This anthology by an artist and designer is a work of
passion. I would even venture to classify it as “evangelical”, in the
peculiar way that George Lamming
describes CLR James, and himself as evangelists. The writer, Ms Vonnie
Roudette, has brought from her experiences on every continent, a finely crafted sense
of belonging to the cosmos and to earth. While she writes of her hurting
as she sees that the “widespread destruction of green life is ... damaging the
planet’s immune system ... (creating) a potentially fatal disorder of climate
change”, this collection of 52 essays is devoted to healing and
wholeness without glossing over the
lethal terror that mother earth is suffering. At one point Roudette refers
to the poet John Donahue’s discernment that:
“The light that suffering leaves when it goes is a very
precious light’.
One feature of this book which fascinates me is its tangible
“Vincentianness”. Vonnie Roudette opens our eyes to see a truckload of prisoners in a
new way. She chronicles the loss of Buccament beach through the shock of a
beach loving youth. She unveils the meaning of the mountain rainforest
“just a few miles away from the sea”. She uplifts the nearly invisible
farmer who knows that ‘nature is a marvellous and awesome force by whose kind
permission we survive on her bounty
of water, earth and air’. She touches on the potential and promise of our
young people and she reminds us of
Sister Pat Douglas, and Shake
Keane. Behind all this, there is a dialogue in these pages between two or
more ways of thinking. That is the point of the book; to share in real
stories the Roudette compassion for life, for nature, for people
who can become open to others.
These essays are the personal
testimony of an urgent, loving spirit.
It could be a fruitful way to read this book by taking the
essays as Shake Keane prescribed: “One a week with water” paying attention to
the Resolve in each piece.
Back in 1992, when Vonnie Roudette (and her son and
daughter) arrived in St.
Vincent and the Grenadines, her wandering
spirit encountered the magnetic natural beauty of Youroumein and she has become
rooted. Our soil has sustained her soul, and her soul reverences the
soil. It is from that bounding of soil and soul that this book is born and
Ms Roudette confirms that she belongs with us, and our predicament is also
hers. This spirited work then adds to the growing Vincentian output of
literature, a novel volume that combines artistry advocacy and testimony, and a
different mode of belonging. Vonnie Roudette’s book should trouble the
waters and enrich the reader.
Vonnie
Roudette holds an MA from Manchester Metropolitan
University, UK and
spent 3 years at Kyoto
Arts University in Japan researching traditional
aesthetics. She worked for Japanese designer Issey Miyake before returning to
the UK to practice as a
freelance designer where she was also a part time art lecturer on a BA textiles
course in Manchester and a Foundation Art Course
in Reading. Her
design experience is wide and varied.
She has lived in St. Vincent and the
Grenadines since 1992 and is a certified farmer and
manager/design director of Fibreworks Inc., a craft factory in rural St. Vincent established in 1997. In 2003 she was trained
in natural building techniques in Columbus, Ohio. Vonnie is a creative education
consultant, coordinates Hand2Earth, a rural educational sustainable lifestyles
youth project in Penniston, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and teaches
A-level Art and Design at St. Vincent Community
College.
