The uber creative Jennifer Gibson is a fount of pithy wisdom, knowledge and life experience. A creative soul who revels in upcycling arts and craft, and using them to empower women and the underprivileged, she says:
“Success, for me, is not the amount of money you have in the bank, or wearing the best clothes, or driving the latest car or living in the biggest house. Success is when I have fulfilled my God-given mandate. I have done it to the best of my
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ability. I am not telling you that I don’t want to live comfortable, but that is not my yardstick. If I have all the riches in the world, and I don’t care for others and I don’t help. I do not see myself as successful.”
A member of the Guyana Women’s Artists Association, Gibson co-owns Sanctified Artistic Creations with three of her colleagues, and is set on seeing the shop succeed and become a focus for creativity and empowerment. It is “a dynamic experience of locally hand-made” items: upcycled jewellery accessories, pottery, soft furnishings and paintings.
A transplant from Barbados, Gibson fell in love with Guyana on a trip and came here to live, leaving behind a thriving business designing for art galleries, fashion designers, restaurants, a high-end hotel as well as the Richard Stoute teen talent contest, which has introduced Alison Hinds and other famous soca artists to the world. Gibson, who has travelled extensively throughout the Caribbean, said: “I could not explain it. I wanted to live nowhere else but Barbados [not Antigua, St Lucia, Suriname] until I came to Guyana. But now, all I can say is it was where God wanted me to be here.”
Gibson set up shop here and returned to expressing her artistry in hand-crafted jewellery, hand-painted textiles and soft furnishings and sharing her knowledge, teaching private students, including a group of Amerindian women on the East Coast , UG students and designer Karen Hughes-Braithwaite, as well as at Carnegie School of Home Economics. And was quite happy until one day in church, the proprietor of a Linden-based orphanage got up and spoke about her non-profit organisation’s mission to help vulnerable children. Gibson said tears streamed down her face as she listened and she did not know why. She felt God was whispering in her ears telling her to help, so she leaned over to her friend, a Pastor’s wife and said ‘I feel like God is telling me ‘this is your purpose’. Will you come with me?’, and the friend replied ‘he told you, not me’. So she got up and introduced herself to the orphanage’s director, who told her they had everything to start a crafts class for the children except for the teacher and asked if she could start tomorrow. Gibson would not, but promised she would assist.
“I kept putting her off,” she recalled. “I was busy with the business and kept putting her off, but business started to get bad and I told my friend and she said to me, ‘Girl, you playing with God? You see what happening with your business…you better obey.’ The next day Gibson started teaching at the orphanage and over 100 children have benefited. “They have so much potential,” she said with a note of awe in her voice, proudly pulling out some pieces done by students at the orphanage. “They just need someone to help them, to show them, to be there for them…It makes me feel very proud when I am at an exhibition and I have a student or two besides me.”
And she knows well the power of having a mentor, encouraging and motivating you. As a third former who was kicked out of her French class for refusing to apologise, she found sanctuary with her art teacher, Ms Kirton – “my best art teacher and biggest influence”, sparking her love of art and teaching. Even when the French teacher relented, she refused to return until compelled, still wanting to go to art class.
Gibson, who says she loves to be around young people, who she feels we are sometime too hard on, is inspired by nature and her experiences. “Sometimes you are pushed to create a piece…I sit in the bus in Guyana and I am amazed.”
Despite the zen energy she exudes, Gibson, who once defied a doctor who told her that she needed to stop doing batik work, because of the pain it was causing her body, is still no pacific soul. Bold and determined, she brims with stick-to-it-ness which she says is the essential quality for business owners and life, really. “Everybody aspires to be on the mountaintop, but you have to pass through the valley. The valley is necessary to strengthen you. Be goal-oriented, be focused.”
“In life, there is a reason and a season; if something does not work, your timing might be off.” She advised in cases like these to shelve the idea or project, but return to it later. Never give up, she declared. “Life in itself is fraught with challenges and if you are going to run and pack it in when things get difficult, you are not ready for life…Keep going, things will fall into place. You can’t solve a problem by running from it.”
The passionate child advocate says she has no regrets “God interrupted her plan for his plan”. “When you have God in your life, trust him even when you can’t trace him.”
Contact: 112 New Market Street, Georgetown (next to Republic Bank); 617-9149; www.facebook.com/sanctartcreations/
