My mother was a famous Trinidadian designer and dressmaker for most of her life. She made winning costumes and evening gowns for Carnival Queens. As a teenager, our home would be transformed into a mas camp and this is where I learned to bend wire which would become a passion to this day. My mother used to say to us that, though she was not a regular church goer, she was a God-fearing woman. I am always humbled and flattered when people would say that I resemble her in many ways and as I work at my craft I am reminded that all of us are guided by a higher power.
I tell stories. My work is a reflection of my life’s experiences; how I see the world, how I feel about the environment, Birds, flowers, our carnival its music, politics, poverty, homelessness.
Time and space are insufficient here to go into details of how I became a jeweller. From Bishop Anstey High School, I won a Government scholarship to study Chemistry at UWI, Mona, Jamaica.
I completed my degree and got married to Jamaican, Trevor Munroe, a Rhodes Scholar and political activist. He took up a position as lecturer on the teaching staff of UWI and I became a campus wife.
The idea of going off-campus everyday to teach chemistry in a school did not appeal to me and so turned to pursuing my interest in costume design and the crafts associated with it. Specifically I began to make accessories our of leather with some early success, but I found the commercial metal hardware available for my designs cheap and poorly designed.
In one of my forays into downtown Kingston I met the agent for Johnson Matthey in Jamaica, Mr Arthur Vendryes who gave me a lesson in soldering, sold me a jeweller’s torch and a piece of sterling silver. I drove home intending to make a belt buckle. You see, I had previously visited the Mona Rehabilitation centre for polio victims and watched them work at making buckles. Silversmith Pat Byer (whose mother was Trinidad-born) had helped to set up this facility and taught jewellery and silversmithing there. I was impressed with the quality of the finish of their work. Later, I was to become one of Pat’s closest friends until her passing some years ago.
After purchasing my new jewellery-making tools I went home intending to make a buckle. I didn’t. I made a ring instead. It was a large butterfly which I gave to my sister, Pat Bishop.