by Caciques James and Adam

Today was a significant day for Island School students. It was the last art class with everyone together until after eight-day kayak rotations. And, we were blessed with the presence of Antonius Roberts, a famous Bahamian artist, and his thought-provoking presentation. Roberts has worked within the communities around him to create his artwork. By involving multiple ideas and perspectives into his work, he is able to create a product that inspires meaning into the mind of all the members of the community. After his insightful presentation, the students were able to show him our own work. Roberts thought that our work was, “creative, clever and thoughtful.” We were assigned to create art for advocacy, which is sending a message through our artwork, or making useful art out of useless materials. Every single art project was extremely well thought out and wonderfully presented. For example, my group started a fire and melted plastics into a tin-foil Frisbee mold, the goal was to make something useful out of waste resources. We used every failure as an excuse to reform our plan and create the frisbee. A throughout the day, a strong vibe of anticipation was building all over campus, one that will continue to rise until the kayak groups are released on Saturday.