Claude Stevens’ Art for the People
By Celeste Hamilton Dennis
You can find him every day on the corner of the market entrance sandwiched between the currency exchange men. Women are on their way to the market to sell pink flip-flops or to buy freshly butchered chicken. Chutney music blares from dilapidated rum shops. Claude Stevens stands on a crowded and dirty corner looking for the man who said he’d come back on Tuesday to buy his coconut tree painting. Stevens waits in the midst of the raucous hustling and transient bustling — quiet, patient, stolid.
You can find him every night on the corner by Demico Quik Serve, the fast food place that specializes in soggy fries, cheap ice cream cones, and service with a scowl. The hustling on this street corner is for a different commodity: Sex. Boys wearing Sean John jerseys and sideways hats walk with a swagger and talk of dirty romance in hopes of securing a date for the next bootyfest party. The latest dub music blares from the trunks of cars in front of Chinese restaurants. Women with huge gold hoop earrings that read “SEXY” sell cigarettes. Little children scream with joy as they swing in the playground next door. In the midst of this menagerie of New Amsterdam residents and lively chatter, a bittersweet smell of rum and ice cream wafts over the spot where Stevens leans against the wall. He makes no movement except to adjust the painting he is holding with both hands.
Stevens has been standing in these same two spots for nine years, struggling to sell his artwork. The name he shares with Claude Monet has not proven to be a source of luck. But still he stands. And waits.
Claude Stevens was born in New Amsterdam, Guyana in 1948 and has lived there his entire life. His mom, a housewife, and his dad, a mechanic, both disapproved of his interest in art while he was growing up. But his older brother was an artist, and he encouraged Stevens to pick up a paintbrush. Stevens entered numerous art competitions in school and won medals and money. But he needed to make the money last. He started painting signs and advertisements — much like V.S. Naipul’s character Mr. Biswas in the 1961 novel A House for Mr. Biswas — for various commercial businesses such as Pepsi, XM Rum and Banks Beer. Soon, however, the fledgling art community in Guyana became an issue for him.
His native land leaves very little room for the art world and others like him. (In the entire country, in fact, there are only a handful dedicated arts supplies stores.) “Art” in New Amsterdam is limited to replicas of Hindu goddesses and waterfall clocks. Now, at age 65, Stevens is trying his best to expand the consciousness of the Guyanese people, while also making a few dollars.
There is one problem. Stevens is almost blind.
