AS TOLD TO BC PIRES
My name is Jackie Hinkson and today, March 7, is the last day to see my street exhibition of art at Fisher Avenue, St Ann’s, Port of Spain before it is taken down this afternoon.
A practising artist in TT for some 60 years in various mediums, I’m displaying my large, mural-sized works in the street.
I did it last year because of covid and no Carnival. It made sense because a lot of the imagery in the work is Carnival-related or -inspired.
My first name is Donald, but probably because she had no playpen, my mother used to put me in a big cardboard box as she did her housework.
Someone said I was a real little Jack-in-the-box. And so I became Jackie.
All the Hinkson children had nicknames at home.
One uncle took a look at my very flat feet and said, “Boat Foot!”
Today, you couldn’t give people the nicknames Trinidad did when I was a boy.
In a curious way, that level of fatigue in nicknames hardened us. If anybody drop a fatigue on me now, it just flows off of me.
I’m from Cobo Town, an area prominent in early Central Port of Spain, between Duke Street and London Street, Richmond Street and Wrightson Road.
My mother tells me about walking down Charles Street as a girl to what is now Wrightson Road and dipping her foot in the sea!
Cobo Town had all those features of 1950s Trinidad: your barrackyard; your Chinese shop; your residential houses, some humble.
Cobo Town was not as big as Woodbrook or Belmont but it was vibrant.
Red Army came from Cobo Town: how much more vibrant could you get than that?
Early schooling was Richmond Street Boys’ RC. Not one of the prestigious primary schools like Belmont or Tranquil, but it was strong. Boys came from Cobo Town, Newtown, Woodbrook, “Behind the Bridge,” Upper Duke Street.
One of my best friends, Mervyn Wells, lived in a barrackyard in Richmond Street with his mother – no father around. Mervyn became the sports editor of the Express.
(Sweden-based renowned pannist Rudy) Two Left (Smith) lived in a barrackyard on Charles Street. He was always in our yard.
That’s the kind of community we had.
On a Friday morning at Queen’s Royal College, for one period, several people, an Anglican, a Catholic, a this and a that, came in for religious instruction.
For we boys, it was a free period. You glad for that! Who listening to this man going on about all this biblical thing?
I have this vague belief of some kind of “force,” a mystery I don’t understand but have to respect.
But I would not declare myself an agnostic or atheist. It’s not important, you know?
I’m 80 this year. Eighty! At one level, I’m – well, not frightened, but aware – I can’t fool around with my time. I can’t
waste time. So my focus is, “Get to work! Get to work! Get to work!”
I prefer to work standing up. I don’t like to sit down. You can’t sit and paint this stuff anyway.
[caption id="attachment_943279" align="alignnone" width="739"] Jackie Hinkson, photographed at his art studio and at his exhibit of murals on Fisher Avenue. Photos by Mark Lyndersay.
