by Ashton Cynthia Clarke
As an Afro-Caribbean myself (first generation raised in the USA of Jamaican immigrant parents), I have some second-hand knowledge of the creolization of traditional African religions with the Christianity of colonizers. The slaves of British-held Jamaica embraced obeah; Santería practice flourished in the Spanish colonies; and French-held Haiti birthed Vodou (voodoo).
My mother was brought up Protestant and covered me in the Episcopal church from infant baptism until I left for college. Nevertheless, I would lay wide-eyed in bed after Mommy’s stories of naughty or even malevolent duppies (spirits) who blocked her path on the dark roads of northern Jamaica when she was a teen.
So, I was excited yet anxious to view “Myrlande Constant: The Work of Radiance” at The Fowler Museum at UCLA. What I did not expect was the overwhelming sense of belonging and possession I felt, surrounded by the luminous work of this artist whose Haitian ancestry is cousin to mine.
Myrlande Constant was born in 1968 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She is married and the mother of four; a photograph in the vestibule of the exhibit depicts two of her children intently engaged in bead work in Constant’s studio. She acknowledges her own mother as her primary artistic and spiritual influence. Constant learned the craft from her mother, who worked in a Port-au-Prince factory making beaded wedding dresses.
Drapo Vodou or “Voodoo Flag” are traditionally the work of practicing Vodou priests and their followers. They are displayed in Vodou sanctuaries and carried at ceremonies. While this is the art form that spawned Constant’s career, she introduced techniques such as stretching the fabric taut on a frame, employing a “tanbou stitch” (drum stitch), and substituting beads for the traditionally used sequins. These innovations have allowed for greater detail, enhanced color, perspective, and dimension in Constant’s pieces.
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The wide-open doors at the entrance of the J. Paul Getty Trust Gallery served to frame the single rectangular piece that dominated a wall at the far end of the room. At that distance, I could only make out some splashes of color and the light that seemed to emanate from within the soul of the artwork itself. Counting steps as I went (6, 7, 8, 9 . . .), I felt pulled along—gently, but still pulled—towards the light which became more concentrated, absorbing and reflecting colors as I walked. I imagined this being as moving and tranquil as that “bright light” reported by people who had near-death experiences. Silly, huh?
As the drapo Vodou loomed larger and more defined (still counting 18, 19, 20, 21), I began to discern multiple figures. Thirty-four steps and I was close enough to identify the stitches and individual beads that created swaths of color and three-dimensionality on this flag, which was about five feet wide. The name of the piece: “Union des Esprits Sirenes,” a dark-skinned queen holding court amid spirits, sea creatures, musical instruments, and an inviting feast.
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Before Constant began her artistic career, men had dominated the commercial flag-making field. She was the first female textile artist to open a workshop and the first to gain international recognition for her work.
Her beaded works are much heavier and larger than traditional sequined banners and they are often collected solely as art pieces. Still, the pieces depict the classic subjects of Vodou flags: Bondye (Creator/God), the lwa or loa (ancestral spirit), and vévé (symbol or image of the lwa). Vodouists believe that over a thousand lwa exist; one-fourth of them are named.
Each lwa has its own personality and is associated with specific colors, objects, food, chants, and drumbeats. It is believed that the interaction of lwa and vévés must be thoroughly and carefully considered by the artist. The religion and its rules must be observed as they can directly impact reality. Constant received advanced education in this area from her father, a Vodoun priest.
In “Milocan Tous les Saints Tous les Morts,” lwa fly overhead, involved in the day-to-day lives of the people. A Vodou flag, depicted front and center, features a prominent display of a vévé at the top of the flag.
Many of the lwa are equated with specific Roman Catholic saints based on similar characteristics or symbols. Similarly, a Jamaican obeahman or obeahwoman may summon spirits likened to the prophet Jeremiah or the apostle Peter. Hence, the fusion of these diverse religious beliefs; i.e., syncretism and/or creolization.
Vodouists were involved in the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to 1801, which overthrew the French colonial government, abolished slavery, and transformed the French-held island into the republic of Haiti. In later years, from 1835 to 1987, the Haitian government banned Vodou under laws that prohibited ritualistic practices (“Haitian Vodou,” Wikipedia).
Obeah became a crime for the first time because of a 1760 Jamaican law intended to prevent rebellions by slaves. The law was the Jamaican planters’ response to the biggest slave rebellion that took place in the eighteenth-century British Caribbean, which came to be known as Tacky’s Rebellion (Obeahhistories.org).
Vodou, like obeah, is practiced for healing, protection, and in some cases, to do harm. Unlike Jamaica, Haiti as a country seems to find no conflict between the Catholic faith and Vodou practice. In the video presentation accompanying the exhibit, Constant does state that she personally is no longer a working practitioner of Vodou, although she still holds the beliefs.
To this day, Jamaicans have an uneasy relationship with their spiritual folk practice. The 1898 Obeah Act outlawing the practice is still on the books, although rarely enforced ( (Obeahhistories.org). In this beautiful work, “Negre Danbala Wedo,” a healer administers a ceremony of curing and spiritual nourishment. I was transfixed. I remembered my mother.
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One sunny afternoon, my Protestant mother rode the subway to Brooklyn to secretly consult a Jamaican obeahwoman. I say “secretly” because I can only imagine the conflicting feelings she had as a church-going believer in Christ. But Mommy was desperate. She had been suffering for years with debilitating headaches. Not migraines, the medical doctors said; but none offered a definitive diagnosis or solution.
Like most obeah “readers,” the woman in Brooklyn was a skilled herbalist, known for healing physical, spiritual, and mental disorders, and for protecting against malevolent spiritual forces. The obeahwoman said there was evil directed against my mother and her sister, from their childhoods up to the present. An evil that was meant for their demise. An evil now coming from a specific individual.
Following the consultation, Mommy and my aunt steered clear of that “specific individual.” Mommy’s headaches eventually vanished.
I had moved from New York City to Los Angeles ten years earlier. Mommy never confided in me about her trips to Brooklyn. My cousin shared this truth with me years later, after my mother passed away. It saddens me that perhaps Mommy felt her only daughter was too educated, even too disdainful of her culture to be open to offerings other than “Western” medicine and religion. I like to think I would have embraced her and understood.
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In her Artist’s Statement, posted in the outer area of the exhibit, Constant writes: “An ancestral heritage is an important and weighty obligation. You cannot treat your ancestors and their culture lightly. . . . I don’t always know where my inspiration comes from, but it comes naturally. . . . There are things we cannot know. You must think and reflect to understand. These are the things I feel as a woman and as an artist.”
As always, different people will each have a different take-away from a piece of art. The shimmering, vibrant color of Myrlande Constant’s drapo Vodou, the painstaking detail, the investment of time for each piece (up to six months!)—those have universal appeal. Peculiar to me are recalling my mother’s pain, feeling ripped from my past by the crime of slavery, but somehow being soothed by an unexpected attachment to the Haitian lwa in Constant’s work. I believe you’ll enjoy something peculiar to you in “Myrlande Constant: The Work of Radiance.”
“Myrlande Constant: The Work of Radiance” will be on exhibit at The Fowler Museum at UCLA through July 16, 2023. Constant is the first Haitian woman to have a solo museum show in the U.S.
Biographical information on Constant and the drapo-making process gleaned from her website and Indigo Arts.
Ashton Cynthia Clarke is an African American/Afro-Caribbean, Los Angeles-based storyteller and writer of creative non-fiction. She has work published or forthcoming in The Storytelling Bistro, Olney Magazine, and Inlandia. Ashton has performed her true, personal stories on stages throughout the L.A. area and New York City, as well as virtually. She thanks Lisbeth Coiman for introducing her to Women Who Submit.
Instagram: @ashton.c.clarke
