As told to BC Pires

My name is Mitchell Alex­is and I'm a de­tail or "cut­ting" painter. Most every­body know me as "Mitch." I re­side at San Juan, Five Mis­sion Road, but I grew up, well, is so much to say, I wouldn't re­al­ly give out the whole de­tail, but at least I grew up in Pic­ton. In the ear­lies, it used to be re­al love, right through. You get­ting up three'-four o'clock in the morn­ing, every­body by a stand­pipe for wa­ter, you not in fear for your life, no­body didn't hate no­body.

I was the best in spin­ning top in Laven­tille Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School. Fling him and bring him back in your hand, nice-and-easy. Hit­ting a next man top, look­ing to bus' it up! I liked foot­ball and crick­et when I was much younger but, at least, I am 54 years of age now. So I on­ly look­ing at it nowa­days. Af­ter pri­ma­ry school, I more trav­el in Grena­da, be­cause the fam­i­ly mix with Grena­da. So I grow up half-and-half Grena­da, Tri­ni.

I nev­er went to a sec­ondary school. The fam­i­ly was very poor and we didn't have what it takes-books and things, nuh-to be more ed­u­cat­ed. So I a lit­tle bit duncey. I have to say that be­cause, where I see­ing life to­day, you need prop­er ed­u­ca­tion to for­ward in­to cer­tain things. Thank God I liv­ing. I meet up with a lot of dif­fi­cul­ties which I get my­self in­volved in­to crime and them thing. Crime is not a nice thing to be fol­low­ing up in. I wouldn't be here talk­ing to­day if I didn't avoid get­ting in­to these dif­fi­cul­ties.

I got two kids. One in Grena­da, one in Trinidad. When you're 13, 14, 15 years old, you nev­er think you could be 50 years old. Sure right bout that! I wasn't ex­pect­ing, at this age now, to be here still. Be­liev­ing in God is like you come like you not re­al­ly sure. I know there is a God out there. I don't know where I go be when I die. At least I go­ing back where I was be­fore. How it was in the be­gin­ning, so shall it be to the end.

I not in­to the be­liev­ing of the Rasta­fari. My locks is on­ly a hair­style. I had a lit­tle read­ing on that scene in Ethiopia with Se­lassie and I don't think he was any god. My favourite singer I love to hear is El­ton John. Don't mind his heh-heh-heh way. His mu­sic is so touch­ing. I nev­er re­al­ly in my life fall in­to that sit­u­a­tion of a lit­tle in­ter­view by some­one. I ap­pre­ci­ate it very much. I feel hap­py in my heart. I could call my wife and say I was in­ter­viewed!

I like to sleep plen­ty. Any time noth­ing to be done, I just rock back. Sleep. I mar­ried Ri­ta Mitchell about three years ago. She very lov­ing. I've been with her 12-13 years. That's my home. I ap­pre­ci­ate every lit­tle bit of time we been to­geth­er. I love to read very much. I not so good in it, but I try my best. Pick out what­so­ev­er words, try and un­der­stand it. I have a broth­er been in de­tail paint­ing be­fore I, he in­vite me in­to it. My broth­er teach me very good.

If you do­ing a whole wall, you could use a big roller. But to get be­tween sign and so forths, you need small roller, sten­cil, brush­es. Your nerves have to be good so you don't bounce up an­oth­er colour. If is dif­fer­ent colours go­ing down, is very good to use some mask­ing tape to make it crisp. When he dry, you pull him off. When he dry, you could cut right down with the next colour with­out even us­ing mask­ing tape. That colour dey, you cut on him. The paint come like mask­ing tape.

Grena­da more peace­ful than Trinidad. I born there but grew half-half. Is a good time to be from Grena­da and Trinidad. We have gold in javelin and gold in run­ning. A Tri­ni is a man full with love and re­spect. Be­sides the drink­ing, they very con­struc­tive. Trinidad and To­ba­go means very much to me. Things are very much okay. Be­sides the crime.

• Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com