Carrs Bay Gallery
Carrs Bay and its environs gear up to be a hub of activity in the not too distant future as plans for the new town centre, the Little Bay development and port development, creep on. Located in the area is the newly opened Art Gallery in the Romeo Wayside Store compound.
The Carrs Bay Art Gallery, which opened its doors on Sunday, March 11, is already attracting large numbers of visitors and residents. Earlier this week one expert said that over 200 persons have so far turned up at the gallery to view the forty exhibits on display.
Norman Roth
“Well the idea was Donald Romeo’s,” said Norman Roth, resident artist, who also told The Montserrat Reporter that the idea was born some time ago.
“Donald called me and asked me if I could come down here and help him get this off the ground and get it organized, find the artists and really make it go…,” he said, admitting that for a long while in keeping the deadline they had set, “I didn’t think we were going to pull it off.”
He confirmed what the Legislative Assembly member and Hon opposition Leader has been saying for some time, “…thought it would be a great asset to the island for artists to have a venue where they could display their artwork.”
Roth reported that there was great response from the opening hour on Sunday when they first opened and that everybody has been very pleased with it. He said that first evening, “was a big success even the Premier showed up…”
He said there were more art pieces and were very fortunate to have find some pieces on the island. He reported what they were still getting were, “absolutely beautiful and just this morning I located another person who does sculpting and his sculptures are absolutely beautiful too,” adding,“I know the people here have talent, it’s a matter of getting them to come out and display.”
Reiterating that “Donald’s the primary mover behind this,” he said they hope to expand, “and hopefully we’ll be able to turn this into a clients room, eventually where people can come and learn how to paint or carve, making it cooperative gallery of artist working with each other and helping to finance each other and teach each other…”
“They’ll have a nice look and kids can come here and learn how to paint, draw, carve, sculpt, build, whatever it is theyre doing, that’s the plan,” he concluded.
Don Romeo, mastermind of the gallery
He revealed how he met Donald. “Donald and I, we’ve known each other form years ago he’s been up to my place in New York and I came down to Montserrat once before to locate artists which we did. They were doing these interesting carvings …a whole pile of them, couple of dozen sculptures and we put on a show in New York and it was very successful.”
The Carrs Bay Gallery opens weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The bigger plans for the Gallery is to get a steering committee together who can oversee the operation at the gallery and get the artists input. The two artists concur, “to see what the artists want to do, see how they want to display their work and start getting more active involvement in the community, so hopefully by the time tourism starts here this will be an established venue where people can start selling their goods and their work and what have you.”
Here is a video
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