SAN­DRA L. BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Oil and gas pro­fes­sion­al Ken Gary Tay­lor, 43, was al­ways re­gard­ed as a nor­mal child and young adult. As he ma­tured, he found a safe and in­trigu­ing space in the en­er­gy sec­tor, where pre­ci­sion, safe­ty and en­gi­neer­ing ex­cel­lence drove and shaped his ca­reer for more than 25 years.

But while those qual­i­ties de­fined his pro­fes­sion­al life, in­no­v­a­tive cre­ativ­i­ty was al­ways close to his heart.

Tay­lor’s dri­ve, will­ing­ness to learn and con­fi­dence en­abled him to push cre­ative bound­aries and be­come an ar­ti­san with a deep in­ter­est in an ex­tra­or­di­nary art form: epoxy resin, a slow­ly grow­ing genre in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Epoxy resin is a tough syn­thet­ic poly­mer that trans­forms from a liq­uid in­to a hard sol­id through a chem­i­cal cur­ing process. It is made by com­bin­ing liq­uid resin with a chem­i­cal hard­en­er. The re­sult­ing poly­meri­sa­tion cre­ates a tight, three-di­men­sion­al mol­e­c­u­lar net­work that even­tu­al­ly cures in­to a per­ma­nent sol­id that can­not be melt­ed or re­shaped by heat.

Three years ago, in 2023, Tay­lor em­barked on a jour­ney that would change his cre­ative di­rec­tion.

The se­nior process op­er­a­tor said his in­tro­duc­tion to the world of epoxy resin be­gan un­ex­pect­ed­ly.

“I orig­i­nal­ly en­rolled in a sub­li­ma­tion print­ing course to learn per­son­alised print­ing tech­niques. How­ev­er, the fi­nal les­son en­gaged stu­dents in cre­at­ing a sim­ple epoxy resin key­chain and beer coast­er. That sin­gle les­son sparked a pas­sion that com­plete­ly changed my cre­ative di­rec­tion.”

To­day, Tay­lor’s imag­i­na­tion and dri­ve have evolved in­to a busi­ness, Koole­poxy­na­tion, through which he trans­forms or­di­nary and dis­card­ed items in­to ex­tra­or­di­nary works of art.

He spe­cialis­es in one-of-a-kind cre­ations that cel­e­brate the cul­ture, his­to­ry and vi­bran­cy of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean. From sou­venir pieces to per­son­alised keep­sakes, each cre­ation is hand­craft­ed with at­ten­tion to de­tail and de­signed to tell a sto­ry.

Tay­lor said mu­sic plays an im­por­tant role in his cre­ative process.

While de­sign­ing many of his sou­venir col­lec­tions, he draws in­spi­ra­tion from the time­less mes­sages of ca­lyp­so leg­ends such as The Mighty Sniper, whose Por­trait of Trinidad cap­tures the na­tion’s beau­ty and iden­ti­ty, and Mer­chant, whose Build a Na­tion To­geth­er high­lights the im­por­tance of uni­ty and na­tion­al pride.

He said those songs help shape the emo­tion and cul­tur­al au­then­tic­i­ty re­flect­ed in his art­work.

“Epoxy resin is far more than a craft,” Tay­lor said. “It’s my pas­sion. I find im­mense joy in cre­at­ing un­usu­al, mean­ing­ful pieces that pre­serve mem­o­ries, cel­e­brate Caribbean her­itage and bring smiles to those who own them.”

Tay­lor has an “am­bi­tious and deeply per­son­al” vi­sion for Koole­poxy­na­tion: to see its cre­ations dis­played in homes through­out the Caribbean and, even­tu­al­ly, in homes and col­lec­tions across Africa.

“Through every hand­craft­ed piece, I hope to share the beau­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty and rich cul­ture of T&T with the world, leav­ing a last­ing lega­cy of Caribbean artistry.”