CREATIVE SPACE #4 OF 2026 is already up for free on my Patreon. Please read, share, and consider supporting the continuation of this series by contributing – i.e. become a member, buy an article (this one’s free but future articles will be pay to read), buy the collection (for access to all CREATIVE SPACE articles including the ones I haven’t written yet). Now back to CREATIVE SPACE #3 OF 2026 which was a pay to read early access article.
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This article was originally uploaded for early access to members of my Patreon on February 7th 2026. CREATIVE SPACE has transitioned to a reader-funded strategy; by becoming a Patreon member, or purchasing articles or collections, you can contribute to the continuation of this Caribbean Media Award-and-OECS-award winning column art and culture column.
(“Primal image ‘Sick em’ ponders the themes of consent, joy, and eager intent”)
written by Joanne C. Hillhouse
A debut is essentially an artist’s coming out, the first time they present something to an audience. That Dylan Phillips had his solo debut in January 2026 might seem odd. The young Antiguan and Barbudan artist has been out for a minute. I checked, and I mentioned him in CREATIVE SPACE as far back as 2022 and he featured in 2024 in my coverage of Quay Studios , a then new space for artists – to create and show – in one of the city’s hotspots, Redcliffe Quay, which has become an artistic hub in the time since. He’s been a visible and leading part of that. So, he’s been a public facing artist for a minute. A proactive part of the moment it feels like Antigua and Barbudan art is currently having and so prolific one might already think they’ve seen his full range. One would be wrong. Dylan, known as DEP on Instagram where he also shares his art and process regularly, is still an emerging artist; still growing his technique, still discovering what he has to say and how he wants to say it, and, until January 23rd 2026, his show’s opening, still maturing into the moment when he could hold the spotlight solo. And hold it he did, from the opening reception until the show closed at the end of January, without breaking a sweat. A solo debut art collection, like a concept album coming after a string of successful singles, has a full story to tell, with intentionality. Dylan Phillips’ debut solo collection was Primal.
(“Primal” is also the name of the piece that inspired the collection)
I’d seen some of the pieces before the debut – “Raw” during a visit to Quay Studios,
“Release me” during the December art week exhibition at the airport
“Witness me”
right there in Barracks, the newest gallery space in Redcliffe Quay, where Dylan’s solo collection debuted in January 2026. If you’re keeping count that’s three current art spaces, counting Stephen Murphy’s Zemi gallery, in the historic open-air shopping mall in St. John’s City, Antigua. During Art Week, in December 2025, Dylan and I spoke, informally, about what I perceived as a new even more non-traditional direction for the already abstract artist. Shortly after, he showed me new work in progress, which turned out to be “Whiplash”, also part of the Primal exhibition.
(Dylan with ‘Whiplash’, which “considers the realm beyond expectation basking in unpreparedness”)
As someone who had recently been working on a short story collection myself, I recognize that each piece was a story, part of Dylan’s own story, and Primal was the whole book – and the thematic link. There was someone else in each story; his wife Hilene Comacho-Phillips, who is even a collaborator on one of the pieces. So, as he did the often vulnerable work of excavating and laying out his own deeper emotions and threading them together, he was exposing her as well; and, in a way, that made Primal an oddly voyeuristic experience and a daring debut, for how emotionally and physically intimate it was, especially in the small community in which we live.
Like its tag line said, it was “raw, honest, and intensely personal”, and sexual, very very sexual. “It’s very sexually charged…that’s exactly what it is,” Dylan said. The male figure in each image is literally an animal – each animal representing the inner man or his emotion in the moment in relation to the always nude woman.
Although, Dylan pointed out, “both the male and female are nude…animals. they don’t wear clothes, their genitalia is hanging around just like the female as well but as human beings we don’t think about it from that perspective but, in reality, an animal is always vulnerable.”
Point taken.
And what to make of the animals…
Dylan said, “when I think of anger I think of the bear …when I think of lust, I think of a horse…lust in regard to pursuing, I think of the horse, lust in regard of consuming I think of an alligator…they’ve been intentionally picked because those are the animals that I resonate that feeling with…The animals are more internal.”
The animals were also, notably, predatory animals but the women standing in for and inspired by Dylan’s wife never seemed to be prey, never seemed to be afraid or in danger, even when the animals’ teeth were bared; in “Rough around the Edges” she even seemed to be sneering and daring, perhaps inviting the attention of the most aggressive of the alligators surrounding her.
Could the work then be seen as an expression of the animal, the man, Dylan’s frustration at the woman’s impenetrability, unknowingness, preternatural calm or elusiveness?
My reading could be off but that’s the fun of it. I am reminded of one exchange with Dylan at the opening in which I wondered if the man was somehow feline in one particular image –
a rare image where both man and woman, her nipple out, were themselves but still with the presence of an animal, a cat, by the man’s head – and Dylan baldly said, no, he has pussy on the brain. And hilarity ensued at this more obvious reading.
The horse almost-chumping at the nude woman’s impressive ass as she runs away but angles her body towards him, yeah that’s lust. Believe your eyes and your instincts, he wants to bite into that ass and this is a horny ass show. It was also an intensely emotional one; there was complexity – not a full conversation maybe, it was, after all, the man’s take specifically – Dylan acknowledging that while he understands the inner man, in his anger, and loneliness, and, yes, lusting, he can only see the surface of the woman, her self-contained feminine energy, and, unable to get under her skin, was in a way trying to communicate to her how he felt. The images seemed to me, meanwhile, to idolize her to such a degree that though she is the only human in the images, her full humanity is still untapped. This is not her story. But it was an attempt to have a conversation with her – the elusive her.
Which made the most interesting piece in the entire show the one he collaborated with his wife, Hilene, on – “he just dropped the canvas on me and said, ‘hey, you need to do something’”.
(Dylan and Hilene with the art they collaborated on)
It was also the one artist Kelly Hull referred to as “the one with the lady with the embroidered hair” (per Hilene, ““all by hand, hand embroidery”) when I asked her for her favourite at the opening.
The crocheted hair was beautiful and it was what drew the eye – plus there were no nipples nor ass to ogle, not in this image; she seemed almost angelic, the halo suggesting this might be intentional, and the animals surrounding her wear different expressions; expressions that could possibly be interpreted as rage, adoration, yearning…or something else. We see what we see …and this was art open to dissection.
Of course, this meant we were also on some level dissecting Dylan and Hilene’s dynamic, the work was as she herself noted speaking to different times in their relationship, which did weird her out at first, but “he paints what he feels…being an artist is expressing yourself no matter what you feel.” Her favourite in show, by the way, was “Whiplash”, the nude woman riding the bucking bull.
Kelly said of Dylan, “I’ve seen his collection, from when he started the whole collection to the last piece and I just think his work is phenomenal…I watch him work…with each brush stroke it has meaning for him…you just don’t know where it’s going to go.”
Neither does the artist. At his coming out, at which he sold two pieces, plus 8 prints, he said, “I’m still soaking in how happy I feel that all of this came together…I have many other ideas and concepts in my mind that I need to express and get out there…art is how I go through this world and process the things that happen around me.”
That makes for complex art likely to spark conversation which is not new – going back, say, to the subject of my first ever CREATIVE SPACE Mark Brown’s Angels in Crisis – but comes at a time when the art community seems to be in one of its peaks, which means we can expect much more from Dylan and others. And I think I speak for all art lovers when I say, we can’t wait.
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For the EXTRAS which includes audio clips and more extensive interview quotes, and more images from the show, I invite you to subscribe to my Patreon, as a member you have early access to articles like this plus extras and exclusives. You can also purchase the related article or the Patreon CREATIVE SPACE collection where articles going forward will be filed. Your support can keep this column going.
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All Rights Reserved. Sharing or excerpting with link and credit is okay. But for re-publication of CREATIVE SPACE or any other content on this site contact Joanne – also use this link to contact Joanne for appearances (reading, speaking, discussions), workshops/courses, writing, editing, or other offered service.
For product reviews, branding or ad inquiries, contact Joanne
Support Jhohadli’s Patreon if you can.
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CREATIVE SPACE is a multi-Caribbean Media Award and OECS-award winning series spotlighting Antiguan-Barbudan and Caribbean art and culture. It is written and owned by me, Joanne C. Hillhouse, an Antiguan-Barbudan/Caribbean author,journalist, and freelancer. I appreciate your support for the column and am open to discussing business collaborations. This is the CREATIVE SPACE platform where you’ll find column history and archives; and there’s also YouTube for the CREATIVE SPACE video playlist. On my patreon, you’ll get early access to each new installment of the column plus extras, exclusives, and behind the scenes. See also Jhohadli, through which you can email me, and Linktr.eefor more of my latest and best content beyond CREATIVE SPACE.
My Patreon is growing with your support. Become a member to do so tangibly; and, if you’re not there yet, show support anyway by liking and sharing my posts. Thanks.
]]>I didn’t realize when I wrote it that my last CREATIVE SPACE, “CREATIVE SPACE #2 OF 2026: ON MUSIC DOCS AND FILM CULTURE” , would be the last CREATIVE SPACE, at least the last in the Daily Observer newspaper. News of its cancellation was sitting in my inbox like an unopened gift. I was going to say like a bomb set to go off once I hit open. But I’ve decided that that’s not how I’m going to think about this parting of the ways with the Daily Observer by Newsco which has platformed the column in its print-cum-digital-daily every other Wednesday since 2020. In the cancellation email, they described my contribution as “valuable” and I would concur that it has been a valuable relationship on my end as well. Five-almost-six years is a good run. We part ways with no hard feelings.
(CREATIVE SPACE placed 3rd in the OECS Clean Oceans Journalists Challenge in 2021, and won the Caribbean Broadcasting Union’s Caribbean Media Awards People’s Choice Award in 2023 and its award for excellence in coverage of arts and culture in 2025)
The Beginning –
I continue to believe in the column, which won its biggest award to date, a Caribbean Media Award for excellence in coverage of arts and culture, the summer before the cancellation. It existed before this platforming and will go on. That’s the vision – the plan involves readers and fans of the column, who can continue to support its output by becoming patrons via Patreon and by other means.
(Click image above to be taken to my patreon )
Ways to Support –
-Funding-
CREATIVE SPACE is an independent column and will require reader-support to continue; reader-supported content has become quite common – see, in media, Don Lemon, Roland Martin, and other mainstream media figures who’ve gone independent, marrying reader-or-viewer-support with other revenue streams (e.g. ad-buys); and, in the literary arts, writers like multi-Hugo-and-Nebula-award winning N. K. Jemisin whose patrons, via Patreon, enabled her to focus on her writing. It is neither charity nor a hand-out (no knock on either of those but), it is supporting the work if you see value in the work so that the work can continue.
So if you value the work I do here and elsewhere, I invite you to contribute money to MY PATREON, so that I can continue to do the work. I’m very new to Patreon, having activated as a creator in December 2025, with the intent of building it as a creative space. The Observer decision means it will also be a home – along with this space – for CREATIVE SPACE, my Antiguan-Barbudan-Caribbean art and culture column. You can make a single contribution, pay as you go for access to content, or become a member for full access. Joining (i.e. becoming a member either via free or paid tiers) gives you access to Patreon-exclusive content, and early access to CREATIVE SPACE and exclusive access to related content, with more to come. Becoming a paid member allows you to support the creator, me, in an ongoing way. You can also gift a membership. There’ll be more ways to support as I continue to decode the platform and grow my content (some content may be available for sale, items may be added to the shop; and who knows what else); so, stay tuned.
Patreon thanks – On that point, while the Patreon is still in the ramping up stage, someone (shout out Papine Writing Collective) has already contributed.
CREATIVE SPACE, meanwhile, remains open for product reviews, brand partnerships, sponsored posts or series (e.g. blogging events like art week), advertisements, and more. Contact me to discuss.
(Images from past CREATIVE SPACE content on collaging, art, mermaids, and Caribbean comics)
-Boosting-
You can help boost any of my content, including CREATIVE SPACE , with your engagement. What does engagement look like? Views, comments, likes, shares; basically helping to get the word out, directly and indirectly. I’ll try to keep it interesting so you’ll do all of that enthusiastically but the best part is it’s a way for you to pay it forward without having to pay anything. The pay-off though is that in boosting content focused on Caribbean art, you’re boosting the art itself. Thanks for those who’ve already been doing so; now let’s multiply that.
(because this column has range: e.g. left to right, pottery to film to history to Caribbean architecture)
Teaser –
Current content on my Patreon are my introductory post, full video interview with Anderson Edghill, featured in the most recent CREATIVE SPACE, which is the third post on the platform; as you’ll see, I’m still working out the mix of free, pay to access, and member exclusive content. Things are in flux but I do hope to keep to the established CREATIVE SPACE publication schedule with at least two new full articles plus a summary (like this one) per month, and build from there.
This week I’ll be uploading the next CREATIVE SPACE, featuring art by emerging Antigua-Barbuda artist Dylan “D.E.P.” Philips, for early access to my Patreon members. You’ll want to see what he had on show (the show’s over but the internet is forever and the galleries remain open) and hear what he had to say (I have interviews with him, his collaborator and wife, and another local artist).
Join my Patreon to make sure you don’t miss a single (Patreon exclusive) image. In the queue, are articles on Black hair, AI, more artist profiles, and so on…my lead list is long and your support is essential to the work required to shorten it; though, true story, it never gets shorter because as the subject of my last CREATIVE SPACE Anderson Edghill said, “We have all sort of incredible stories all around us that need to be told.”
Speaking of, let’s wrap, as usual in these summaries, with the most popular CREATIVE SPACE articles (thanks for the engagement) on this platform for the month of January 2026.
“I really enjoyed reading this week’s column! …Thanks again for choosing this story.” – Anderson Edghill, in response to CREATIVE SPACE #2 OF 2026 – ON MUSIC DOCS AND FILM CULTURE in which he featured
They are –
- CREATIVE SPACE #1 OF 2026: IS THE ART WE’RE CREATING MEETING THE MOMENT WE’RE IN?
- CREATIVE SPACE #2 OF 2026: ON MUSIC DOCS AND FILM CULTURE
- In Antigua-Barbuda, We say Old Year’s Night (last CREATIVE SPACE summary of 2025)
- CREATIVE SPACE #26 OF 2025: CAN COMMUNITY MARKETS HELP BOOST THE ECONOMY AND THE CULTURE?
- CREATIVE SPACE #9 OF 2025: PEPPERPOT AS METAPHOR
& that’s it. Remember, support CREATIVE SPACE by supporting my Patreon.
]]>Here’s the issue as it appeared in the Daily Observer newspaper on January 21st 2026:
Below is the extended online edition (not a duplicate of the edition with publishing partner Observer Media) with EXTRAS.
CREATIVE SPACE #2 OF 2026: ON MUSIC DOCS AND FILM CULTURE
Do you have a favourite music documentary film?
I love music and I love a good music doc. The good ones are beyond biographical, capsuling the social issues of their time and, especially in the case of Black music docs, the weight of the music we make. My favourites range from concert films like Amazing Grace (2018) and Summer of Soul (2021); to music business deep dives like 20 Feet from Stardom (2015) or The Lion’s Share (2019); to pure nostalgia bait like We are the World: The Story Behind the Song AND The Greatest Night in Pop, also about the making of “We are the World”; to character studies like What Happened, Miss Simone (2015) and Antigua and Barbuda’s Dr. James Knight produced The Making of the Monarch (2013).
(A screening of Dr. Knight’s Antigua-Barbuda-made film in Jamaica)
A recent social media post by Anderson Edghill, memorializing late medical doctor and music producer Prince Ramsey, reminded me of another one, The Music of Sir Prince Ramsey, which I have since revisited on YouTube. Edghill produced and directed it as an hour long documentary special for national TV back in 2016.
So, not a feature film.
But it had aspirations to be.
“I’m happy with how it turned out but I had some additional plans for it but,” Edghill said. “I initially wanted it to be a little longer, my target was about 90 minutes because I did want to meet that feature category. I had envisioned a cinematic, even a local cinematic release …because of the nature of it and the scale and who we’re speaking about. I wanted to add some other elements, (e.g.) I would have liked to introduce some semi scripted scenes.”
If that last bit isn’t enough of a hint, this University of the West Indies (St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago campus) film programme grad has ambitions of segueing from documentary (non-fiction) to fictional narratives. He already waded into this genre during his years in Trinidad and Tobago where two of the short films he co-directed, The Right Thing (2013) and The Misadventures of Brian and Sachin (2015), were official selections at international film festivals in Trinidad-Tobago and Jamaica.
In catching up with him about his journey, I learned that though Edghill got started in radio in the early 2000s, he always had “a love and an interest in video production which blossomed really into storytelling, particularly in the medium of film.” He credits opportunities provided by Dr. Noel Howell, ambassador at large with the local film commission, which pioneered the late 2000s film festival here in Antigua. Dr. Howell has produced films and film camps here in Antigua-Barbuda. Edgill took advantage of opportunities available through his involvement with the local film community, working behind the scenes as a production assistant of outside productions filming in Antigua-Barbuda. This catapulted his interest in filmmaking and helped him understand the difference between that and videography/video production. “I was working at ABS television at the time…and I said, no, I really want to dive deeper into specifically film; I love media but storytelling, writing scripts and seeing those come in to fruition on the screen. That’s something that really just excited me.”
(Edghill on various shoots)
His time in Trinidad enabled collaborations with filmmakers from across the region, “building out ways to articulate Caribbean stories and developing a Caribbean aesthetic; that’s a conversation we had during that time at film school and then I came back to Antigua and started, you know, working on little different projects.”
Not as many as he would like; something he hopes to begin to correct, creating a couple of fiction narratives in particular, in 2026 – when not at his day job, communications officer with the Antigua-Barbuda Workers Union.
Filmmaking – though more accessible than it once was – still requires a lot in terms of money [with the attendant difficulties attracting funding, especially for fiction narratives] and time, pre to post; the Dr. Ramsey project, already easier to fund as a culturally valuable non-fiction work, though, was an in-house production; so, “a lot of the resources were readily available”, and Edghill was able to prioritize style and storytelling. The look of it was important to him, the opportunity to converse at length with his subject and his many collaborators was a gift, but the music, the music was a discovery.
“I was really opened up to a lot of things that I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about,” Edghill said. “It was refreshing because I didn’t grow up being exposed to those music.” Those music would have included later collaborations with kings like Obstinate, Onyan, Zero, Pan Man, Zacari, and Bear, as well as early 80s albums like Wadadli Gold and Wadadli Diamond, which yielded popular breakthrough hits by the likes of Chalice, Redding, Jim, and Solo. “I was able to get a hold of the original vinyl records,” Edghill said. “It has a particular feel and warmness you will hear the music purists talk about… I remember just sitting there in the middle of the night listening to all these different stuff… (and thinking) this is beautiful music.”
It deepened his appreciation for calypso and for the late doctor’s contribution to the art form, an appreciation he wanted the doc’s viewers to experience. That’s why there’s always a music track running under the documentary’s narrative. “I wanted people to not only hear about the work that he did, I wanted them to experience it. So that’s what it does, the music, carries you right through the film, right through everything; so it almost becomes a character in the documentary itself.”
Another style choice, the use of the spinning vinyl in between some of the interviews. “I thought that was important to take people back into that space into that era, when calypso music was at its peak.”
Speaking of art peaks, Edghill would like to see more Caribbean films made and Caribbean audiences be more exposed to what already exists.
“We have all sort of incredible stories all around us that need to be told and that audiences can find tremendous value in,” Edghill said. “I think it’s important that we see ourselves on the screen.”
He thinks it’s important, as well, that we don’t measure ourselves against Hollywood’s more glossy output, embracing our, admittedly more cost-constrained, aesthetic. “Our films are our films and we can be proud of it.”
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EXTRAS
Anderson Edghill’s filmography, according to IMDB.
“If there are any filmmakers out there who want to connect, you can find me mostly on facebook. I’m also on instagram and…I’m also on linkedin as well, and we can see how we can collaborate on projects. If there are young filmmakers, people who are interested in film and just want to connect with people who are already practicing film, feel free to reach out to me and we can talk. If you’re looking for a mentor, I’m available and we can talk and perhaps even collaborate on some future productions.” – Edghill, from his CREATIVE SPACE interview
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Top documentaries, according to Letterboxd.
Some of my favourite docs, music or otherwise, on Netflix. Other favourite docs, music or otherwise, include Paris is Burning (1991), When We were Kings (1996), Bowling for Columbine (2002), Farenheit 9/11 (2004), Fire in Babylon (2011), I am Not Your Negro (2016), The 13th (2016), Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018), Horror Noire (2019), Daughters (2024), and The Perfect Neighbor (2025) – which as I said in my interview with Edghill would be my pick for this year’s documentary feature.
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Edghill was awarded “Best Student at the UWI Film Program” in 2014 by the Trinidad and Tobago International Film Festival. The prize was an all-expense paid trip and full access to the Curacao International Film Festival (CIFF) Rotterdam.
(Images: Anderson collecting his awards during TTIF/14)
He graduated UWI in 2015.
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All Rights Reserved. Sharing or excerpting with link and credit is okay. But for re-publication of CREATIVE SPACE or any other content on this site contact Joanne – also use this link to contact Joanne for appearances (reading, speaking, discussions), workshops/courses, writing, editing, or other offered service.
For branding or ad inquiries, contact Joanne
Support Jhohadli’s Patreon if you can.
]]>In the clip I talk about two of my Oscar picks which seemed fitting to me given that I was talking with a filmmaker, Caribbean (specifically Antiguan-Barbudan) filmmaker Anderson Edghill, and that I have remained obsessed with Sinners since I saw it (twice in the theatre!) early in 2025.
The full video has simultaneously been uploaded to my Patreon, which I have finally activated. This is the first video upload, second post overall on the platform. I am still trying to figure out how to use that space but I do know I want to emphasize creativity and hopefully attract sufficient funding to support my own creativity. Early access is available to patrons and there will be more exclusive content to come.
Hopefully, you will journey with me as I figure things out. I will make mistakes and perhaps not move as swiftly as I could but I am an independent artist trying to manage multiple platforms…without losing sight of the work…and more importantly contact with the urge and energy needed to create.
Hope I can count on your support and engagement.
]]>(click image to join Jhohadli’s Patreon)
Here’s the issue as it appeared in the Daily Observer newspaper on January 7th 2026:
Below is the extended online edition (not a duplicate of the edition with publishing partner Observer Media) with EXTRAS.
CREATIVE SPACE #1 OF 2026: IS THE ART WE’RE CREATING MEETING THE MOMENT WE’RE IN?
I’m freestyling this week’s column; meeting myself where I am. Where I am is a chaotic mix up of -the world is on fire, how can art meet the moment? -How is art opening up my world? -Creating is process. I’ll write a paragraph on each of those, see how it goes. Next time, I’ll return to my extensive CREATIVE SPACE lead list.
The world is on fire; how can art meet the moment?
I don’t have a definitive answer for this. I’ve been thinking a lot since the year started, especially since the president of Venezuela and his wife were taken by the US, about how the calypso I grew up on, as a Capricorn child born in the 1970s, helped me understand not just what was happening geopolitically (“whether it’s in Uganda or whether it’s in Iran or whether it’s in Grenada or Dominica” per Short Shirt and Shelly Tobitt’s “Not by Might”) but where we sat in it (“wherever a people are oppressed and downtrodden, they shall rise with a vengeance that will shake the world”, which I remember singing at the top of my lungs as a child). That’s just me pulling a reference from among other social studies lessons to be found in Short Shirt classics from 1969’s “Anguilla Crisis” to 1972’s “European Common Market” to 1981’s “Nationalism” in which the Monarch sang, “like Hitler, who want all will get none”. We are the artists now, how are we helping make sense of the world; how can we when the world doesn’t make sense? Can we as artists meet the moment? I wrote a poem as I processed my feelings post, per the US’ National Public Radio (NPR), “the latest chapter in a long history of U.S. intervention in the Caribbean basin, rooted in the 1823 Monroe Doctrine but fully realized in the 20th century”. I may share it (my poem but also I’ll link the article) in Extras below. I’m not sure it meets the moment; in fact, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t…but it’s all I have so far. In the meantime, anticipating the 2026 calypso versions of the Shelly Tobitt-penned “Viva Grenada” about the 1979 Grenada revolution in which Short Shirt sang “no power, nor weaponry can extinguish a people’s will to be free”.
(Image of Viva Grenada single captured from S Tobitt YouTube channel)
How is Art Opening Up My World?
This question kicks it back to the books I read in 2025 and a storygraph poll I took, possibly for Jhohadli’s Patreon, that asked, “are you reading diversely?” My knee jerk response as a Black Caribbean woman reader and writer is, obviously. But, as with most things, I could do better. Because yes, I have read books by Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin authors but have I read any indigenous writers, any non-Binary or LGBTQIA authors? How about disabled authors? Jewish authors? Hindu? Folk tales or mythologies from another culture? Anything related to climate change, rape culture, mental illness, or refugees? Lots of ground covered, lots more to cover because, yes, reading is my happy place (arts generally really but books especially) but they can and always have helped open up my world, and we could all be more intentional about how we engage with art on either side of the process.
(Recipe for Leaving by local writer & Wadadli Pen alum Shakeema Edwards is one of the books I read in 2025)
Creating is Process
Which brings me to the AI take over and how it’s warring with my spirit when it comes to how we create because I do believe that art is process not just product. One of the reasons I used to like DVD extras was the insight to the process and I still consume every bit of content I can, such as Oscar winner Ruth E. Carter’s YouTube channel BEHIND THE SEAMS – The Art of Costume Design, where she describes herself as “a lifelong student of process” because creating is “not about perfection”. That’s one of the reasons I was drawn to doing the CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column; the trial, failure, and “every spoil ah wan style” of creating. Why would we want to jump over that, and how does doing so rewire the part of our brain where we think and create, and the ways we are in community with ourselves, other artists, and our community generally? How will our imagination grow and if we don’t make space for that, how will we heal, or as I like to say process life? “That’s how you know you’re in it, when the mind drifts, when the hands lead, when the work nourishes you.”
(This book on the Ruth E Carter process including creating costumes for Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is on my TBR)
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EXTRAS
Re listed Short Shirt songs, in addition to the in article links, see “Not by Might” lyrics and Antigua and Barbuda’s Songwriter’s Database on the Wadadli Pen platform. “Anguilla Crisis” is track #6 on the Caribbean Calypso album, beginning at 18:18 on this YouTube upload. “European Common Market” and “Nationalism”, both linked in the article, were, respectively, track #5 (18:14) on 1972’s Caribbean Charm and track #8 on 1981’s Dance with Me album. Click title for “Viva Grenada” lyrics.
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(first poem of 2026 by Joanne C Hillhouse. all rights reserved)
The Villain is a Hero only in his own mind
(written 1 day after 030126)
Man is his own predator
We have only to stay away from the “Lions, Tigers, and beers” [sic]
Jaws can’t get us if we don’t go in the water
But we can’t seem to quit each other
To quit shooting each other
To quit dropping bombs on each other
To quit routing each other out of our homes
To quit destroying each other
As if that is a way to heal ourselves
But our souls are diabetic
They heal slow, if at all
We will destroy each other
Even knowing that it means destroying ourselves
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All Rights Reserved. Sharing or excerpting with link and credit is okay. But for re-publication of CREATIVE SPACE or any other content on this site contact Joanne – also use this link to contact Joanne for appearances (reading, speaking, discussions), workshops/courses, writing, editing, or other offered service.
For branding or ad inquiries, contact Joanne
Support Jhohadli’s Patreon if you can.
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(December 2025 foliage in Antigua)
5, Art Week 1 – Opening [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive] –
Shout out to point person Maria Blackman on this initiative – it’s off to a good start. This season is so packed it seems impossible to take it all in but I’ll try to, and if I do, I’ll write about it here. So, come back.
At least a month out, she had a printed calendar and an invitation for accreditation out to media with a window to RSVP. If, like me, you missed the window, you can’t say it wasn’t there and I CANNOT say that accommodations were not made as I took on my self-assigned event blogging assignment. There were still some blind spots in terms of public awareness (I met several people who didn’t know Art Week was going on) but…overall an A…ish on execution considering being 3 years in – other events could take note.
4, Art Week 2 – Art at the Airport [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive] –
I’m calling these one who’s the artist because they were labelled but I didn’t note the names and am not familiar with their aesthetic…but I like them; from the one that’s like music in human form and a Carnival queen evening gown in a single image; to the hummingbird image, particularly for the iridescence of the body and distribution of colour/s generally; to…the last one (that one I do know it’s “Watching the Parade” by Kelly Calypso which is something she does really well, capturing a moment from an unusual, fanciful perspective).
“Watching the Parade” would later end up on my list of favourite Art Week pieces when I wrote about it in the main/print version of my column.
3, Art Week 4 – Art on the Hill [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive] + CS NOVEMBER 2025 SUMMARY
Some extras: clockwise from top left, “Laughter in dialect” by Timaurie Burnette, “Stilt Walker” by Tse Piggott, “Fungi and Fish’ by Addisababa Joseph, and “Bacchanal” by Nyriah Browne.
I had an interesting conversation about “laughter in dialect” with one of the student artists, not Burnette, who seemed to consider dialect old people speak…are we losing recipes? do we need to assign some Joy Lawrence to these kids?
2, CREATIVE SPACE #25 OF 2025 – MY ART WEEK FAVES CREATIVE SPACE #25 OF 2025: MY ART WEEK FAVES –
Another Quay Studios denizen is Marc Xavier. I remain a fan of his moco jumbie series, in which the Africa-inspired ole mas character looms larger than life.
I have one of these; need to get it framed.
1, Art Week 3 – Gallery Tour [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive]
“p.s. love this series.”
I bought a jigsaw of a painting from this series for my nephew – think he was under-impressed – can I take it back and do it myself? is that poor gift giving etiquette? – there’s precedent, this year I reclaimed a book I bought him at Antigua Con two years ago – one of the anime characters he professed interest in but hasn’t read.
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As usual, if you want to support, remember the CREATIVE SPACE platform is open for brand partnerships, sponsored posts, advertising opportunities, product reviews, or for any other business, send inquires to [email protected]
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]]>Here’s the issue as it appeared in the Daily Observer newspaper on December 24th 2025:
Below is the extended online edition (not a duplicate of the edition with publishing partner Observer Media) with EXTRAS.
CREATIVE SPACE #26 OF 2025: CAN COMMUNITY MARKETS HELP BOOST THE ECONOMY AND THE CULTURE?
When I stopped by the St. Paul’s Market the Sunday before Christmas, there wasn’t much to see. Maybe I was too early; maybe because it was a seasonal add-on-day – the market usually being the last Thursday of every month only. I don’t know. But I saw the vision.
“It’s important to support our culture,” said Cleon Athill who spearheaded the Market back when she was a political candidate and has kept it going since stepping from the platform. It was a response to the economic and other challenges of the pandemic/lockdown, providing a space for community artisans, agriculturalists, and agro-processors to show and sell. It has continued for four, going on five, years. “When we know who we are, when we are invested in who we are, when we want to develop who we are, we support local people and …when we support our own, the money keeps in the economy, keeps families going, keeps the connections going, and it, also, let’s us know that, yes, we can.”
Besides, if Christmas is peak retail season, why enrich Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Chris Xu (Shein) over, say, St. Paul’s Market regular Pat Edwards-Southwell, proprietor of Pat’s Sewing Creations (which you can, also, connect with via social media).
I knew Pat but I didn’t know she sewed bags until I ran into her stall at Julees during the Art Week tour;
I had to go to the market to check out the range…and let me tell you, it’s ranging.
I left with not just my preferred knapsack-style bag (which means no Epicurean for me given that such bags are now randomly prohibited), a multi-compartment wallet, and a complimentary glasses case.
“I tell her ‘you see Gucci put their tags on the outside’,” Athill said, amping up the St. Paul’s Market regular, “‘please put your stuff on the outside.’ Because, I swear, Pat’s stuff rivals any. She’s very attentive to detail; down to the zipper, down to how she aligns the material to make sure that they’re saying something.”
The Market as a project is itself saying something about how we can respond to these times. No, a single community market isn’t the answer to the press of inflation on imports and the tenuous nature of current geopolitics (1) but it is a seed of an idea. That idea, that we need to be more intentional about supporting each other.
The market was started “to help people help themselves” and Athill encourages other communities to follow suit. I write that knowing there are other community initiatives across our twin-island, plus developmental initiatives like the advertised Integrated Health Outreach (IHO) Arts & Crafts Making for Business Course. I write it as a reminder, if only to self, that an underlying cultural value in our hardest times has been the willingness and ability to “cut and contrive”.
At this particular Market, Athill effuses about everything from “the dragon lady” with her exotic fruits, the confection, honey, hand-crafted jewelry, African headwraps, local soaps, the lady who manipulates stainless steel, the one lady who “turns clothes line into wonderful art pieces like table mats, bags, and so forth”.
And, of course, there is Pat, whom I asked about her experience of the market and other regulars she would recommend. “I enjoy the market,” she said. “Appreciate having it to showcase my products. I just wish more locals would support it. There are other artisans who occasionally make use of the space, a copper jewelry maker, Lisa Sandra Richard’s, called Exclamations and a wreath maker, Lydia Simon. Don’t recall right now what her business is called.”
I tried to find the name, Lydia, but my google-fu failed me.
In any case, this article is just a reminder to all of us, I think, now and in the future (the Market returns in January), to look around right where we are and see what we have right here. Need inspiration, revisit this year’s CREATIVE SPACE archives which just this year shouted out, among others, Elvie’s Pottery, Antilles Stillhouse, art studios like Quay and Zemi in Redcliffe Quay which have lower priced merchandise and art pieces amidst the fine art, and the cloth dolls, beadwork and other handcrafted items at Botanique.
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EXTRAS
(1) Sidebar re “current geopolitics” – If you’re like me, you’re feeling particularly uncertain about the ground we stand on as small island people in the Caribbean right now. I mean, we’ve always been vulnerable, but things feel a kind of tenuous they haven’t felt in my adult life – even through the destabilizing events of the early 2000s come forward. Perhaps it’s the seismic ripples of a global pandemic which took a lot and revealed a lot, especially about where the cracks are – a reminder of our import dependency and food insecurity for one. Perhaps it’s the concurrent racial reckoning #BlackLivesMatter that still has us re-examining the colonial project that landed us here. Perhaps the upswing in regional conflicts with global implications, eastern Europe to the middle east and now in the southern Caribbean, where literal bombs are being dropped – and all that that’s revealing about regional disharmony. For reference, see this recent commentary in the Jamaica Gleaner.
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Sidebar but not really – the closure of Best of Books earlier this year has been a blow to the availability of books by local authors, whether self-published or not. Former store manager Barbara Arrindell has posted about having some books, including some of my own, available for delivery (whatapapp Barbara Thompson at 7247094 for additional information).
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p.s.
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All Rights Reserved. Sharing or excerpting with link and credit is okay. But for re-publication of CREATIVE SPACE or any other content on this site contact Joanne – also use this link to contact Joanne for appearances (reading, speaking, discussions), workshops/courses, writing, editing, or other offered service.
For branding or ad inquiries, contact Joanne
]]>Here’s the issue as it appeared in the Daily Observer newspaper on December 10th 2025:
Below is the extended online edition (not a duplicate of the edition with publishing partner Observer Media) with EXTRAS.
CREATIVE SPACE #25 OF 2025: MY ART WEEK FAVES
(Barrack Gallery in Redcliffe Quay)
I’m going to start with Barrack, the new gallery in Redcliffe Quay, because it’s doing something I think is important; documenting and showcasing Antiguan and Barbudan art history and artists. Thanks to Barrack, in addition to works and histories of known artists like E. T. Henry, whose daughter Sandra is involved in Barrack’s “Retrospective of Former Antiguan Artists” and the push for a national gallery that it hopes to ignite, and Frank Walter (who has enjoyed posthumous celebrity in the international art world), I have come across names like Babs Brown, Gloria Newby, Audrey Leah Holmes, Eric Smith, Marrelyn Wison, Pamela Wright, Jacqueline Lafaurie, and more – members of the Antigua Art Society and others who painted the world around them and, important to this piece, each other.
(Artist Bertha Higgins’ portrait on show at Barrack gallery; artist unknown but, based on the signature, may be Arnold Prince)
There is a perception that this era of Antiguan-Barbudan artist was primarily representational but there was experimentation happening; for instance, in the work of local artist Walter Johnson Parker, born at the end of the 1930s and seasoned here before migrating to the US in the 1970s.
(Walter Johnson Parker original on show at Barrack gallery)
Other Art Week gallery stops included Quay Studios, Zemi, Powder Magazine, Rotten Hill galleries as well as art on display at V. C. Bird International Airport, Julee’s and Café Bella, but artist and art teacher Mark Brown’s “Feelings” at Studio 1 and 2 at Antigua State College is a fave due to the story in the catta-wearing, load-carrying woman’s eyes.
(Mark Brown’s “Feelings” at the Antigua-Barbuda State College)
My favourite of the student art pieces was the painting “Market Day” by Courtney Browne. I liked other pieces which included animation to installation to diptychs to collages to mixed media to graffiti-style art to traditional art, but I think the harmony between material (scraps of cloth), technique (patchwork), and subject (traditional market), the blend of memory and nostalgia-tinged imagination spoke to me – maybe in part because of the memories it evoked of Saturday mornings with my Tanty, but also in its inference of the market as a social space, a political space, a freedom space for Black people, from the days of enslavement come forward to, as Browne clocks it, her own childhood.
(“Market Day” by Courtney Browne at the Antigua State College)
Next, Kelly Hull’s art which charms with its colourful eye-catching-ness and sense of whimsy – see the baby dragons in her Strong Drink series (in Extras). But one that’s stuck with me is “Waiting for the Parade” for its use of perspective – the coloured confetti, bright orange sneakers, crossed, jean-clad legs being all that’s needed to suggest an occasion, a moment, and in that, for me, a character, and the possibility of a story.
(“Waiting for the Parade” by Kelly Calypso)
Speaking of stories, there are so many of them in Stephen Murphy’s cityscapes which capture a version of Antigua that doesn’t exist anymore – so maybe some of my fondness is nostalgia …with a pinch of romanticization. He has a lot of these – on grand and small canvases, on merch, even as puzzle pieces – throughout his Zemi Gallery. But it doesn’t feel copy-paste to me; there’s distinctiveness and character and a sense of liveliness that you can almost hear.
(Stephen Murphy original)
Meanwhile, I’m not quite sure what’s going on with Dylan Phillips’ current phase but I’m intrigued; the visuals in his Aurora series hue toward more purple tones and messy emotions that the viewer needs to sit in, ride the bull naked so to speak – to reference a work in progress he showed me when last I visited Quay Studios.
(from DEP’s Aurora series)
Another Quay Studios denizen is Marc Xavier. I remain a fan of his moco jumbie series, in which the Africa-inspired ole mas character looms larger than life.
(from Marc Xavier’s Mokojumbie series)
Finally, Heather Doram had to make this list and not just because she is the icon she is, but because she is still evolving; it’s what you want to do as a creative, to keep growing and re-shaping yourself and your expression even when you’re locked in – as she is – on the strength (and dimensions) of a woman which, yes, is part of her art’s appeal to me.
(Heather Doram originals on show at V C Bird International airport during Art Week)
Anyway, consider this your reminder that it doesn’t end with art week; support artists and support the push for a national gallery.
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EXTRAS
TOP, left to right: Art by 13-17 student art winner Summer Goodwin of Christ the King High School on show at V C Bird International Airport; model during Miranda Askie Designs showcase at Cafe Bella; figurines by ASC student artist Courtney Browne. MIDDLE ROW, left to right: art from Kelly Calypso’s “Strong Drink” series at Quay Studios; mixed media art by ASC student artist Sophia Ishnali; a painting from DEP’s “Aurora” series; BOTTOM ROW, left to right, Pat Edwards-Southwell with bags and other sewn items she had on display at Julee’s; art by E. T. Henry; vintage art by members of the Antiguan Artist Society including portraits of artists in their group on display at Barrack gallery.
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All Rights Reserved. Sharing or excerpting with link and credit is okay. But for re-publication of CREATIVE SPACE or any other content on this site contact Joanne – also use this link to contact Joanne for appearances (reading, speaking, discussions), workshops/courses, writing, editing, or other offered service.
For branding or ad inquiries, contact Joanne
]]>Nineteen year old Courtney Browne may be an old soul. Her “Market Day” patchwork, left, and “Masquerade” figurines, right, have an authenticity that’s been missing because, as she herself said, the market doesn’t look like this anymore nor does it feel like the social space it once was – it’s “orderly” is the word she used; and her mas characters use the OG fig leaf and patchwork.
A Leewards cricketer, bowler specifically, with aspirations to play for Windies, and to work in construction and to be an artrepreneur, I have no doubt she can do all of it. Just look at this detail; scraps of cloth patchworked together to reflect the past – technique and theme in harmony.
Sophia Ishnali, meanwhile, undertook both an installation, a work of sculpture combining wire bending and papier-mâché, with natural elements like sea fans and fig leaf, bronzed, blended in to capture the essence of the ancestral experience [slavery to the present] – hope, setbacks, rising; and a mixed media image in which the water seems to move, an effect achieved by deliberately leaving bumps on the surface of the canvas.
Adahlia Parker’s mixed media art is entitled “Sunset Calling”. It consists of cut out shapes glued onto a surface and painted to form a person blowing a conch with the colourful shapes approximating Caribbean coral but really symbolizing ancestors lost during the slave trade – the conch being a form of communication associated with Black and indigenous people. Parker hopes to work in animation.
T-Jahrie Lockart already is; his display included an animated short and paintings of characters. Shout out to his influences local artists Bernard Peters and Guava, and internationally Japanese animators like famed Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki.
T-Jahrie is also a writer and hopes to apply these skills and interests to a career in art. Fun fact: animation is not part of his art course but he did it anyway.
This is “Spirit of Steel” by future civil engineer N’Keen Stevens…and, now N’Keen, while this mixed media piece sings with music, literally, you challenged me to look up the origin of the song written into the background of the image, and, while there is indeed a version of “Hot Hot Hot” by the Merry-men of Barbados, the original is in fact by Arrow of Montserrat.
Trinity Hughes hand crafted nine ‘identical’ images of national hero and cricketing legend Sir Vivian Richards, mirroring the pop art made popular by America’s Andy Warhol who did a similar thing with US celebs, notably Marilyn Monroe.
This is “Belly-Full”, acrylic on canvas; a painting of a mango tree with its creator Joyce Murray-Watkins. It is a dyptch, a type of painting in two parts, joined together though apart.
Some extras: clockwise from top left, “Laughter in dialect” by Timaurie Burnette, “Stilt Walker” by Tse Piggott, “Fungi and Fish’ by Addisababa Joseph, and “Bacchanal” by Nyriah Browne.
Finally, art by the teacher Mark Brown, like this one which makes me think of the mythology of African-Caribbean and African-American people related to flight (perhaps because the most recent story I read is “Flight”, the closer in Olive Senior’s the pain tree).
His other pieces on show (to December 3rd) a mix of portraiture and his signature symbol-rich, fantasy-leaning conceptual art. Two examples of what I mean are “Foul”, left, and “Feelings”, right. I hope I got those names right. I especially love “Feelings”, the one on the left by whatever name.
So, yes, I enjoyed my visit to the student art exhibition at the Antigua Barbuda State College, and you’ll be happy to know that the pieces are available for sale because these students are also learning the business of art.
My only gripe about the visit has nothing to do with the exhibition or exhibitors – who were all polite and articulate – but with getting interrogated on my way up the hill due to my ‘inappropriate’ footwear – no sandals allowed on college hill, apparently.
& no “knapsacks” while shopping for food in Epicurean and no shoulders while renewing your driver’s license or buying stamps or doing business in any other public buildings; don’t mind me, just irritated with all the body policing. I’m just here to look at some art.
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Let’s wrap this up with the usual summary of the month that was on this platform. The latest article “CREATIVE SPACE #24 OF 2025 – RECOVERING STORIES LOST (THE TAINOS)” got some traction on Bluesky, including a share with this comment, “Great article on indigenous Caribbean history.” It is, at this post, the 5th most popular CREATIVE SPACE post of November 2025.
4 to 1 below…
(Another painting of Sir Viv, this one at Julees, one of the stops on the Gallery Tour I wrote about in Art Week3)
CREATIVE SPACE #23 OF 2025 – WHAT I LEARNED AT THE INDEPENDENCE FOOD FAIR
ART WEEK 1 – OPENING [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive]
ART WEEK 2 – ART AT THE AIRPORT [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive]
Told you it would connect back. Happy to see that y’all are vibing with the art week coverage – I appreciate the engagement.
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As usual, if you want to support, remember the CREATIVE SPACE platform is open for brand partnerships, sponsored posts, advertising opportunities, product reviews, or for any other business, send inquires to [email protected]
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Previous CREATIVE SPACE Antigua-Barbuda Art Week Coverage –
Art Week 3 – Gallery Tour [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive]
Art Week 2 – Art at the Airport [CREATIVE SPACE digital exclusive]
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