21st Annual St. John Arts Festival Virtual Zine

SJAF

The 21st Anniversary Virtual Edition

St. John Arts Festival

Maintaining a legacy of art appreciation on Sin Jan.

For the past 20 years, the St. John Arts Festival has been organized and staged in Cruz Bay by its nonprofit, St. John Arts Festival, INC., founded by Mr. Frank Langley. The annual week-long festival’s mission has been to bring to the fore the history, tradition and culture of the people of St. John. The festival features the music, dance, arts and crafts of the predominantly Black multi racial and multi ethnic St. John community, and has traditionally had the support of Virgin Islands Council on the Arts, the USVI Department of Tourism and many other sponsors. Past performers have included the Love City Pan Dragons, the Caribbean Ritual Dancers, Koko and the Sunshine Band, and many others. A film screening, a children’s art show, multiple concerts, and a food and craft exhibition are typically included in the week-long festival.

In 2020, Langley initiated discussions to pass the torch of organizing the festival to the nonprofit The St. John Heritage Collective, known as St.JanCo. The St. John Heritage Collective is a community land trust, on the small island of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) on a mission to preserve the history, identity, and culture of St. John’s people, especially those whose ancestry on St. John predates the 1917 American Purchase of the USVI from Denmark, and the 1956 establishment of the Virgin Islands National Park. For more about St.JanCo, visit https://www. stjanco.org/

Image of STJ Arts Festival Program from 2020: Frank Langley

St.JanCo began as a youth-led subcommittee of the Virgin Islands Unity Day Group. The group was led by Dr. Hadiya Sewer and Kurt Marsh Jr., two Black and Indigenous St. Johnians with ancestry in the Virgin Islands (British and U.S.) that predates the mid1700's.

After a few years of inter-generational community organizing with elders in the Group, it became apparent there was a need for accessible spaces on St. John for its ancestral population. As a result of that work, St.JanCo formed as a nonprofit organization in 2018 after Hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged St. John. Kayden Richards, Carishma Marsh, A'Feyah Smith, Jovanna Laurencin, Raven PhillipsLove subsequently joined the board, which reflects a diverse cross-section of St. John’s population, including people with ancestry in St. John, the larger Caribbean, and the contiguous United States of America. For more about St.JanCo’s board visit: https://www.stjanco.org/our-team

For the festival’s 21st year, St.JanCo has continued the work of the St. John Arts Festival nonprofit, honoring its two decade history while inviting this generation to carry the torch forward with the festival temporarily moving online. With the help of our project coordinator, Savannah Anthony, St.JanCo created this SJAF Zine, which aims to establish a publicly-accessible archive of virtual demonstrations, performances, and photos.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

The cultural arts, at work.

Portrait of Hadiya Sewer: EWP Photos

The arts often serve as a vehicle for working through some of life’s most pressing questions. Who are we? What impact do we hope to leave on those around us? Amid the struggles and triumphs that comprise the fullness of the human experience, who are we hoping to become? The recent global pandemic, the climate crisis, the displacement of the island’s ancestral people, and the longue durée of the colonial order have brought us to this critical time. As a community, we too are called to answer urgent questions about how we arrived at this challenging present and what resources we have to chart a better future. At St.JanCo: the St. John Heritage Collective, we believe in preserving the history, identity, and culture of St. John’s people as a key part of our social justice praxis. Arts and culture, therefore, is a way of working through our identity, remembering who we are, refashioning our humanity, and tracing our connection to our Ancestors and the land.

It was an absolute pleasure working alongside the St.JanCo Team and members of our community to create the St. John Arts Festival Magazine. St.JanCo is pleased to have the opportunity to inherit the St. John Arts Festival from Mr. Frank Langley. We are grateful for his diligent work over the years and his willingness to pass the baton to us. It is an honor to be entrusted with keeping the St. John Arts Festival alive. Given the current COVID-19 pandemic, we thought that it would be best to create a digital venue for appreciating the St. John Arts. Therefore, this digital magazine hopes to provide a glimpse of the beauty, power, knowledge, and emotive force behind St. John artists and their crafts until it is safe for us to gather again in person. I am immensely grateful to everyone who made this digital magazine possible — the St.JanCo Board, our Project Manager Savannah Lyons Anthony, and each and every artist, photographer, and videographer who brought the St. John Arts Festival Magazine to life.

Please enjoy this digital magazine. In it, you will find interviews with St. John artists and culture bearers, performances, and photos of food culture, traditional arts, and the contemporary arts landscape of St. John. We hope that you are as moved and inspired by the St. John arts as we are and we look forward to the possibility of seeing you in person at a future St. John Arts Festival.

St.JanCo President, Hadiya Sewer, Ph.D.

Photos from previous years Festivals, by

Edward Cazaubon.

Untitled: Kurt Marsh, Jr.

Introduction

President's Message

Hadiya Sewer, Ph.D.

Reflections of past Festivals

Edward Cazaubon

Contents

Yisrael Petersen

The Story of the Mocko Jumbie

Esther Frett

A visit to the Pink Corner

Faye Fredericks & Patrice Harley

Anansi Storytelling

Casey Giakas

Clay: A Humbling Medium

Victor Provost & Love City Pan Dragons

Pan, in motion

Karen Samuel

Hadiya Sewer in conversation at Kareso Studio

Sing St. John

Tribute to Mahlon “Koko” Pickering

Priscilla Hintz Rivera-Knight & Dr. Hadiya Sewer

Coquito & Guavaberry Rum Making

Conclusion

YISRAEL PETERSEN

The Story of the Mocko Jumbie

Yisrael Allan Petersen is a legendary Mocko Jumbie born and raised on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. He was recruited at a young age to be part of the first Mocko Jumbie Troupe assembled in the early 70s by Alvin Ali Paul. Through his passion and talent for this art form, he has showcased Virgin Islands culture across the United States and the Caribbean.

St.JanCo met with Petersen at locations across St. John in March 2021 to discuss the history and practice of Mocko Jumbie, and why the art form should remain valued as an essential one in the Virgin Islands today.

Videography by Rock City Media Solutions

https://www.rockcitymediasolutions.com/ @rockcitymediasolutions @ rockcitymediasolutions

Untitled, David Knight, Jr.

ESTHER FRETT

A visit to the Pink Corner

St.JanCo visited Coral Bay’s Ekaete Pink Corner, the restaurant and artist studio of long-time St. John Arts Festival participant, Esther Frett. Ms. Frett generously shared her wisdom gleaned from her years of experience of crafting hand-made dolls from various found and created materials.

https://www.facebook.com/Ekaete-PinkCorner-1526801170907606/ https://tsunamis-shop.myshopify.com/ @tsunamisphotography

(340) 244-8583

@tsunamisphotography

Ekaete Pink Corner

Photography by Tsunami’s Photography

The story behind my topsy-turvy dolls is I used to do home-care nursing. And this lady was missing her grandchildren and I started making these dolls for her. She told me you need to do this more often.

I started making dolls with my aunt. I was just about nine year old. I started doing needle point and then I started sewing. I put it all in perspective sometime around when I was 19 years old. I used to do them for friends and family. Some people would offer some money. But I starting doing this as a hobby. Craft is very therapeutic.

One of the things I saw when I came to [the Virgin Islands] was that craft was dying out. I used to be around older people and they used to talk about what they used to do when they were younger. In my mind, I started listening to them and started creating. Craft is something we need to share. What I have in my head, I’m going to die with it. If you share it, it can go on.

I make the dolls' clothing with luffa sponge, dried banana leaves, coconut husk, anything. I just get creative. The expressions depend on my mood. I do everything, the outfit, then I give them personality, the hair and the face. If I’m in a happy mood I give them earrings and necklaces and things like that. The more I sit with things and play around, the more I get creative.

Most of my dolls, I cannot have two of the same kind, because I create the pattern in my head. Unless I write things down, there are not two of the same, identical. Sometimes you do get attached to the dolls. If you have the love and passion for it.

As Black women – or I should say women of culture – there is so much we can pass on to our children. I find these days, children are so into computers and handheld games, they don’t have time.

My restaurant, when you walk in I want it to feel like a home away from home. My restaurant is local, I do local food. Caribbean food. I don’t only just cook. I want you to enjoy my food. Regardless how busy I am in that kitchen, I will slip away and say hello, how are you, how was your meal. I don’t want to cater for a hundred guests.

ORAL TRADITION

Griots & African Folklore

In 2018 St.JanCo invited the public to celebrate V.I. history, culture, and identity through storytelling at an event open to the public at the St. John School of the Arts. The event featured live performance of traditional Anansi stories for children ages 3 to 15, told by St. John community Griots. Anansi Stories are a popular form of traditional storytelling across the African Diaspora. The event aimed at keeping the oral culture alive through sharing a day of fun, moral lessons, and traditional knowledge with the young people of St. John. The event was sponsored in part by the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park, Love City Car Ferries, and the St. John School of the Arts.

Participants agreed to allow their performances to be shared as part of the online St. John Arts Festival to reach audiences who missed the event when it was held in-person.

Videography by William Stelzer @wstelzer

PATRICE HARLEY

Anansi and Sis Iguana

Big Theresa

Patrice Harley is a retired educator, avid athlete, lover of youth learning, and master storyteller. From St. Thomas, she married ex St. John Administrator Julien Harley, over 40 years ago, and has lived on St. John since. She has been storytelling most of her life and developed a passion for the craft through her realization of people’s reactions to words. Mrs. Harley has a unique method of delivery – often getting fully into character – with Anansi the Spider her favorite!

FAYE FREDERICKS

Anansi and Tiger's Stew

Monkey and Tiger

Faye Fredericks is an ancestral and authentic Sin Johnian having been born on the island. She has lived here all of her life and has always loved listening to and sharing stories. The love for the art form was developed during her experience as a Librarian in our public school system, and She Loves sharing her culture with all, and appreciates every opportunity to express her love and passion as a Virgin Islands Griot!

Untitled, Kurt G. Marsh, Jr.

ST. JOHN POTTERY with CASEY GIAKAS

Clay: A Humbling Medium

St.JanCo visited St. John Pottery, a clay studio run by Gail van de Bogurt and Casey Giakas. There, Casey Giakas shared her joy in working as a potter and the studio’s practice of sharing and collaboration, which was re-energized after the devastating hurricanes of 2017.

@stjohnvipotteryinc

@stjohnvipottery

Photography by Tsunami’s Photography

https://www.stjohnvipottery.com/ https://tsunamis-shop.myshopify.com/

@tsunamisphotography

@tsunamisphotography

St. John VI Pottery

I think the studio is a place for anybody who can and wants to come. It was really nice during COVID and after the [2017 hurricane] - people needed something to do, something tactile, to make something. It was really touching for people to say that was helpful. I’m really happy we were able to provide that space.

We have a very versatile studio. We have four different clay bodies that we mainly use. One is a porcelain; that’s one I like to work in. It fires very white, it’s very smooth and creamy. It’s also very temperamental. I like that about it.

I’m just someone that likes to make pottery. I like making something extraordinary out of something that’s ordinary. I like making things that people enjoy, and find beautiful. Everything’s so chaotic that we need time for beauty because otherwise what’s it all for?

We wear a lot of hats. We try to have open studio, have classes, make our own work and sell it. We have a lot of things going on all the time. This is a really positive place; everybody who comes here wants to hang out. We want to share this knowledge.

The difference between stoneware and porcelain is stoneware has grog in it. Grog is fired clay that has been ground down so small like sand and put into raw clay which helps give it some toothy stability. It’s a little bit more forgiving to work with.

Clay, people say it has a memory, so if you move it around a lot in the firing it wants to convert back to however it was shaped.

We have all kinds of ways to decorate pots – you can create textures, you can do glaze and use that to paint the surface, we can do oxides, slips, all kinds of things. We really try to make it interesting, and think about form and function and how that interlinks.

My advice [for aspiring potters] is to just keep making. There’s so much to learn. I feel like it’s very overwhelming for people. With other mediums, you can see an outcome almost immediately. Our society is so drawn to instant satisfaction. Pottery is not like that. It needs you to be patient. It’s definitely a humbling medium.

VICTOR PROVOST

Pan, in motion.

Born and raised on the island of St. John, Virgin Islands, Victor Provost is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading voices on the unique, and often misunderstood, steel pan. Through appearances at concert halls, clubs, and stages throughout the world, he has developed a reputation as a “dazzling” soloist, crafting an impressive improvisational voice and style. With a strong foundation in Bebop, a contemporary sensibility, and deep roots in Caribbean music, he seamlessly melds and mixes genres. Victor has performed and recorded with Jazz luminaries such as Wynton Marsalis, Paquito D'Rivera, Hugh Masekela, Monty Alexander, Joe Locke, Nicholas Payton, Terell Stafford, Dave Samuels, Steve Nelson, Ron Blake, and Wycliffe Gordon, among others. Victor is an Adjunct Professor of Music at George Mason University and conducts residencies and master classes throughout the United States and the Caribbean at schools such as Berklee College of Music in Boston, University of Akron, Miami University, NYU, TTU, and Northern Illinois University. He is also an Arts Ambassador to his hometown of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which honored him with a Special Congressional Recognition in 2014, and to which returns frequently to perform and teach as part of Dion Parson’s communitybased arts initiative, the United Jazz Foundation.

Original Videos by Victor Provost

Pan Dragons Video by Vivid Media Group

Bach Color

LaBega Carousel

Untitled, Kurt G. Marsh, Jr.

KAREN SAMUEL

In Conversation with Hadiya Sewer at Kareso Studio

Karen Samuel has been recognized for her artistic talent since her teenage years. She is known for her portraits and landscapes in oil. She additionally works in graphite, conte crayon, colored pencil, gauche and watercolors. She began her art career with commissioned portraits of local dignitaries and island history, which can be seen in many public buildings in the territory. The contemporary scenes of island life she paints aim to capture the quiet dignity of the people of the Virgin Islands. Karen is also known as a clothing and quilt designer. Her commissions include wedding gowns, evening wear, pageant outfits and Carnival costumes. St.JanCo founder Dr. Hadiya Sewer sat down with Ms. Samuel at her studio in Coral Bay to learn more about her practice.

Kareso Studio

SING ST. JOHN

A tribute to Mahlon Pickering, a legend.

Sing St. John is a non-profit whose stated mission is providing universally accessible singing for all ages on St. John, fostering cultural awareness, meaningful sense of community, and resilience. For St. John Arts Festival 2021, the organization, led by Kristen Carmichael-Bowers, made a tribute to St. John musical icon Mahlon ‘Koko’ Pickering, who passed in 2020.

Sing St. John

https://www.singstjohn.org/ @singstjohnvi

@singst.john

Photo gifted to St.JanCo by Nancy Coxe Batten

While he was known in recent memory as ‘Koko’ of the scratch band Koko and the Sunshine Band, Mahlon Pickering spent many decades enforcing laws and policies for various government agencies that included the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. After spending the 19 days in the Aleutians, he headed back to his native Cane Garden Bay, Tortola, to recover from the experience, later moving with his family to St. John in 1957 because his two sisters, Doris Samuel and Daisy Callwood. He first attended Guy Benjamin School and then went to Julius E. Sprauve School.

While he said it took him some time to adjust to sleeping without the sound of the sea in his ear like he did on Tortola, he made the transition. He was a Boy Scout with the late Theovald “Mooie” Moorehead as his leader, and was in a 4-H group headed by educator and environmentalist Doris Jadan, a woman he said taught him etiquette and other niceties of life. He later made the ferry trip to St. Thomas to attend Charlotte Amalie High School. Immediately after graduation, Pickering was drafted into the U.S. Army and said he put in his two years but was spared going to Vietnam.

After returning home to St. John at 19, Mahlon built a house and started working for the Department of Conservation as an environmental enforcement officer. A job with U.S. Customs followed, with an assigned vessel at his disposal. That job segued into one for U.S. Immigration, where he was assigned to a team at Indiantown Gap, Penn., to work with Cuban refugees who arrived on the Mariel boat-

lift in 1980. That fall, he signed on with NOAA and spent the next 19 years on assignments that took him from the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, to St. Petersburg, Fla., and even patrols in the Gulf of Mexico, helping to make sure fishermen had devices on their nets that allowed turtles to escape if inadvertently caught.

Mahlon returned to St. John in 2002, got a job as a police officer with the V.I. Port Authority, retiring again in 2008, and resumed playing the music he learned as a boy growing up on Tortola. Ezekiel Callwood made his first instrument, a ukulele. A self-taught musician, he played piano with a group called the Jokers. After he got out of the Army, he played piano with the Jealous Sounds and later in a steel band called the Silvertones. Along the way, he taught ukulele at St. John School of the Arts and at Guy Benjamin and Sprauve schools.

In his spare time, Mahlon worked on construction of a house he was building on St. John and kept in touch with his four children. Kelvin lives in Atlanta. Tonya is on St. Thomas. Antonio calls Baltimore home and Leah is in Jackson, Tenn. He also has seven grandchildren. For a long time Koko and the Sunshine Band was a big part of the years ahead oh him, and he became St. John's premier purveyor of scratch music, the national music of the Virgin Islands.

We will all miss his gracious smile, warm salutations, and spirited voice! May he rest well with the Ancestors.

Excerpts from a past interview with Lynda Lohr

CLICK to play "Monkey Song", by Koko!

PRISCILLA HINTZ RIVERA-KNIGHT

Classic Puerto Rican Coquito

HADIYA SEWER, Ph.D.

Traditional Virgin Islands Guavaberry Rum

RIVERA-KNIGHT

Priscilla Hintz Rivera-Knight is a cultural practitioner, curator and arts advocate, supporting artists and arts organizations throughout the Caribbean region. Most recently she co-founded the Gri-Gri Project with writer and photographer David Knight Jr, her husband. Priscilla holds a MA Degree in Arts Administration from Goucher College and a BA in Social Sciences with a concentration in Caribbean studies from the University of the Virgin Islands. She was the editor and co-founder of Art Fusion magazine and has worked for and collaborated with such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the Turabo University Art Museum and Center for Humanistic Studies in Puerto Rico, The St. Thomas Historical Trust, El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, and Casa de las Américas, in Cuba. She is currently the co-owner of Bajo El Sol Gallery on St. John.

Dr. Hadiya Sewer is a Research Fellow in the African and African American Studies Program at Stanford University and a Visiting Scholar in the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. They hold a Bachelors in Sociology from Spelman College as well as a Master’s and Ph.D. in Africana Studies from Brown University. Their scholarship focuses on environmental justice and Africana decolonial, feminist, queer, and political theories. In addition to being cofounder of St.JanCo: he St. John Heritage Collective, Dr. Sewer is also a founding member of the Virgin Islands Studies Collective. She dedicates this segment in honor of her late grandmother, Altera Frett, to whom she attributes her grounding in knowledge of Virgin Islands deep cultural traditions.

Photography by Nkwa Asase Photography https://nkwaasasephotography.pic-time.com/client

Established in 1964 Virgin Islands –Puerto Rico Friendship Day is a public holiday celebrated in the U.S. Virgin Islands (in lieu of Columbus Day) on the second Monday in October. It honors Puerto Ricans who reside in or who have made substantial contributions to the U.S. Virgin Islands. One of the contributions that Puerto Ricans have made is sharing their holiday beverage tradition known as, Coquito. This coconut and rum based holiday treat has become a shared tradition between the neighboring island territories. In addition to Guavaberry liqueur, Coquito is now enjoyed as a culinary cultural tradition in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

I learned how to make guavaberry from my grandmother, Altera Frett, who was born and raised in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. I often think of my guavaberry making as a culinary genealogical journey through the islands that my ancestors call home.

There are moments when I approached guavaberry making with some trepidation. In my family, recipes aren’t carefully documented and coded. A great deal of the process is intuitive. One might even call it inspired. To make guavaberry rum, I had to release some of the hesitation and lean into memory, love, and the remnants of our collective knowledge.

I associate the smell and the taste of guavaberry rum with the holiday seasons. What is Christmas without some guavaberry rum?

My mother often jokes that many of us Virgin Islanders were farm-to-table foodies long before the movement became popular. Picking guavaberry and making the rum is a pleasurable reminder of the importance of Afro Caribbean cuisine and the ecology of where our favorite food and drinks come from.

Well, then...

We hope you enjoyed this production as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you, and in this format! As we look forward to our debut of a revived in-person St. John Arts Festival, we champion your continued support of the arts in our community. Shop local, make safe studio visits, take lessons, and indulge!

Let the arts continue to be a safe outlet for expression, encouragement, economic vitality, and simply, pleasure.

STAY SAFE, and STAY TUNED!