Adventures in Art

Haiti is known for its vibrant art, some of it very elegant and bold. Metalwork, wood crafts, needle crafts, and paintings are respected art forms on the island, and our kids are eager to take examples back to the United States.

As we walk down a side road in Hinche one day, a Haitian artist is on the street with bright paintings. They catch our kids' eyes, and off we go to become art buyers.

Philip begins with a bold negotiating strategy, which he uses several times on the trip and which works every time. The artist names a price, and Philip pays him more. "Fifteen dollars?  Cool!  I'll give you twenty." When I ask Philip about it, he shrugs. "The guy has a family to feed," he says.

Several of our kids buy pieces. The artist then obligingly poses for pictures with kids, as a large crowd of Hinche citizens gather round to watch the blancs. But James, our trusty guide, gets irritated with the artist. He thinks he's ripping off our kids by only accepting American dollars and by pricing his pieces too high ($10 to $20, say). Our kids think they're getting great deals by U.S. standards, but James argues with the artist, until we finally leave--but not before taking with us at least six paintings.

Later Pere Walin will fuss at several artisans he has allowed to place their wares inside the gates of the rectory compound because he, too, thinks they're taking advantage of the kids.

After we leave St. Etienne and later Hinche on the way to the airport in Port-au-Prince, we stop at the well-respected Sant Art (Centre d'Arte) in Cange. Cange is the home of Zanmi Lasante, the very well-regarded miracle of modern health care in Haiti's central plateau. (Again, read Tracy Kidders' Mountains beyond Mountains for the inspirational story of Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, and Zanmi Lasante.)  The gift shop is inside the gates of the medical compound and is run by Miss Jackie, a woman in her mid-seventies originally from South Carolina and now a full-time resident of Haiti. Sant Art is a fair trade shop that gives employment opportunities to Haitian women. The gift shop is on the bottom store; the room where the women create the beautiful goods is on the second floor.

We find much to appreciate and buy in our short stop--and make use of what Miss Jackie calls "the best toilet in all of Cange." Philip again employs his bargaining technique to purchase a beautiful, subtle small $10 painting for $15.

Then we're off to Port-au-Prince and the Real Deal in art buying--the street vendors. Two carloads of blancs with dollars get out on the street and the place goes wild. We are chum; they are sharks.

In short order, we are surrounded by maybe a dozen vendors, jostling to show us what they have, flipping through paintings, all talking at once. I make the mistake of bargaining for and buying a few pieces of metalwork right after arriving--all of the vendors are now on me like white on rice. The girls hide out in a little enclosed niche of a streetside shop to get away from the aartists begging and pleading for our business.

I am feeling overwhelmed and claustrophobic enough to brave the scary Port-au-Prince street and dart through traffic to get away, two merchants close at my heels. "Julian!" I call. He gallantly swaps places with me to give me at least a few feet of protection from the vendors, who ignore him because he clearly isn't buying. I finally resort to shutting the car door in the faces of a gaggle of vendors, who continue to plead and gesticulate through the window.

Our crew contributes mightily to the Haitian economy and to individual artists throughout our stay. Johnny has bought at least a dozen pieces to sell at Haiti on the Hill, and all of us come home with a few paintings, boxes, dresses, or crafts of some kind--and memories of the wheeling and dealing.