Some people have to work hard at things in order to be good at it. They have to labour, struggle and toil in order to find some semblance of satisfaction in the craft of their choice. For others, like sculptor Alexi Alexis, hard work is a factor, but natural talent is what really makes his art stand out. Alexis has never had any professional training. Yet he has had his work displayed in the T&T national museum and the National Academy of the Performing Arts, (NAPA) in the form of a sculpture of the late Lord Kitchener, placed outside of the auditorium named after the Grand Master, and a sculpture of calypso icon Calypso Rose during the screening of her film Lioness of the Jungle. And despite the fact that Alexis has clients both foreign and local, he humbly refers to his work as a hobby. Though art had always been something he was good at, he had not focused on it as a career. In fact he began doing art in a professional manner by pure chance.
It started with a bet
Alexis said that after moving into their new house, he and his wife decided they needed some art work to place around the house. But the pieces they saw were mostly rough, tribal looking pieces, which he told his wife he could have done himself. According to Alexis, his wife finally turned to him and said, "You feel you could do everything," and subsequently made a wager with him. He said he did a watercolour and a carving, and both his wife and friends were impressed with the outcome. "That Christmas my wife bought me my first set of hand tools, and my friends started requesting pieces for their wives or family members as gifts," boasted Alexis. He said he failed miserably with the hand tools, but after getting power tools he started feeling satisfaction with his work. A learning process Alexis said when he first began carving, although he knew he could carve, he knew absolutely nothing about wood.
He described his first piece of a drummer sitting down with his hands over a drum. "The wood was flawed but I didn't know, and when it was finished one of the hands fell off," he said. His friends laughed at him and eventually he learned to laugh at himself, but from that experience he gained knowledge.
"In the beginning I or one of my friend would see a piece of wood at the side of the road and load it into the car for my next project." Today Alexis uses teak and mahogany for his sculptures, as he has learned that they hold details best. His father sent him his first carving magazine, and since then he has referred to other magazines and online articles to help perfect his craft. However, he does intend to do an art course in order to build on his knowledge.
Moving forward
Alexis wants to display his art internationally and is working hard to force open a door into that international market. Although he sells his work, he keeps his favourite sculptures for himself.
One such sculpture is of his wife combing his daughter's hair. Absolutely amazing in its detail and beauty, he said it held the tenderness and poignant intimacy of the shared moment. The detail of mother combing through a handful of the young girl's hair as she sits patiently on a stool, is what he considers one of his best pieces and definitely his favourite. Alexis is a natural talent. He never draws out his work, but instead works from mental pictures. As a result, he said, his carvings were never 100 per cent what he had in his mind when he began. Passionate about the process of creating something beautiful out of chunks of raw material, he admitted he has had his hits and misses with his sculptors. Nevertheless, he is committed to his art. He also yearns to meet other local artists, whether they be sculptors or painters. He said that a few years ago he had expressed an interest in interacting with members of the art community and had been disappointed by the lack of communication.
