Tess that children engage in creative activities”

By Hilbert Haar

GREAT BAY – With a grant from the Prince Bernhard Fund, artcraft café and art school owner Tess Verheij thought she had it made for at least fifteen underprivileged but talented local children: a weekly art class for a whole year. The funding is there and Verheij is ready to begin but there is one stumbling block: no children. Verheij calls on children aged between 8 and 18 who have not only a talent but also a taste for art to drop in at her business on Old Street to register. She also calls on schools to encourage talented children to join the project.

Free art lessons project is looking for talented youngsters

Verheij is not at all surprised about the seeming lack of interest. Her art school has more than a hundred students, but most of them are of Indian or Dutch descent with only a few locals sprinkled in between.

“There is no cultural background, they don’t teach art in school and parents do not recognize that it is important for children to engage in creative activities.”

Verheij should know. She taught drawing for a couple of years at the Milton Peters College until her attempts to broaden her class into art history were frustrated. She left and started to teach drawing from home until things went out of control. “There were too many people coming to my home.”

That’s when she moved her activities to a small place on Old Street in Philipsburg, on the corner with Back Street. The place had no running water and no bathroom and in the end, it was just too small. Then she moved next to the eatery Les Saveurs de France into her current location on Old Street, where she will soon have the first floor at her disposal as well. This will become the location for the art school, while the gallery remains open downstairs.

Verheij teaches six days a week – one or two groups every afternoon on weekdays, five groups on Saturdays and one on Sundays. While a customer base of one hundred students may sound impressive, Verheij says that more needs to be done at the basis to awaken the creative talents in especially youngsters – and she has a plan to achieve this.

“I am talking with Education Minister Silveria Jacobs about this,” she says. “My idea is to send youngsters who have finished secondary school and who are interested in art to my company for a basic training of a year. After that, they could get a job teaching in our schools. Such a basic training could also be useful for teachers who are already working in the schools.” This would bring trained art teachers into the schools, where currently art is a bit of an unwanted stepchild. “It is all so pragmatic,” Verheij says. “They teach reading, writing and math and they give the children a lot of homework. Even my 4-year old son comes home with a little notebook in which he has to write numbers. But kids his age should not get homework; he should do this at school.”

The MAC school is a rare exemption in the field of art education. “In December of last year and earlier this month they organized an art expo. They asked me to be there with my material. The themes were this time animals and plants of St. Maarten. I had outlined them so the children could work with it. And they did it wonderfully, they really came to life. And all that was achieved by one teacher who put her shoulders under this project.”

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Verheij landed in St. Maarten back in 2008. Before her arrival, she had an art craft café in Great Britain for four years. It took up all of her time: “I worked too hard, until my daughters said, mom, are we ever going to go to a park for a change? That opened my eyes. I sold everything and we traveled with a camper through Europe for a year. We spent the winter in Egypt.”

Then came the realization that it was time to find another job and to settle down somewhere. Verheij applied to all schools in the Netherlands Antilles – a region she wanted to go to. In the end, Milton Pieters College in St. Maarten hired her in 2008, after a Skype-interview.

Verheij applied for funding to the Prince Bernhard Fund to finance a teaching project for underprivileged children. “There are so many talented children on the island, but their parents do not see the value of art training, or they are unable to pay for it. If we do not do anything for those children, the situation becomes hopeless.”

The Prince Bernhard Fund approved the project and now the door is open for fifteen students to receive free art training for a year in weekly classes of one-and-a-half hour. But a first call for interested children to register fell on deaf ears.

Verheij: “I put so much work in getting the funding and now it appears that I have to start looking for these children as well.”

In that sense, this article should giver that search party at least a little boost. Interested children will have to show their talent to Verheij by submitting three pieces of work they have already done: a portrait, a still life or landscape and a fantasy drawing. “It does not have to be elaborate, it can be done in pencil,” she says. “But those examples will show me if a child has some talent. That is a minimum requirement.”

The closing date for submissions is the end of March, so there is plenty of time to create something. ‘I also want a commitment for children who sign up,” Verheij says. “They have to come every week.” While this project is in its startup stage, Verheij has already another inspiring activity up her sleeve: a Valentine’s Day expo on Friday, February 10, starting at 7 p.m.

“All you need is love for the artist – that is the theme of this expo,” Verheij says. “All my students are busy with a piece of art that are an expression of love.”

The results will not only be on display at the expo, the students are also free to sell their work. Professional auctioneer Antoine Mandy will be at hand and select twenty pieces for auctioning. The proceeds will be used to fund the art school.

First Annual Miss Essence and Mind

Belair Community Center was the center of attraction on Saturday March 11, 2023, as it hosted the first annual Miss Essence and Mind. The Center was packed with pageantry lovers and supporters of the 6 beautiful ladies who graced the stage in various swimsuit segments of the show.

Pageant organizer Paula Gordon and her team Essence and Mind Committee left no stone unturned as everything was well planned out for the audience to enjoy. From the time you entered the transformed Center you felt Royal by a welcome drink provided by sponsor LaMarca, to pictures taken by Ronchi James, to a well decorated stage. The show started on time with a beautiful choreographed dance by former Queen Melissa Boasman and Shanice Powell, then to the opening segment of introduction that was not judged to the various segments which were:

1 Identical Swimsuit

2 Creative Swimsuit

3 Carnival Swimsuit

4 Glits and Glam

Receiving sashes for the various segments were:

Best Identical Swimsuit went to Tasyanna Clifton who also captured Best Carnival Swimsuit.

Best Creative Swimsuit went to Miss Patara Davis who also captured Best Question and Answer.

Best Glitz and Glam went to Miss Jessenia Jessica Lazaro.

Placing 3rd runner up was Miss Richallien York who was also sashed with Miss Social Media.

2nd runner up went to Miss Jessenia Jessica Lazaro and

1st runner up went to Miss Tasyanna Clifton. The first Miss Essence and Mind Swimsuit Queen was Miss Patara Davis. The crowd was pleased with the results as it was echoed throughout the hall that the show was judged fairly. Paula Gordon went the extra mile to bring in two renowned international judges hailing from Antigua and St. Kitts, both with an impressive resume when it comes to pageantry along with our very own Miss Amanda Bedminster. Forming part of the judging committee was also local bailiff Solange Apon, Activist Shujah Reiph, Shamika de Weever, Former pageant runner up Kenecia David and heading the panel of judges was head judge Duncan van Heyningen from Deviage Entertainment.

Winners of the pageant will further represent Sint Maarten in various pageant shows in the region and also in Essence and Mind International Pageant Show slated for October right here in Sint Maarten.

Paula Gordon went on to thank the main sponsors of the event:

It’s Time SXM who sponsored the main prize of $1500 to the queen and who was represented on the night by its president Cloyd Ohndhae Marlin who was also on hand to present the check and the cash prize same night.

Sponsors Bradshaw Executive Travel and Motor World were on hand to present the winning trophies to the Queen and runners-up.

Mr. Connor of Fire Fit Gym donated each contestant a twomonth free gym membership.

Essence and Mind would like to thank all its sponsors and volunteers for assisting in making the pageant a huge success.

Student of St. Dominic High School, Nariesha Wilson is a 17-year-old artist who does painting, photography, crochet, and jewelry making. She embarked on her artistic journey 3 years ago when painting in art class. “I started to develop a truly strong connection with painting,” Nariesha says, “which led me to use it as an outlet. I saw what I could do with art and wanted to dive in deeper”.

“Other than painting, my favourite art is photography. Photography is the first thing I’ve ever wanted to do. It has a lot of special moments with me. Like when I got my first camera, when I took my first pictures, and when I first learned to edit. I gained a lot of confidence from photography. I started with nature photography, and as I began talking pictures of people, I became more outgoing

As for crochet, I’ve been doing it for a year now. I love it because it distresses me a lot. It’s actually really nice to see how one small chain can turn into giant bag. It’s very fulfilling.

As for jewelry making, which I also incorporate crochet into, I’ve been doing that for two years. It mostly started in 2020, during the quarantine. I was pretty poor and I was like, you know what? I’m going to make some very fun and quirky jewelry. I’m not as connected to my jewelry making. For me, it’s more of a fun hobby that I like to do from time to time. But I think it’s pretty cool.

I developed my art mostly through practice. Art consumes my entire life, so I kind of have to practice it all the time. And the more I practice, the better I become. And I’m happy to have my mother as my biggest supporter, who has always pushed me to be out there with my work - displaying and selling my art.

My one goal is to make the individual feel something while looking at it, whether it’s confusion, happiness, or sadness. Whatever it is, I just want them to feel something to think about, something to a related to them in any sort of way. I focus a lot on the human experience, emotions, phobias, and insecurities.

I believe art is important to society because it is everywhere, it is what makes us a society. People need to settle down and appreciate different things, instead of slowly turning into mindless bots with no feelings - numb to being human

I find inspiration through life, through nature, but also from other artists. Seeing what they do makes me want to follow along and try to improve.

On St. Maarten, I am very much inspired by an account called Neha Soneji. She makes really beautiful murals that have been displayed in town before, and Henri Nimrodstein, he makes wonderful images that are of such high quality, I hope to be at that level soon in my paintings and photography.

Being an artist on St. Maarten can be very nice, but at the same time, there’s a weird thing about not getting recognized. We have to fight to survive - get our own income, our own things. There isn’t much for artists on St. Maarten, and I think the Government should be funding and doing more.”