Carline Gumbs creates what she calls “upcycled wearable art”—beautiful jewelry and other accessories made out of unlikely materials: bangles from toothbrushes; necklaces from safety pins; and earrings from the lens of sunglasses. Xala Ramesar makes foot-tall rag dolls that reflect T&T’s multi-ethnic diversity.
And Halcian Pierre, who’s been a writer, copywriter and actor, has recently found success as a fine artist with her brightly coloured, Africa inspired paintings.
Their work and that of many other art, craft, fashion and beauty product entrepreneurs have come together in one place, Akimbo in Arima, a store meant to exude the eclectic vibrancy usually found in an art market while pulling fashion and art from its concentration in the West. The store is located on Pro-Queen St, not too far from the market, and looks like a combination boutique and art space. But it’s much more.
It’s a place for artisans from all over the Caribbean to not only display and sell their work, but to meet and exchange ideas. Founders Kevon Foderingham and Karen Kennedy also want to hold art-related seminars and workshops, book launches and other similar events at the space.
“We try to stay within a certain price point,” said Kennedy, as she showed the T&T Guardian a long hand-painted dress by SM Warner for $800, a low price considering the intricacy of the art work.
“We wanted to make it accessible to the everyday man,” Kennedy said of Akimbo, which recently opened its doors.
“And that’s why we decided to have this here. We felt it was missing in the East. Everyone was going to Woodbrook and all those areas.”
Kennedy and Foderingham, both marketing executives, had been talking about opening a store like Akimbo for years, she said. In fact they came up with the name long before Foderingham was walking through Arima, where he lives, and came across the long, rectangular space that shares a building with the Arima MP’s office, an ice cream shop and an optical store.
“He said, ‘Karen, I found Akimbo,’” Kennedy recalled.
Kennedy, whose Jamaican parents brought her up in New York, lives in Maracas, St Joseph, having made T&T her home for the last two decades. Akimbo has a commission arrangement with the art entrepreneurs who use it. Kennedy and Foderingham say they want to foster a familial/community environment at the store.
“We told our suppliers to use the space,” said Foderingham. “If you want to have meetings with clients, if you want to come and have a launch, come and use the space.” Carline Gumbs, who lives in Arima, said a store like Akimbo was long overdue.
“People are hungry for it in the East,” she said. “I feel that in the last 15 years in terms of innovation and business ideas, Arima has gone to sleep, and that is why people are going to the West.”
Gumbs has been marketing and selling her “upcycled” jewellery for two years now, mainly through social media. ‘Upcycling’ involves finding new and creative ways to use items that would otherwise be discarded.
“I’m always thinking, ‘No, no, don’t throw that out. Let me see what I can do with it first,’” she said. “When you start looking at things from that perspective, you see that you don’t have to throw away anything. It can always be given a new life. It can be given a rebirth and made into something people enjoy.”
For Gumbs and many of the craft folk displaying their goods at Akimbo, this is the first time their work would be available for sale in a store, opening them up to customers they would not have had access to before. Xala Ramesar, the doll maker, welcomes “the consistency of having the product in one place instead of having to arrange a meeting area” with clients.
“Akimbo is the perfect space for it,” she said. Halcian Pierre, who’s preparing for her first solo exhibition next April, said she was glad to have “a space for creative people.”
“We need that not only in town, but all over Trinidad. Arima will know what talent exists in other parts of the country,” she said.
Akimbo will serve as exhibition space for different artists. Following Pierre, from November 27, is multimedia artist Tameika Fletcher-Birmingham.
• MORE INFO: 471-3684, 748-7156, facebook/AKIMBO.