Nation Builders

CAROLYN CARR
Elizabeth Pridgeon

For those who don’t know Carolyn Carr by name, they certainly know at least one piece of her phenomenal artwork: the cover of the BTL phonebook 2009, which features an intricate picture of Belizean domestic life, with a mother cooking whilst her children, various animals and even neighbours are all clearly depicted in the background.

Carolyn Carr moved to Belize from Colorado with her husband and three children in 1977, and ever since has had the multiple roles as owner/hotel proprietor and manager at Banana Bank, between the villages of Roaring Creek and Valley of Peace in the Cayo district. Despite fulfilling numerous full-time roles many times over, Carolyn has also fostered her artistic talent over the course of several decades in Belize, and has now become one of the country’s most acclaimed oil painters.

Carolyn remembers that when she first moved to Belize there was a lacking concept of local art and a dearth of artists (with the obvious exception of George Gabb, Artist Laureate of Belize, and other artists at the time such as Mr. Belisle). It was this apparently under-developed opportunity which encouraged Carolyn to capture images that otherwise would be lost forever, and to artistically record the rapidly changing social aspects of Belizean life. At the time, Belize was suffering a huge brain-drain and outmigration of talented citizens, and there was a widespread perception that Belize offered ‘no hope’ or ‘no future’ to its maturing youth. And so Carolyn began the unenviable task of recording Belize as it was, and of inspiring Belizeans to see the beauty in their surroundings and the brighter prospects for the future. And rare photographic footage held by authorities in Belize City, that Carolyn managed to salvage from destruction, were just another ‘sign’ telling her that she must accept the challenge and recognise the almost unprecedented chance she had been given: to record Belizean history through art. And so famous paintings such as ‘The Market’ and beautiful native wildlife prints were born.

Carolyn’s paintings today are invaluable in the sense that they offer the viewer a real experience of Belizean life spanning several decades, and they show how far along the road of development we have already travelled. Used in conjunction with oral and written documentation of the country’s history, Carolyn’s contribution to recording Belizean change and development is unrivalled.

Carolyn’s artistic skill stems from experimenting with various techniques, all of which have been somewhat ‘fitted in’ around her already hectic lifestyle. To date, she estimates that she has produced somewhere in the region of 40 to 50 oil paintings, nearly all of which remain in Belize. Several of these pieces have been produced, auctioned or sold as a demonstration of Carolyn’s dedication to various local charities and organisations, including Marla’s House of Hope, the Humane Society, the International Women’s Club (Belmopan Branch) and the Jaguar Conservation Trust. Carolyn is particularly moved by the plight of so many Belizean children today who are forced – for various reasons – to grow up in foster care or in communal children’s homes, or in severely impoverished home settings. She realises the utmost importance of the Belizean authorities to control and curb crime, which is spiralling out of control, in order to provide a brighter future to children such as these.

However, Carolyn’s overall perception of Belizean development is widely positive and optimistic for the future. Above all, she is grateful to Belize and its people for having “provided her with endless subjects to paint” and she modestly declares that “I have gained so much more than I have given”. That she has received more than she has given to Belizean society seems an unlikely truth, given the extent of Carolyn’s donations to Belize as a developing nation, and for that she is recognised as this week’s Belize Times’ Nation Builder.

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