Two stunning 2001 calendars containing "frame-able" art by Caribbean artists are now available. This is the seventh year the Island Art & Soul calendar has been published by the Caribbean Museum Center (CMC) – a "museum on wheels."
CMC is a dream that St. Croix resident Candia Atwater-Shields is determined will some day be a bricks-and-mortar building full of Caribbean art and culture. Meanwhile, it is an extensive collection of island art hanging in her home; boxes of calendars, prints and note cards in her car; and dreams of "living history" in her head.
Atwater-Shields, an attorney, moved to the Virgin Islands from New York State in 1989. She immediately fell in love with the local art and traditions and saw the need to provide a museum where they could be preserved and displayed.
The Caribbean Museum Center is her vision of a place where art and history, artists, students and educators will interact.
Concerned that the fascinating heritage of island elders will die with them, she is especially interested in providing a living-history component, with elders "walking through" their past on videos made by school children.
While the museum center awaits an "angel" or two to finance the dream, the Island Art & Soul calendar, originally a fund-raiser for the museum, has taken on a life of its own. The calendars are unique in that the art works are printed on archival paper that is suitable for framing so that the purchaser acquires a collection of 12 to 14 pieces of art as well as a monthly reference.
CMC also prints individual prints and note cards, and this year, for the first time, 2 sizes of calendars – – 9" x 12" and/or 4’ x 6".
Atwater-Shields and Kate Garner, a partner who joined the project last year, along with Karen Rike, who just came on board, are seeking sponsors for the 2002 calendars. Each sponsor supports one or more months and is recognized in print. For more information click on www.islandartandsoul.com.
