Gabriel Bien-Aimé . . .

Over two weeks now since the Earth quaked in Haiti, shaking the country to the core. Nightmarish news continues to trickle out, while the aid slowly trickles in. There was an interesting story on CNN yesterday about Haitian art, and the impact of the earthquake. Partway down the page the story is on there is an embedded video of a slide show of some examples of Haitian art. Shortly into the video there were a couple of images of cut iron sculptures which I believe were done by one of the finest Haitian sculptors producing that style of art; Gabriel Bien-Aimé. Which brought the memories flooding back of having visited his workshop and gallery in Croix des Bouquets, which is just on the outskirts of Port au Prince. A quick search on the internet turned up this article about him on the Indigo Arts website. And several pieces of his sculptures can also be seen on the site of the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.
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Haitians in general are extremely creative when it comes to recycling material of all descriptions to transform it into useful objects again. The realm of art is no exception. Many of Bien-Aimé's cut metal sculptures started their lives as 55 gallon oil drums, or as the sheet-metal on any sort of automobile, bus, or truck from which it could be salvaged after the original function had come to an end. Consequently, the sight of old cars with no sheet-metal on them around Haiti is not unusual; it has been torn off to live again elsewhere in some other role. Old wrecks of cars in Haiti, often left by the roadside where they died, are known as "voitures désolées". This is one good example . . .
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This next one was some sort of small truck or mini-bus, god only knows what happened to it, a mere ghost of its former self . . .
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Another voiture désolée was in the yard of Gabriel Bien-Aimé's workshop, no doubt having served as a source of raw material . . .
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These cinderblock walls were the outdoor gallery where Bien-Aimé displayed his work in February, 1997. Our daughter appearing here was about three and a half. The small rectangular piece just in front of her head of a heron standing on the back of a giraffe is one of a few of his pieces that came home with us. Treasures from an unforgettable trip.
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It seemed incongruous for such beautiful works of art to be displayed on those rough cinderblock walls . . . but that is Haiti . . .
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One of his daughters was as intrigued with a foreign photographer as I was with her . . .
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His truck was emblazoned with his nickname . . . l'Ange Gabriel . . .
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And finally, the artist himself, with one of his sculptures which could almost be a self-portrait. A small corner of his house is visible here. I hope to hell it didn't fall down on him when the earth shook. Our thoughts are with you, Angel Gabriel, aptly named Bien-Aimé... he who is loved well . . .
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Another Glimpse of Haiti . . . Looking Back . . .

For over a week now I've been watching the news with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know everyone is overdosed with this heartwrenching story as it unfolds, one desperate chapter after another. But I cannot turn away; I need to remember, to remember a Haiti that was kind to me for a short visit there some years ago. Very kind. So please bear with me . . . though I am far away, and only have the slimmest of slim connections with Haiti, this is the only way I can show solidarity with a people in the grips of a nightmare. Other than donating to relief efforts, which I did.
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The below portrait is of a gentleman named Maquel Jean-Baptiste. He was renting a room from the people we stayed with near Petionville, and plays, or did at the time anyway, guitar for a group called Boukman Eksperyans. Do check them out on YouTube, they are well known. Maquel, I know it's been a while, but I'm hoping you are ok. I will never forget the days we played guitars together. I remember how you laughed when I said I thought you might be the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix . . . and I meant it . . . I really hope you are alright, man.
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On the beach, in Jacmel . . .
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One of the most striking art forms practiced in Haiti is that of cut iron work, like the below piece, which I believe was done by a sculptor named Gabriel Bien-Aimé. On his truck he had painted "l' Ange Gabriel", or the angel Gabriel . . . We visited his studio, I will post some pictures of him and more of his art soon . . .
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This portrait is of Julian and his wife. Julian worked for the people we stayed with. One day I hiked three hours down a river valley with him, he wanted to show me where he lived, and introduce me to his wife.
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Julian and family. . . please be safe, please be well . . . I have not forgotten your home, how you put your chair out in front of your "case" for me to sit on after that long walk . . .
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And down in that river valley, people were washing clothes in basins, just as they are in the streets of Port au Prince today . . .
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The billboard at right here was proclaiming the creation of a childrens' rights agreement. In Haitian creole "Timoun" means children. I loved that word . . . Wi pou dwa timoun yo !
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Haiti Re-Visited . . .and Remembered . . .

It has been a grueling week, the news coming out of Haiti is one dreadful story after another, and the full scale of what has happened is not yet clear. Not only the capital city Port au Prince was devastated, but towns throughout the quake area have been destroyed, and almost no news is filtering out about them. If you wish to see previous posts about Haiti done over the past year or so in these pages, just click on "Haiti" in the labels list down the right side in the sidebar.
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On the trip I took to Haiti in 1997 I shot this photo of a man planting seeds in the countryside between Port au Prince and Jacmel. In a scrapbook of photos put together after the trip, this one was captioned : The Heart of Haiti . . .
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In the hills above Petionville, near Kenscoff, a herd of goats was being hurried along by a lady with a stick . . .
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The caption in the scrapbook on this one was : Shaping Her Future . . .
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Heaven only knows what the future holds for her, perhaps a teenager today, if she survived . . .
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Schoolgirls in uniforms, not concerned about the plastification of marriage cards when this photo was taken . . .
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A sign from a seaside restaurant in Jacmel, Jacmel which is in ruins today . . .
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Even prior to the earthquake, the infrastructure in Haiti was in poor shape. A railroad that had operated briefly years ago had gone out of business, a bridge across a river bed had fallen down. . .
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Artwork abounds in Haiti, there are a number of sources of excellent art, and large numbers of paintings at roadside galleries like this one . . .
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Karnaval decorations, February 1997, in Jacmel, another wild bull loose. . .
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Haiti Shaken . . .

I was shocked and saddened to see in the news just now that Haiti has been hit by a major earthquake, centered not far from the capital, Port au Prince.
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Haiti, jewel of the Caribbean
Haiti, dear sister of my heart
You did not need another calamity
Your history has been far too hard already
My heart goes out to you
In this latest of tragedies
Why has the world abandoned you
For so long
Because you dared to declare your freedom ?
Two centuries ago ?
And since then you have wallowed
In the mire of chaos, anarchy, greed
But poverty for most, dire poverty
And the world looks away
While day in and day out
Your people starve
Just a short flight
From the richest country on Earth
You lie abandoned
A nightmare in paradise
And now another chapter of horror
Has opened in your ongoing saga
Haiti I cry for you
And I know not
What to do
Other than write
These hopeless words
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Like a raging bull the earthquake tore down whole streets. Haiti holds a soft spot in my heart after a visit there in February, 1997, at Carnaval time. This photo of bull masks was shot in Jacmel, on the south coast of Haiti. The Carnaval parades are full of colorful, and sometimes terrifying figures . . .
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Haiti is a country with many demons, past and present. Some of them come out for Carnaval. . .
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I read in the news tonight that although the presidential palace was damaged, President René Preval was unhurt. The gentleman at the center of this photo in the white hat is none other than President René Preval. When he saw me taking a picture of him, he very kindly reached into his personal cooler of beer, and handed down a cold can of Heineken to me. Now that was hospitality to appreciate. Mr. Preval, I wish you all possible courage in dealing with this latest catastrophe. You hold one of the hardest jobs in the world today. At least as hard as President Obama's job.
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Across the street from the president's platform, one of his guards was visible with a sub-machine gun . . . Haiti remains a dangerously violent place. One cannot be too careful there. So many sad stories can be found if one digs a little. Perhaps better not to dig.
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Yet Haiti is a country of beautifully proud people, like these three women photographed in a remote river valley where I walked three hours to go see the family of a man working for the people we stayed with there . . .
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Haiti is densely populated, perhaps a bit like India, with people everywhere one goes . . . This shot is of Kenscoff Market, in the hills above Petionville. Not far from Port au Prince. I hope these good people were not too hard hit.
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Haiti is a desperately poor nation. This corrugated metal shack was not by any stretch of the imagination an unusual sight. In a hand-bound book of photos I put together after the trip to Haiti I gave this one the caption : Brokedown Palace . . . in reference to the Grateful Dead song by that name. "Gonna leave this brokedown palace, on my hands and my knees . . ."
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Heavy Haitian Machinery . . .

Not too long ago I did a post about the side of a mountain being torn down in Haiti, being mined for minerals. In the following three photos (that's right Loulou, count 'em, 1 - 2 - 3 !) are some of the heavy machinery used for tearing down a mountain and carting it off. This of course begs the question as to whether the mountain wanted to be torn down or not. But the mountain was not answering quickly, as it was probably reasoning in geologic time rather than human time measured in greedy minutes.
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Sometimes I wish I had some similar heavy equipment to clear away some of the deadwood that's grown up in great thickets in certain parts of my life. I will not bore you to tears with a long list of woes, but if I had a bulldozer like this one to clear off the piles of tax forms and bills and car repair estimates and cat hair off the top of my desk, that would already be a good start. So I could have some clear space to sit down and write a poem or two that have been brewing in the back of this cluttered mind of mine. And so forth . . .
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Did you ever wish you had a bulldozer at your disposal ?
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In Haiti, broken down or wrecked cars are called "voitures désolées", or sorry, desolate old cars. This is a bulldozer désolé, and a camion désolé . . .
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And after I was done using the bulldozer, I'd probably be wanting a truck just like this one to haul all the plowed off junk to the great galactic dump in the sky . . . (note the rock under the back wheel to keep it from rolling off . . . does it have any brakes ?)
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Evolution . . .

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Three photos from the previously mentioned trip to Haiti in 1997.
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In a small book I put together shortly after the trip, this photo was given the caption :
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Holding Pattern
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In Jacmel, on the southern coast

A boat was washed up into a street in a storm

No doubt in one of the hurricanes

That sometimes lash those shores

There was no reason to move it

So it stayed

People passing by

Pay it little notice . . .

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"Old man look at my life, I'm alot like you were . . .

I'm all alone at last . . ." (Neil Young)

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From a child, to a woman, to an old man

The stages of life, and all the world's a stage

Evolution in a series of photos

There are those who would deny

Who would deny evolution

Preferring to believe

In miracles

But I know

The clock is ticking . . .

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Goat's Head Soup . . .

While visiting Haiti in 1997, as mentioned in a few previous posts, I photographed this worked iron goat, which was a piece in the personal collection of haitian folk art belonging to Rudi Stern. After the returning from the trip, I put together a hand-bound collection of photos done in Haiti, of which only two copies were produced. The caption I wrote under this photo was : "Land Scape Goat". And it was incredibly heavy . . .
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This second piece was shot in a haitian cemetery, where some real live goats were frolicking about. . . kids will be kids . . .
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Jacmel to Port-au-Prince Express !

Haiti was, in the 18th century, one of the richest colonies in the French empire. Coffee, sugar in plenty. Early in the 19th century, Haiti won her independence from France, and then rapidly descended into the disorder of dictatorships and political turmoil from which it has never really escaped in over 200 years. What a history there is to be found there when one digs a little. Before visiting Haiti and hearing stories in situ, I had had no idea that the United States had engaged in a complete and often brutal military occupation of Haiti for 19 years, from 1915 to 1934. We never learned that in any of the history classes I had in school. For some reason that pisses me off just a bit. As though some parts of American History weren't fit to mention in public schools.
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Jacmel, Haiti, was clearly once a beautiful colonial city, the remnants of former beauty are everywhere there. But Jacmel, like the rest of the country, has fallen on hard times. This ancient truck symbolized all of that and more for this traveller. ZA - 188 Jacmel Port-au-P express . . . at your service . . .
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Tearing Down a Mountain . . .

A few past posts in these pages, and more to come with a little patience, expounded on photos taken during a trip to Haiti in February, 1997. Through a convoluted series of coincidences we were invited to stay in a house in Petionville which belonged to Alice Izmery, the sister of Antoine Izmery, who was assassinated on September 11th, 1993 outside a church service. The house we stayed in, a beautiful place, was being rented at the time by Rudi Stern, who received us graciously. Rudi passed away in August, 2006, you can learn a little more about him in this obituary which appeared in the New York Times, and from many other internet sites by Googling his name. Rudi was in Haiti at the time making documentary films, some of which were broadcast on the PBS network in the US. Several past posts in these pages were dedicated to Rudi.
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Just down the road a short distance from that house in Petionville, where there was a voodoo chapel in the valley behind the house, and a neighbor was a former Tonton Macoute, the entire side of a mountain was being torn down, stripped of white rock, being hauled off in trucks little by little. There was already a huge scar in the side of the mountain. With picks and shovels, backbreaking labor, the mountain was being stripped.
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Haiti is a very intense place, a nightmare in paradise, intense misery for the majority contrasted with incredible wealth behind walled compounds for a minority. Gunshots ring out at night. Men reduced to the level of ants in the stripmine here. Intense poverty. The Cité Soleil on the outskirts of Port au Prince is one of the most wretched slums in the world . . . (for a few more photos of poverty in Haiti I found this site...) And now over 12 years later, I wonder if the mountain is still there, or if it has been totally leveled by the scratching and scraping of picks and shovels . . . I would love to go back and see for myself, but I hesitate, as Haiti has become a dangerous place to travel from what I've heard more recently . . .
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"Bring Out the Coffin . . ."

On a 1997 trip to Haiti, in February, to be there during the Carnaval period; one day while out for a ramble around, I took these three shots in quick succession, simply because I was intrigued with the way large numbers of people and baggage were piled on trucks and transported from one place to another like that in Haiti. Often the trucks were colorful affairs with brightly colored paint, and usually a slogan of some sort across the front. This one said across the top of the windshield, " DIEU RESPONSABLE"... or "God is Responsible". It wasn't until much later, looking at the images shot that day, that I realized there was a coffin tied down on top of the load, I'd been so busy trying to get a clear photograph, that I hadn't seen what the cargo was . . . I can only imagine someone was being carried off to their final resting place.
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The poem by W.H. Auden that was famously used in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral" comes to mind now looking at these images . . .
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
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Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
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He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
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The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
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After the Party . . .

After the housewarming party at 524 Blogland lane last night, a truck came around early this morning to collect the empty bottles . . . you can guess from the quantity of bottles involved how thirsty a crowd it was ! ! ! Although, if truth be told, certain visitors from New Zealand and Canada, not to mention any names, polished off enough for ten normal people !
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(In fact, this photo is from a 1997 trip to Haiti. . . where it can get fairly hot, requiring serious efforts at emptying bottles to remain properly hydrated. . . )
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Time For A Drink !

Just got a batch of photos back from the lab . . . old negatives freshly converted to digital for a new lease on life. To celebrate that, it's time for a drink, it's the aperitif hour here in France, and you're all invited ! The young lady here in this 1997 photo from Jacmel, Haiti, is bringing the bottles . . . what's your pleasure ?
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And while you're sipping your drink, you can contemplate this barn in southeastern Pennsylvania which was being re-claimed by nature when I saw it in 1997. Which reminds me, I'd like to highly recommend that you take a look, if you enjoy this photo, at the work of Tom Bejgrowicz at his Tom B. Photography blog, where a plethora of scenes from abandoned and dilapidated buildings await you, presented in a style unto himself. Enjoy. . .
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Dream Car in Haiti !

While on the subject of Haiti, I spotted another of my dream cars there while out and about one afternoon. And I wasn't the only one who was admiring its graceful lines and low-ride look. . .

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Francois Sanon ; Rudi Stern : Haiti !

While travelling in Haiti in February, 1997 (Carnaval time !) I had the good fortune to visit the sculpture workshop in Petionville (above Port-au-Prince) of Francois Sanon, who does beautiful wood sculptures. The one he is holding in this photo, which I purchased, was about the smallest in size that he did, many in his shop were on a much bigger scale, and all carved out of beautiful tropical hardwoods. Although several websites on Google mention him, there does not, unfortunately, seem to be a site purely dedicated to his work. Someone should remedy that lack of information, for Francois Sanon is an important Haitian artist, and deserves wider recognition. .





















The main reason we went to Haiti in 1997 was to visit Rudi Stern, who was making documentary films there at the time. Out on Rudi's terrace I photographed this painting he was working on, a self portrait. Rest in peace Rudi, we miss you.
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