For the past nine years, visual artist Damian Moore has been making Christmas extra special for Trinis by producing hand-painted Christmas tree ornaments that reflect TT culture.
The ornaments cover themes the Trinidad-based Guyanese loves about his adopted country including humming birds, traditional Carnival characters, tropical plants including sorrel and cocoa, parang instruments and more.
The styles and designs change as Moore focuses on one or two themes every year. And since the designs are not repeated, people have started collecting the highly-coveted ornaments.
The idea for the ornaments came to him during the 2014 Christmas season as he wondered what a tree full of Carnival ornaments would look like. So, he made about 70 ceramic ornaments for himself but, before he could decorate a tree, he showed the ornaments at an Art Society art market and people gravitated to them.
People started requesting them and, by the second year, he started to sell them at artisan marketplaces. Eventually, businesses started approaching him and his ornaments are now available at Craft Creators at West Mall, Westmoorings, Junckollage Gypsy Caravan on Long Circular Road, St James, and Rainy Days in Ellerslie Plaza, Maraval.
[caption id="attachment_990433" align="alignnone" width="553"] A painting of an Indian dancer by Damian Moore. - Angelo Marcelle[/caption]
He explained that Rainy Days usually carries ornaments with Carnival characters, Craft Creators sells a mixture of humming birds and Carnival characters, and Junckollage carries his “breakaway” work that he describes as quirky and fun. The breakaway pieces include Halloween-themed pieces, hamsas, and monstera plant leaves painted in black and gold.
“Every year since, people have been asking for them. It’s grown from 70 to 100 to 200 and now I do about 300 a year, but this year I crossed 500. It’s getting to be a lot because each one is hand-painted, so sometimes I find myself doing it all through the year.”
The 38-year-old also paints using acrylic on canvas but, as a full-time visual art teacher at a secondary school, he has very little time to do so between work and the ornaments. He also runs a ceramic internship for older teenagers where they learn how to cut clay and other technical skills.
[caption id="attachment_990434" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Christmas tree-shaped ornaments highlighting humming birds and hibiscus flowers. - Angelo Marcelle[/caption]
“I think I reach them at a level where they enjoy it and they see the value and business of art. Eventually I want to let them do their own designs and take them to markets so they could get accustomed to seeing art as, not just creating something pretty, but the business side to it.”
There, he tries to do sketching and moodboards so the students can see the process of creating art, that it is not only producing random ideas but can entail research. He believes the internship also helps boost their abilities in other artforms.
“They’re becoming a little bit more outgoing, not scared to
