Samuel Walrond

'Uncle boy'

Samuel Walrond was born in Ste Madeleine to a farming famliy and born at a time when a pair of shos cost 36 cents and you were concidered rich if you wore a pair to school. He grow up poor runing the tracks in one of his father old cast of shirts. He spent his working life from 14 to 64 following the 'oil' first working at UBOT United Britsh Oilfields of Trinidad then on to Shell. He know lives in a place which is younger than himself, New Village, Point Fortin.

Samuel Walrond - Artist: one of the most remarkable Caribbean artists of any time and his work is almost unknown to his people, That he was never nationally acknowledged for his great talent and ability (all self taught) or simply for the epic span of his lifes work, is an example of how easy it is for heroes to fall through the net to obscurity.

Yet Walrond is not unknown he has a number of peices of work on display including a work of Marcus Garvey at Harrison Parade.

The Trinidadian artist commonly known to his friends as 'uncle boy' is 94 years old and has made art his opus his work is all consuming and his drive is unstoppable. He created his first peice when he was 10 years old working in concrete on wire form with hand tools. He has created some work utilising electroncs but the bulk of his considerable collection is worked in concrete and wire.

Over 70 years of work Walrond has based his art in international events and personal history, he has completed busts of Sydney Poitier, JFK, Ronald Ragan, Mike Tyson, from spirituality and lore, Mama Dio, Parang, Queen Daisy, Lord Ram, Mother Lakshmi, Site and Rawan. He also has Gary Sobers (Cricketer), Sir Solomon Hochy (Former Governor General) and Hasely Crawford (first Gold medallist). And he is blind and lives alone. His home is like a time capsule as he has a mental picture of what his home look like from the last time he could see (twenty years ago), with everything in its place. He said of his work ‘ I must have been hit by the fairies, I cannot be at peace something always erupts in me, something volcanic’. Samuel latest projects was of a bust of himself and of Barack Obama. A man of great spirit and intelligence he dreams of his work being seen by all the world.

Since writing this entry Samuel ‘uncle boy’ Walrond has died...