Guy Dean

All art by Guy Dean

   

  Guy Dean has died.  An artist has passed.

     Guy Dean was a genuine Caribbean character.  I met him the day before he hauled Cocoa out in Windward, Carriacou, Grenada.  Cocoa, a Grenadines built boat, needed repairs and bottom paint, a couple of weeks work.  Never mind that Cocoa was an aged wooden boat and Guy and I were beginning to show age as well.

     Lynn was back in Colorado doing equestrian stuff that she loves.  (I have watched my sister’s equestrian work – satisfying stuff.)  I never met Lynn.  But she regularly sent Guy treasures crucial to his survival – guitar strings and artist’s paints.

     I visited Guy frequently in Windward, and he often visited Harvey Vale (Tyrrel Bay’s village).  We became friends and talked much.  And we hiked all over the island.  Guy was always looking for (and finding) artifacts of the island’s previous inhabitants, both indigenous and European.  He was always, also, seeking and finding objects with special qualities to be used in his art.  Following him on goat trails and less through the bush of Carriacou, I came to remark, “I know why Guy Dean is always beat up.  He earns it.”

     Each time I visited Guy, he would go on break and I would view his work, mostly wood, rock, and shell, made beautiful in color, amusing to study, innocent in humor, always, he said, containing a joke no one else could find.  Usually containing one or more... call them trademarks.  But color was what it was about, a color that grew by layers, to become a depth.

     Cocoa remained two weeks from launch for a year or two.  Then Guy’s official status became “shipwrecked”.  Meanwhile, he had been assimilating into the community, where nightlife had music (largely acoustic string) and strong rum (king of which is Jack Iron).  Guy played his guitar at the fringe, respectful of the local musicians, whose music he admired.  Respect is the currency of the West Indies.  If you show respect then, good or bad, rich or poor, it doesn’t matter who you are.  And when the food comes out in the West Indies, everybody eats.  Same with the rum.     

     I come from an artistic family.  Mom’s art was entered in shows and won prizes.  She worked in an art store and took home what she sold to see how it worked.  We siblings each have our own art form: big brother is an actor and an imaginative carpenter, little brother’s art is as colorful and fanciful as Guy’s, and little sister is one with her horses.  I am the writer, one of Pop’s art forms.  Guy and I touched on art.  I usually bought some little piece when I visited Guy, and a bunch of the post cards made from three of his paintings.  I thought he was a good artist.  “Don’t call me an artist!” he said.  “I’m a sign painter.”  There are many of his signs on a number of Grenadine islands – they are art.  The name on Ambia’s transom is his work.  Guy didn’t refuse to paint it the way I wanted, he simply did it his way – it’s beautiful.

Guy began to paint wooden rum barrels, cleaning them up and covering them with his cartoons.  “Is Gary Larson not an artist?” I asked.

     The Grenadine Islands, though part of the two countries to which they belong (Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG)), are islands of their own.  Their culture is West Indian (which is, itself, a mix), but a different kind of West Indian, seafarers, not farmers.  The Grenadines have their own ways, each island has its ways, portions of the islands have their ways.  The line through the center of the Grenadines is a political boundary.  The people and officials of the Grenadines live with and around it.  Guy’s limit for being shipwrecked on Carriacou came at about four years.  Cocoa was now way beyond two weeks from launching.  And Guy had no means (nor inclination) to buy a ticket to the US.  So, with what he could carry Guy was put on a boat to Union Island, SVG.  The “proper” procedure would have been to return him to his “home” country, just as the developed world returns West Indians who have run afoul of their systems.  Often such people belong only where they are.  Guy’s nationality was US.  But he had come to belong in the Grenadines.

     Anyway, I found Guy living in the work area beyond the kitchen and dining area at The Anchorage in Clifton, Union Island.  He was painting signs that, as he put it, “tell people like me to stay out.”  Over several visits I saw many signs with a variety of messages come to full color under his brush.

     Then Guy wasn’t on Union.  I found him on Mayreau, the next island north, helping Mrs. Forde in exchange for meals and a place to sleep.  Guy and Lynn knew Mayreau well.  Then Guy surfaced on Bequia.  On Bequia he migrated west to east, from Moonhole to Lower Bay to Belmont to Spring to Park, leaving a trail of art along the way.  He wound up in a tent at the far end of Park Bay.  It was a nice spot, on the beach, a nice piece of grass, nearly end-of-the-road rural – the kind of place I could live if I didn’t have my boat.  It was there that Guy began illustrating my Caribbean Compass articles, along with his other contributions to Compass.

Officially, Guy had no status.  Visitors in these parts are required to have outbound transportation – a vessel or ticket.  Guy now had neither.  Nor did the officials of SVG have official knowledge of his presence.  Grenadine islanders have relatives on many islands, which are separate countries.  The people come and go.  But Guy’s tent was near a boundary dispute, and officials were forced to notice him.  They did what they had to do, put him in jail.  He returned home to his tent after three days when one of the parties in the dispute stepped in for him.  The finest of the pieces I had commissioned for my articles went to jail with him, missing its deadline.  A drawing from a previous article was rerun in its place.  Thus, one of Guy Dean’s best went unpublished.

     Eventually, they could no longer pretend not to notice.  Guy was told to report to immigration with his passport and a ticket.  Which he did.  I went with him and heard for myself.  Guy asked for an extension.

     “You have been in my country illegally for more than a year,” the immigration officer answered.  “I don’t see that two more weeks will hurt anything.”

     I said goodbye to Guy at the ferry when he left Bequia bound for the US Once Virgin Islands.

     That was years ago.  Guy Dean recently died in St. Thomas waters.  He is survived by family and friends, and by Caribbean characters too numerous to mention.

Caribbean Compass, Nov. ‘07