Norma Talma passed away on December 8 after a lengthy and brave battle with cancer.
She was the owner and manager of Talma Mill Art Gallery & Studio, located at Enterprise, Christ Church, and in 2004 she received the tribute of a Lifetime Achievement Award Exhibition at the Grand Salle, Central Bank Of Barbados.
Here’s what Talma said of herself on her website:?“I love paper. I make paper collages, print linocuts and draw on these paper paintings. I create paper collages using handmade paper that has been poured, shaped, embedded, coloured, textured, printed and layered, often becoming sculptural. Each edition of the linocuts and the drawings are on paper paintings, making each one different and unique.”
National Cultural Foundation curator Janice Whittle remembered the innovator.
“[Norma] was such a lovely person who worked very hard for the development of art in Barbados. She dared to work differently, sharing an original perspective with us. Norma’s own work was an act of love where she even made her own materials.
“As an art teacher, she was influential as a colleague and teacher. Norma was a hard worker who always spoke the truth as she saw it. Those positions were not always popular, but she retained her integrity on the committees and in the organizations she served. Her last comment in the local Press was a call for a national gallery.”
Talma will be greatly missed by many.
Region’s art on show
For the second year in the English-speaking Caribbean, more than 35 exhibitors of paintings, sculpture, photography, drawings, original limited edition prints and new media exploring the cultural traditions of the Caribbean will be exhibited at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St Michael.
The Caribbean Fine Art (CaFA) Fair will open on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, with a gala reception featuring David Boothman & Friends and the presentation of the Caribbean Luminary Of The Arts Award. The fair will end on Sunday, March 11.
A special feature of CaFA Fair Barbados 2012 will be performances and film screenings scheduled for each day of the event. Visual art from both Boothman and film director Billy Gerard Frank will be on exhibit. Screenings by filmmakers from Guadeloupe, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago will also be among the works.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Boothman will headline Opening Gala Night, Jamaican-American “doodle to the beat” artist Barbara Russell will perform on Thursday, March 8, while Barbadian performance poet Nala and reggae artist Lady Virtue will perform on Friday, March 9, and Sunday, March 11, respectively.
The impressive selection of art representing over 12 Caribbean countries includes works by internationally recognized contemporary artists Ras Ishi Butcher, Bill Grace and Ras Akyem-I Ramsay from Barbados.
