The Menu: One-of-a-Kinds
One-of-a-Kind Angel by Michee Remy HT01393
Three menu items on our web catalogue – One-of-a-Kinds, Limited Editions, and Reserved Collection – represent some of the best Haitian metal art that Beyond Borders has to offer. Yet we find that these sections are not well understood! This leads me to believe that a little explanation is in order so that the wonders therein might be exposed and customer curiosity might be aroused to the point of greater exploration.
Let’s start with the One-of-a-Kinds. In one sense, every single sculpture on our website could be thought of as a One-of-a-Kind. That is the nature of handmade art. Even though the design may be re-created over and over again – as our very popular birds and sunface pieces are, for instance – there will always be subtle differences between them. An eye might be positioned slightly forward in profile; the rays of the sun may curl a little further in, etc. However, for the purposes of our website, the distinction for this particular category means that the item is unique within our inventory; the design concepts and execution are quite obviously different from anything else that we have.
Michee Remy and Casey outside his workshop in Croix-des-Bouquets
Some of our One-of-a-Kinds we find and fall in love with on visits to Haiti. We know right away that certain pieces should remain singular works that should not be put into production. In fact, some artists don’t even want to do production work. A perfect example is Michee Remy. He was a very talented and prolific artist, but he only did two production pieces for us in 15 years of working with him. It just wasn’t his thing and we knew it. All agreed that it was better that way. Michee died 2 years ago and his work has become highly collectible because of his signature primitive style. We are fortunate to have many of his remaining works available in our One-of-a Kind section.
Max-Elie Brutus with his floral wreath samples. It was so hard to choose!
Other sculptures within this catagory are sent to us when we request design samples. Any number of variations within a basic theme will arrive in the weeks following in response to that request. For example, Max-Elie Brutus came up with the idea to make floral wreaths a few months ago. We asked him to send us several examples of what he had in mind and WOW did he deliver!
They were fantastic, but we had decided to limit ourselves
Max-Elie’s catalogue piece RND475
to selecting one design for the catalogue. Though we agonized over the decision, one wreath was chosen and that one became RND475. The rest? You could think of them as artist’s proofs. We call them One-of-a-Kinds!
Contributed by Linda for Beyond Borders/It’s Cactus
First in a series of three articles Next: Limited Editions