL of its ethnic connections to the planet become part of the African constitution. Jamaica, with its relatively harmonious intermingling of ethnicities either leads the way or reinforces or supports similarly harmonious relations throughout the African Diaspora/provisional African Unity. Africa becomes, simultaneously, a hub of the Global South and a hub of the world (if ethnic diversity is built into its DNA).

I'm still trying to think this through. I see an Africa that is extremely diverse and spread out. It would be ungovernable from a central point, and therefore it must have a highly decentralized governance system. It would seem to behove the USA to be a very close partner and ally with this Unity, perhaps serving to back up (but not dominate) its military posture. "Africa" might come to mean places with very black, marginalized people that are part of other national unities: south India, south Iran, parts of Australia. I'm reaching here. There is also the prospect of shared nationalities.; what do you do about Africans in the US or in South America?

If you have hope for Indian heritage somewhere, where is that somewhere? I'm suggesting that it, and other similar hopes, might be strengthened in a vast, new entity that you can help to define."

NOTE TO JANET (mrs. patmore on Downton Abbey)

I grew up with an inferiority complex a mile high.

at Knox, I felt strongly that when the white kids sat around in their own circle, it meant that I was a second rate person to be excluded.

Lewis Davidson finally came out and asked why they shouldn't stick together with like people.

Good question, but he hadn't educated us about black pride (although in many ways he worked at it around the edges).

Marcus Garvey and black pride was never taught

Were we at the age of 13 or 14 to figure that out for ourselves?

My behavior since then has been a ragged, often shameful accommodation to my butchered sense of self.

Black uprising in the 60's encouraged me.

I went through an extended anti-white period which I subsequently felt ashamed for. It now seems to have been superficial, and often ignorant.

I also went through a pseudo Rasta period that again moves me to shame for lack of being true to myself, and the pretentiousness of getting into other people's business. 

It took a lot of blows about the head and shoulders to get me somewhat to the position I hold today. And I'm still emerging and groping, sometimes shamefully

I've come to an accommodationist position (or perhaps it could be called a transactional position) with forces of higher status than my own. I'm appreciatibve of white people who  claim plantocracy heritage for the sensitivity, knowledge, manners, confidence. 

I give abundant thanks for all black people who have struggled and made gains for dignity and justice before me

We've come a very long way.

I now accept my heritage as being a blend of oppressed slaves and opprerssive slave masters

That is perhaps a simplification. I'm also descended from oppressed oppressors

There was slavery in Africa

Black rulers in Egypt enslaved other black people to build the pyramids

Should I plot and scheme to overthrow the pyramids?

Our black ancestors built the colonial structures with their hands

That should bespeak some level of ownership

"We" worked for free for colonial masters, and now that they have lifted up and gonet, we have every right to take their relics as our own and make what we will of them

These relics bespeak of a culture

Without them, what is our material culture?

We saw that squalid scenario with the mad people a week or so ago

That could be what goes for culture in the future

If we present ourselves as an African nation (as I think we should), what material heritage do we have to show for it?

Many people think that to be African, you must speak an African language and wear African clothes. But African language and African clothes from which of the many nations with the African continent?

Why should we be ashamed to present our material heritage as one won by attrition, involving the sovereign ownership of all that is called colonial heritage, whether from the rich or from the poor?

Without it we come with empty hands and the most shameful ugliness of uncultivated and uneducated pseudo Africanism

BLACKS IN EUROPEAN ART

https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2020/03/black-in-rembrandts-time-a-myth-shattering-exhibition-on-identity-and-truth/?fbclid=IwAR0HvhpBztsOfg-O0EJlOVZqO4YNcasf40YZW_fWv8_ht03Sd4bgvt4rdMM

NOTE TO GINA

Hi Gina,

My thinking in positioning Jamaica within a larger framework is that, more than falling within the African Diaspora, it is in fact a "discovered" (self recognized, self appointed) African nation. And such a nation is part of a provisional African Unity in keeping with Garvey's aspirations. Rastafarians have never thought they belong in "Jamaica." They belonged somehow in "Africa," notably in Ethiopia. They appear to take Africa too literally as being synonymous with the continent of Africa. Instead of changing territory, people need to change their minds. 

I find the concept that Jamaica is an African nation liberating. It gives the Jamaican upper class less psychic space to rule, shame and dominate black Jamaicans. And if we're all Africans together it undermines the petty bickering between ethnic groups. It also means that Jamaica doesn't need to adopt the material heritage of continental Africans, for who's to tell it how to dress or how to speak, and what architecture to value? It can be Africa just the way it is, with all its ethnic and cultural diversity. Moreover, a diverse Jamaica might well become a model for an open, globally tolerant program for the African whole. I say all this in light of how your Indian ancestorr(s) embraced Garveyism, apparently without compromising his Indian heritage.

A NONPROFIT

I'm working on starting a nonprofit, so I can apply for money for Donnette to make a photograph book of St. Ann's Bay. The US Embassy in Jamaica appears to have a preservation grant that centers on Jamaica but that allows for a lot of US-based participation. I don't know how COVID and financial chaos might affect this year's grant cycle, but a grant announcement generally comes out in October and proposals are due by year end.) The main approach to the nonprofit mission is art. Grant money (depending on grant guidelines) will apply to public education regarding  St. Ann's Bay's historic material culture, with a minimum of written reference to US places where I've lived, and worked along similar lines.

Would you consider becoming a founding board member for the nonprofit, "St. Ann Creative"?

Trevor

COMMON IDEAS FOR ALL THE EXCEPTIONAL PLACES WHERE I'VE LIVED--Marginal places that can be seen in biblical terms:

Psalm 118:22-24 King James Version (KJV)                                                                                                                                                                                                                  22 The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner ("the chief cornerstone").

All the places I touch on have been marginalized within a broader regional framework. They have been generally scorned and patronized. They all have important seminal roots that go unappreciated in a time of historical amnesia and the religion of progress.

SOME ISSUES A GRANT MUST ADDRESS

- The criticality of an African perspective to historic preservation centered on colonial architecture

- Issues of affordable housing

- Feminist notions of inclusiveness

- The energy and environmental impacts of preservation

- Envisioning a post Covid future centered on planning and preservation

- Envisioning new public rituals

- Reevaluating ideas of energy 

SPATIAL MAGIC

African ideas of form, spirituality and aesthetics will be essential to embrace.

CROSS FERTILIZATION OF ISSUES

Water catchment on a hillside in St. Ann parish can apply to water management in Madrid, NM

NOTE TO MYSELF: 

tHIS APPLIES TO mla HOLISTIC PLANNING FOR mADRID, AS WELL AS TO RURAL sT. aNN.  Less so to east Palo Alto, which is flat.

d

HOW TO MAKE CARDBOARD BOXES

http://cardboardhelp.com/how-to-start-a-cardboard-box-manufacturing-business/

THE PRINTERY

ousin David is the Gordon Lodge owner. I shared your questions with Daddy tonight and he said they got most of their supplies from England. Paper came in rolls and they had a cutting tool. It was easy to get clients as there was a near monopoly on printing for the parish and in the local area. Those were his initial thoughts, I have to give him these requests in bite sizes

AFRICA AND FEMINISM

This sounds true, although I have done no study on the subject, and don't know what to make of it in the context of Garveyism. I'm trying to think through Africa in an original way. In "Africa" fractal science appears to be developed in a specially advanced way. The same geometry repeats itself infinitely. Rhythm is similarly advanced in Africans, and I argue that it is rhythm more than brute strength that accounts for Africans' exceptional physical achievements. Africa also appears to be exceptional in coexisting (till now) with large wild animals (megafauna). Now I want to propose a feminist ideal for Africa. To make a sweeping generalization, it is feminist to "take in" and absorb, to include. So how do we put together a charter for Africa that makes it all inclusive--globally inclusive-- while at the same time opposing the universal undermining of black skin (and indeed of the feminine).

18x18

The size was recommended by a friend (who has been my main collector). He is very efficient and business oriented, and I decided I'd keep with the format for some time yet. The project allows me to break out of my shell a bit, so I'm thinking, when opportunity arises, to show mostly 18x18 pieces, all to be placed on the cardboard booths I'm making and that can be free standing and displayed anywhere. The booths are also based on a similar look (aesthetic) to the square pieces.

BRICK

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=382484019374604&set=gm.2297364733905463&type=3&theater&ifg=1

I'm making bricks too, but out of cardboard. And there's no begging in my scheme.

Realism vs Modernism

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?s_it=webmail-searchbox&q=realism%20vs%20modernism%20in%20art

Common Saying: There's nothing new under the sun. Visually speaking, a cave painting from millennia ago could be mistaken for modern art. The issue is too big to discuss. It's commonly thought that modern art began at the start of the 20th century. That isn't strictly true. You could go back and go back and there would forever be an earlier start. Impressionism is a good benchmark for an earlier start. It attempted to bring scientific concepts into the use of color. Great artists who mistakenly get labeled as impressionist--Cezanne, Gaugin, Van Gogh--had one foot in the 19th century and another in the 20th. Picasso reached back to African sculpture of a much earlier time which the cultures did not see as art in the Western sense we're familiar with. Many modern art histories begin with him. (You could say that Africa is at the heart of modernism, although that would not be strictly true.) The impressionists were rebelling against the encroachment of industrial civilization, but there were other 19th century art movements, different from impressionism, that rebelled similarly.

As I say, the subject is much to large to talk about. We might be better served to focus in on what we as individuals like, and also on what will serve to make us better adapted to the times we live in and face. 

ALBERTI

For this discussion his is the key name to remember, for he invented a scientific method of measuring distance that is, to me, the most useful measure of realism. BTW, A relief sculpture of Alberti looked for all the world like a black man.)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Last-Supper-fresco-by-Leonardo-da-Vinci

A.S. Forrest? Used TinEye to search and found a reference 1869-1963. It is also used as a cover Image for a book (Neither Led nor Driven")

Trevor Burrowes Thanks to member Dale Kopp for unearthing immensely valuable information about a book that speaks to current discussion in this group. And the book cover uses the image of our own St. Ann's Bay dock! Lucille Junkere https://www.amazon.com/Neither-Led-Nor.../dp/9766401543

This superbly written book examines the cultural evolution of the Jamaican people after the explosive uprising at Morant Bay in 1865. It offers an analysis of the cultural tapestry fashioned by the Jamaican people and the specific methods used by British imperial legislators and the cultural elite in the attempt to inculcate order and control and to build a new society in Jamaica founded on the principles of Victorian Christian morality and British imperial ideology. Moore and Johnson convincingly demonstrate that this attempt resulted in a sustained attack on everything that was perceived to be of African origin and the glorification of Christian piety, Victorian mores, and a Eurocentric “idealized” family life and social hierarchies. They discuss, in rich detail, the levels of engagement among the cultural traditions and argue compellingly that the Jamaican people, despite encouragement and pressure, were determined to define their own cultural paths; they would neither be led, nor would they be driven. “This is an impressive volume, cogently argued, limpid in the clarity of the writing and solidly based on a mastery of a wide range of relevant sources. It is a major contribution to the history of Jamaica, to the cultural history of the Caribbean and to the history of blacks throughout the African diaspora.”―Howard Johnson, University of Delaware

AMAZON.COM

Neither Led Nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in…

SUSAN NK

Patsy Pink gave me some names of business people, but I'm still too confused to contact them. St. Ann's Bay needs a coherent nation building program. Toward that end I started off three years ago trying to make a comprehensive list of institutions. But I've recently tried whittling down my intended purview to what really interests me most. That is the preservation/celebration of the town's historic material culture. At the same time, and seemingly related, is a strong interest in urban and land use planning. But the latter, by definition, includes all aspects of town life, which, as a single individual far away, is a bridge too far.

The plan done by the Trust for Falmouth was sort of in my area of focus, but I'm way too unprofessional (and amorphous) to even try to replicate that. It doesn't clear up the confusion to note that even the gorgeous Falmouth plan is not being supported by the mayor, and that vile defacements continue. So one can learn to focus and do things by the book and still not have it lead to change. There are too many pieces to this puzzle. At the end of the day, I'm only an artist.

For the moment, I'm just posting pictures and writing anything that the little voice insider me recommends. 

I've tried asking for help online:

- Dore Tate (who is way busy, but a solid supporter); 

- Doris Gross (who has building projects in SAB, and is efficient in whatever she does--like taking by far the most relevant photos we have so far--although she is over busy too; 

- Donnette Ingrid Zacca (who seems somewhat over her head with projects)

- Alison Martin (who was replying wonderfully, and then just disappeared--couldn't deal with the crazy guy, presumably.

I'm trying for a grant to fund Donnette to do photos for a publication. Now, how you actually *produce and market* such a publication isn't in my skill set. (In the Bay Area, I got the National Park Service as one of two partners to produce a community plan. It wa professionally done, but only a planner would *maybe* choose to read it.) http://www.urbanecology.org/downloads/WeeksNeighborhoodPlan.pdf

Donnette recommended talking to the Custos, and I've written a couple times and been replied to a couple times. Still no help with the little Main Street building I want to board up. And I sense that she only replied because I'm related to the Pinks. I don't know where her true interests lie. Philosophically, I might be close to Brett, in that I can see heavy reliance going forward on the British colonial governance system, including Custodes. And Norma Walters could be a part of the Back to the Future regime. Like me, she can see the requirement for promoting Garvey, but I don't think she's thought it out very well. Something gets written, but no actual program on the ground supports it. 

With the Chinese economy down a bit, I'm hoping for some respite from their massacre of old buildings...long enough to get a publication out there that might promote a changed outlook.

Thanks a lot for these names.

The Jamaican Georgian Society us worth having contact with. Not sure who the North Coast person is now but Marina Delfoss would know. She does heritage tours in Falmouth.

Also, Judy Schonbein who dies Falmouth but recently started one of Ochie.

"Best to work with local business and civic people who are sympathetic to a vision that involves retaining heritage."