Campbell
Sana Rose, Contributor
THE REVOLUTION Gallery on Chelsea Avenue in New Kingston is two years old this year and its curator, seasoned jeweller Carol Campbell, is looking forward to many more years.
Upon reflection, Campbell notes that from early in her life she knew that the arts would play a major role in her life. Interestingly, theatre was her first love but she later decided to venture into the visual arts and enrolled in the Graphic Arts evening programme at the Jamaica School of Art which was later renamed Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.
Her determination to pursue her dreams and the search for self had led her to apply to the Pratt Institute in the U.S.A. but she opted instead to attend the Alberta College of Art in Canada "because I didn't know anybody there. I wanted the adventure and it was far removed from anything I knew. It was a totally different culture and experience."
She went to Alberta with the intention of studying Graphic Arts but fell in love with metalsmithing and minored in Fabric Art. In 1974 when she gained her Applied Arts Diploma in Fabrics and Metals she immediately returned home to Jamaica and worked for two years at Swiss Stores but soon found herself in Canada once again. This time around she remained there for 20 years. During this 20-year period, Campbell worked as a supervisor of leisure education projects in jewellery and fabric art with Calgary's Board of Education and also as teacher, workshop organiser, consultant, jeweller and exhibitor, establishing over time, the "Carol Campbell Design" studio.
THE HOMECOMING
After intermittent visits to Jamaica, Campbell finally decided to return to the island in 1995, testing the local scene through a self-designed research project on the Cultural Influences on Design in the Applied Arts. In the course of that year she learned a lot about herself and "my sense of place in that I had been away for 20-odd years but coming back, it was the first time since I left Jamaica to go and live elsewhere that I really felt a sense of belonging."
The matter was now settled. The cultural differences between Jamaica and Canada had nurtured a longing for home and prompted her return. She decided to host a homecoming exhibition with the previous Chelsea Gallery, which was located at the same address as her present gallery. After working at Swiss Stores to complete the work for the show, this temporary studio arrangement became a more long-term agreement where she was able to maintain a workspace there.
But for Campbell, having a gallery was a long time goal from the days of her design studio in Calgary where she had a showroom for her work, which she shared with other artists from time to time. So later when the opportunity presented itself for a gallery space, Campbell seized it and gave birth to the now fledgling Revolution Gallery.
"You have to make yourself ready so that when an opportunity presents itself you can seize it and run with it. It's not necessarily about waiting until everything is in place because even when (the gallery) presented itself I really had no idea of how I was going to do this or where the money was going to come from. I knew that I needed to do something," she says.
CRAFT
It was natural that Campbell would use her gallery to showcase craft because as a craftsperson herself, she knows "the prejudices that exist out there. The perception is still there that craft is crochet and embroidery. I figure that education is what is going to make people appreciate craft at a high level.
There is still this idea out there that craft is like a bad word. You have 'fine art' and then you have 'craft'. Why? What I am doing is every bit as much fine art as anything else but until we get to the stage where there is no distinction, then I need to continue to promote it until people accept it."
Since its inception, she has concentrated on marketing the gallery because "I want to keep the gallery in the front of people's minds. There are a lot of galleries out there but this one is operating differently. When people have a thought about craft, I want the next thought to be Revolution Gallery."
Promotion has taken the form of a host of exhibitions. As a curator, Campbell finds the job challenging with its various administrative tasks, which do not give her nearly enough time to pursue her own work. She acknowledges that she may have to find an administrative assistant very soon as the guilty feelings of not doing as much work as she would like to, are setting in. Owing to this lack of sufficient time to create and market her own work, she finds this aspect of her dual role as artist and curator to be the only point of conflict.
LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM
So far, Campbell has met artists with various levels of professional attitudes and sees a lack of professionalism as a deterrent to the gallery's progress and strives to encourage them to have a better approach to the business of art through presentation and organisation.
She continues to raise standards by selecting artists for representation based on the quality of their work and the originality of their ideas, standards which she has set for her own work. This strong work ethic has had positive results as Campbell reports.
"I've already seen a difference in the quality of work that I'm getting in here. The artists themselves are taking the responsibility to upgrade the work.
"I want people to think of craft as a collectible item, as an heirloom, the best of the best. Craft to me has a very special place in that craft by nature is about hands-on skills and respect for materials.
"Producers of craft have to first get this idea that what you're doing is worth your best effort and that will translate in the work and subsequently to the viewer and the buyer. Without a doubt, most people who have come in here have said that they didn't realise that this level of work was available in Jamaica."
Carol Campbell cannot remember ever having only one focus. She always wore many hats, or concentrated on more than one project at a time, as is the case with her studio work.
Currently, her time is shared between being Director of Crafts in the Jamaican Artists and Craftsmen Guild, choir member, teacher and host of "Artistically Speaking" on Radio Mona in addition to her roles as jeweller and curator.
As Campbell prepares to relocate the gallery to 52 Lady Musgrave Road by the end of the month, she reaffirms her vision for the gallery by assertively declaring, "I want to see Revolution Gallery going as far as it can go in terms of the quality of craft. I would really like to see Jamaican craft with a signature like the crafts that come from Greece, Africa etc. I want to see Jamaican craft recognisable for fine quality because we have the talent here to do it."
