Corie Sheppard Podcast
Corie Sheppard Podcast
Episode 226 | Ben Gayah
In this week's episode, we sit with legendary sculptor and visual artist Ben Gayah — joined by his wife Janine — for a powerful conversation on art, legacy, and love. Ben shares how he got started as an artist, the challenges of making it in Trinidad and Tobago, and the stories behind his massive sculptures at St. Mary’s Fete and the mural on the Parliament building. With Janine adding her own insights and perspective, this episode offers a rare, intimate look at the life and work of one of the country’s most impactful creatives.
So, listen, as a Fatima man, I have a guest today that I have been complaining about for a long, long time, because them fellas are doing some things in a fit for a school that we shall leave unnamed. At least I will try not to call it name as much as possible, but it make me go fat In my fit. I can play as I come back and say well, what are we really doing? Why are we doing this? We're looking bad compared to a school who we're much, much more superior than so. The guests I have with me today. Well, first let me introduce Janine. This is the first off-camera guest I have with me. Hi, janine, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:You're good. Yes, I'm good.
Speaker 1:So I bring in there's half of the team responsible for the Wasting Marys. I try not to say the name, I try and fail miserably. And I have with me Janine and Ben Geyer. How are you going, sir? Tell me the name of the company again. It's Creator Design, Creator Design. So everybody knows him as Ben Geyer. He's struggling to get people to say the name Creator Design, so we keep with it throughout. I will say that it is usually very impressive when you drive past St Mary's Grounds when you're in setup mode Not that I will ever go there, but it's something else to see the buildup for it and I wonder how much work that really is for you and when that work starts.
Speaker 3:Boy, it's something else. It usually starts four months before, but if you ask me, it should start way before.
Speaker 1:Four months, yeah, four months, and you think, even before that would be better. Yeah because we're always rushing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, it's always end up a mad rush to get everything completed in time, but you know we work with budgets, right? So we can't say, okay, we're going to use the whole year to produce something like this, but if you look at it, it looks like a complete year production. What was the theme this year? This year was a futuristic city, like a smart city, right. Every year we've been doing rustic and underwater and it was like you know what, why not change it up? Let's go into the future.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, so you're all involved in the creation of the concept as well, or is it that?
Speaker 3:big committee From start to finish, from the beginning, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're a St Mary's man too. What school are you in? What school?
Speaker 3:are you in? No, I'm actually a Southeast Port of Spain guy.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad to hear that. I'm so glad to hear that St Mary's always need outside help to get where they're going to get to. Let me do the bad talking.
Speaker 3:St Mary's right, you know how to bad talk them too. No, no, no, I come from Port of Spain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you went to school in Southeast and originally from Port of Spain. You're a Marvel, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:So in terms of creativity, I mean, I used to always love art. In school I met an art teacher in Southeast Dennis Seaton I could call his name Cool guy Showed me a little bit about colors and mixing paints and so forth, and then I started doing sculpting and then falling in love with art. It's like painting becomes history. I used to paint, I used to do portraits, landscapes, right, and every time I'd do it it would go to the gallery. It'll be sell, you know, most of the time like a foreigner would purchase my work and I always wanted to do exhibition. Just never get to that, okay. But then I got introduced to styrofoam, okay, and started carving and sculpting and shaping stuff and you know, everything else was history. You know, I started working with a leading company at the time where decorating is concerned and they were dominating the market. So I was like the main guy, you know, helping putting things together. And then I realized, you know, I could do so much more than just decorating draping clothes.
Speaker 1:So decor was like home decor and office and stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, no it was like weddings and functions, you know, award ceremonies, that kind of thing. And I realized, you know, I mean it has so much of decorators out there competing against each other and nobody building stuff. So I was like you know what, let's give this thing a try, you know, and I just started creating and building stuff.
Speaker 1:What age is that this was like about?
Speaker 3:25, 24, 25, give or take.
Speaker 1:If you could see? It's Janine looking out to find out the answers right. We're getting our verification nod here, so it's around 25, right?
Speaker 3:Yes us.
Speaker 1:Right, we're getting our verification not here, so it's around 25, right, yes, but how do you, how do you realize, uh, that that is something that people need in terms of building stuff, because I mean the companies that work for they always wanted stuff.
Speaker 3:So they would go and try and rent this and rent this and it can't get, and then we'll have to build it in-house. You know, if you want, let's say, a stargate opening, you can't go and get that anyway, so we have to produce this thing. And then other decorators, they would be fumbling to get this and get that. I was like, oh okay, there's a niche for making stuff, gotcha, you know, and supplying everybody.
Speaker 1:So we decided you know what we're going to give this a try, and that is when you started the company. Yeah, or as it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is when creative design kicked off and we started building and then people recognized, hey, we could get this from this man, and just approach me and then, yeah, you want this for a wedding, you want this for functions and so forth Even the companies I worked for. Up to this day he still asks me for stuff. He'd come to me and say, Ben, we want this and that. And I was like I still producing stuff 20 something years after for him so from that company.
Speaker 1:I guess you would get a lot of work through companies like those agencies and those types of things as well a lot of agencies call um.
Speaker 3:It all depends again on their budget and what they're looking for and that kind of thing. But plenty of the work it's come through uh, more decorating companies, you know, designing companies and that kind of thing but you refer to it as prop design prop design.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, prop engineering yeah, let me ask you about that engineering part one time, because some of the sizes of structures I see on st mary's grounds, what's the situation of the engineer? You know that right.
Speaker 3:Well, again, that came with time. You know, back then we used to do things a lot smaller. Right now, you know, the scale has changed. Everybody wants it big. So, yes, it did come with a bit of engineering. I didn't do engineering in school but everything was like you know, learning different things, because I mean you put something together, you know how it works right. The one time you use it it's like, hey, how to improve this? You know the wind is not doing, you know the sun, the weather, the elements out there. So then you recognize, okay, you can improve.
Speaker 1:And then you just start improving and improving, and improving yeah, yeah, I think it's a lot of years experience you're talking about in getting this done. Oh, yeah, yeah, so, but I keep my mind about every time. I think Bengali, I think St Mary's so much. So I think you know what kind of wedding it takes to hire you to do, to do what you do for weddings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do quite a bit. The thing is again, when it comes to a wedding they would have the coordinators and the decorators and people who sat in on the wedding and so forth. But any wedding they might want a piece where they can get Like take, for example, those Hindu weddings. They might want a mandap built with a big dome roof. We did quite a bit of that. So they come to me, we give them a course and they say, yeah, we want it, we put it together. But I can talk as much as I want, but I mean when you see it on pictures like whoa, you built that it's like, but I mean when you see it on pictures like whoa, you build that Like yeah, yeah, that's one of the things that, even in this interview, is difficult for people.
Speaker 1:I wish people could see on your Instagram you show us some of the process sometimes. Yeah, well, that's just a big.
Speaker 3:There's so much more I could put out there. It's just to sit down and you know, kind of do a webpage and put everything a little more neater.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's always impressive to see, even in the you. Sometimes you do some process videos and it's hard for me to figure out. When you're building something Right, I can't imagine what the end product is Right Like after I'm looking at it. Sometimes I say what are they trying to do here? Because I'm assuming they're building a lot of it in pieces and assembling when they get somewhere.
Speaker 3:Well it has to be for two reasons. One, if you're dealing with a venue, you have to find out the size of the doorway to get in the venue. That's one. Two, we could only transport 10, 8 feet wide on the road. After that you need police escort to get things moved from one part to the next. So from the workshop we have to build it in parts, unless we're building it on site.
Speaker 3:I did one job like that years ago where we actually work on site, so we didn't have to do nothing in parts, we just built everything Huge. It's one of the biggest projects we had done too. That was a Christian event called Open House. Yeah, that was about 10 years ago and that was huge. I mean that was a fun project, it was all charity, but they kind of gave me a go ahead to do what I want, okay, okay. So I totally enjoyed that project Because we didn't have to worry about fitting through a door and putting this thing back together.
Speaker 3:I mean your door and putting this thing back together. I mean a lot of things come out. My workshop, my workshops is not huge, but everything that comes out um goes back into. Well, it's never assembled in the workshop, right? Because we don't have the space to put them together. So when I reach on site people's like whoa, this thing actually come together and fit. Everything lines up everything, everything works. I mean that by itself is engineering, of what you know. I didn't go to school to learn, but at the end of the day it it was just developed yeah, yeah yeah and janine.
Speaker 1:You said janine is in the company with your day to day, right?
Speaker 3:oh yeah from from start. Yeah to this. Now she has been half the company, because I tell everybody, you know, when it comes to her, I don't think I could have reached this far by myself, because I have decisions to be made that I would have been the worst person to. And then decisions she makes like yeah, boy on point, you know, in terms of planning and getting things done the right way and you know I mean Simple as okay, something that is not done properly. You know I would say we're running out of time, just leave it. No, she would make sure, hey, let's get this thing done properly to make the client to be happy, gotcha.
Speaker 1:So you're cracking the whip basically, oh yeah, that's good. So is it like you all divide up the work, so you doing the design side?
Speaker 3:of janine might do logistics and, and so when it comes to to coming up with the ideas, is a lot of her right. When it comes to putting it on paper, that's me, you know. When it comes to planning and buying materials and thing, that's her. And then when it comes to actually building, that's my guys Right yeah, what kind of size of team are you talking about?
Speaker 3:Well, it all depends on the project. You know, Through the year we have like four or five permanent guys that we have. Well, they're on contract, but they're always there, Right? Yeah, you know, but when it comes we have like 18 people.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you had to bring people on because of the size of the project.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on that job, you know it was like two welders um, painters, people sticking people, cutting people, you know. So everybody had their part to do, but at the end of the day, um, I couldn't do it without them. Right, they come like a printer need computer to send the signal to you know.
Speaker 1:So you can't get this print unless you have a printer. So those guys, I call them my printers, yeah, and they help with concept and all that as well. No, no, no, no, so you can have a smaller concept team once it wants to come to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, again it comes like okay, you have. Well, janine, she typing in the message, right to me and I'm the um the software, so she's the software. I'm the software, so she's the software. I'm the hardware and send it to the printers. Gotcha.
Speaker 1:So that's your process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it works, you know, for 25 years it works, you know.
Speaker 1:But I'd ask you, because a lot of times like the risk of entrepreneurship, sometimes it's better when you have a wife who take the plunge and go and start a business and a husband have a steady income, or vice versa what's that like when both of y'all put it all into your?
Speaker 3:company. It's challenging sometimes. You know, sometimes we both had she don't agree with something and I was like, nah, this is going to work. You know, you have to kind of try and separate husband and wife's business. That's mainly the only challenge we have, Right In terms of then. We have three kids that we we've seen about. So that by itself is a job. Yeah, so if we both working together, it's like, yeah, we had to figure out how we're doing all of this, you know, and the workshop is home.
Speaker 1:It's close to home, it is.
Speaker 3:I decided to do the workshop in front of my front yard, right, but we kind of well overgrown that space because the kind of things that comes out, people is like, wait, you build that there. Again, it's all done in parts and then assembled afterwards. I'm looking and the process are looking, I guess, somewhere if we could, you know, upgrade and to expand. Yeah, because it'll it'll make the work a lot easier right there. Yeah, because a lot of times we fight up with, okay, we have to weld up the frames first before we could apply the foam right, so while the welding is happening, very little could be done in the space. Now, if I have a bigger space, I get welding happening while it's sticking, while it's painting, so I don't have to wait the process, so it can happen faster, we can take on more jobs, you know.
Speaker 1:And when you're in terms of your process.
Speaker 1:I always wonder, because I don't have an artistic bone in my body, so I'm fascinated by when you talk about something and then you'll build something that you visualize, especially when you look at the themes. Because that underwater theme I find it to be so difficult to translate to real life, because in underwater it's obvious that you're not underwater. But when I saw what you all did there, especially the entrance, I was like wait, just in the photos when you saw people going into the front, that was the first year.
Speaker 3:How long ago that would have been. That was 2019. Wait, just in the photos, when you saw people going into the firm, that was the first year. How long ago that would have been. That was 2019.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was the first year. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:We only recently started with the St Mary's job. Oh, they're having a lot of impact there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:We decided if we're doing something, we can't do it this way. We're not going to do it. You know, if it's not going to create an impact, the clients aren't going to be happy. I prefer to turn down the job. Yeah, yeah, I mean you turn down money, but I mean you want it to look good, right? I mean not everybody's thinking that way. You know they have to do it because they have to always protect that.
Speaker 1:You mentioned three kids Is something that you would encourage your kids.
Speaker 3:We're in a doctor and lawyer society where people tell the children yeah, they have to be a doctor or a lawyer.
Speaker 1:You went through that when you were younger. Your parents were happy with your decision.
Speaker 3:Well, I kind of grew up with my grandparents, right, so I kind of grew up with my grandparents, right so, and then my grandfather, he got sick in an early age so it was, um, it was, it wasn't like demanding of me to to have to do this and have to do that. I mean, yeah, yeah, we got talks of your only drawing, what drawing could do for you. It's like, yeah, I like it, you know, but they never forced it down my throat where you have to go and be a lawyer, doctor. No, they just left it up to me and do what you want, gotcha, but I didn't have any intentions of getting into the arts. No, no.
Speaker 1:So what was your initial thought, what you thought you was going to work on?
Speaker 3:They have some other different things. I didn't have no idea to say the truth, but I was introduced to the arts when I left school. Let me tell you the truth. But I was introduced to the arts when I left school and let me tell you, I played a big, big, big role, because I find my way immediately.
Speaker 1:But this is from the same school teacher from Saudi. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he kind of the John Donald. So at the time had a course that they were taking in young artists who now left school and it was kind of given us different medium to work with and I kind of get introduced to copper and drawing paints and and different things. So it kind of opened up me a little bit more to different mediums. Even wire bending we did and that kind of lead to one direction. You know this whole film sculpting, you know people take it for granted because I mean, when you go to these, these studios we call this like disney universal studios and I have all the pieces it's it's come from form yeah the start.
Speaker 3:The beginning is from form, because if you want a giant wheel done, you start doing it from foam, unless it's like super ridiculous and it's going to be permanent. You know you could do framework right, mesh and then cement, oh yeah but then it will be real heavy.
Speaker 3:So the foam is, I guess, your lightest route to that if that's a permanent fixture, your billet on spot okay but if you're gonna do something for a stage set, you know, like all those those floats that they have even in brazil, all those um big floats that they have for their parades and stuff, a lot of it is foam.
Speaker 1:So there's just a base, gotcha, gotcha. So you're, you're. You went on to john lee to do somebody more technical, right well?
Speaker 3:it was just. It was just a fast course.
Speaker 1:I think that was like a little over a year or so so you'll say, for the most part, yourself taught in the things that you're doing. Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah. But then what do you? What do you pattern? Is it that you? Because 25 ago, if you're talking about YouTube and things, you could take that and learn everything.
Speaker 3:What were you?
Speaker 1:finding out about the different things.
Speaker 3:Well, it was always a struggle, right? Because take, for example, foam. You sculpt foam, you try to paint it with any paint, like bum spray, anything that has petrol based it melts. So then you have to find a situation where, okay, how do I code this thing, you know, and again, if you go on YouTube, you'll find out where you could code. But we didn't have YouTube, so I had to kind of try different stuff, try this, try this.
Speaker 1:You had plenty of trial and error.
Speaker 3:Yes, Until I said, okay, this is what we're running with, and then only to find out now, now that they have google and and youtube, this is exactly what they use the teaching right and I I stumble upon it, you know, and I was like, wow, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good, the methods and the techniques and that kind of thing so having spent this amount of time in the business is something you'll encourage your children to start doing.
Speaker 3:Yes and no, because at the end of the day, I mean, it pays the bill, but I'm not going to force them into it. Yeah, you know, because we have one who just loves computer work. That's what. What age? He's 13, going into 14. But he's doing coding, oh nice, and he loves that. So I'm not going to force him into carving and painting. No, yeah, I mean, if he's building websites and he's doing stuff, that's the age range right now, gotcha. Yeah, because he's so much of things he could get into for himself. And then the older one I mean she's kind of into the graphics, okay, so she might be the one to help me. I don one, I mean she kind of into the graphics, okay, so she might be the one to help me, I don't know. But, um, it has a skill you need now. Anyway, oh yeah, because a lot of times you know you need to get something, um, presented to our client um, you need a graphic artist, of course.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even if you're um, you're doing building, um stuff, you know you want to somebody like that to put again. So she's in our field. But I'm not going to force her into the company. I mean, it's their choice, yeah.
Speaker 1:Is your belief that they find their own passion the same way you found yours? Definitely.
Speaker 3:Definitely, because a lot of times I mean you hear stories, I mean doctors, lawyers they break off when they start doing other things. Of wanted me to be a doctor. So when I do a doctor yeah, even engineers so I always want to be a movie producer, but there's a business that isn't, so I have to go and fix roads, and I have to, of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not a passion but it's interesting that rewards it, because the more I talk to creatives it seems to be a difficult space where, uh, the respect for the creative or the craft is not there, we know, and then potential is, I don't feel the appreciation in front of that you don't at all, at all, at all at all.
Speaker 3:We don't have that. You know, it's like when you look at um, florida, for example. I mean, as soon as you enter the airport you see art sculptures. Then you move along you by the roundabouts, they have pieces of art and then when you go to the studios, the parks, it's all art.
Speaker 1:They have a whole art deco where it's a whole strip where it's just and we don't appreciate art in Trinidad like that, you know.
Speaker 3:So it's a struggle. I mean, we started doing it for St Mary's party and Because nobody has done it to that magnitude, we could see that Right. So I was like you know what, let me try it, let's just try it. Let's see what happens if we do it big. Because you see these big music festivals all around the world, like Tomorrowland and I, I mean they're visually memorable, they take it to the next level. Yeah, so, and I mean they're visually memorable, they take it to the next level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why not? You know why not? Why stop short?
Speaker 1:there's so much, so much we could do so you'll accept your role in making St Mary's the most, one of the most premium fets in the because it's. I didn't realize it was only 2019. You're taking it, but it's time to become the coveted thing to go, and I feel like part of it is because of how it looks.
Speaker 3:I would hope so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me sing your praises for you, in case you don't want to sing it Because every year you're going to have Marshall Destro.
Speaker 1:There's very little that you could change with the artists. No, no, knock on them, because of course they will come out with something new every year the food and the drinks and them. Things could change only so much. But I think people look forward to seeing what it's going to be like. Or people look forward to going there to take pictures to post right to make fatima look bad, you know so it's one of them. Things where the the visual nature.
Speaker 3:I wonder sometimes in your design how much you cater for things like instagram and tiktok and those things in your mind at all, like how it will be captured on social media well, not, not really, but all we can tell you is every part of the venue that we do is a photo, so it's not like we're going to create a photo in this. I understand A lot of the different venues you go to. They have a particular photo area that you go, but once we do something, I mean you shoot in any way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course You're probably walking through a venue to make sure that is the case. Yeah, in design, and that's the only fit type event that you do to that magnitude. Yes, yeah, other things are just small things. They're just like just the stage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, how you say, just the stage, when you see what all these stages look like, just the stage uh, it's kind of well, because when you talk about creatives it feels as though I agree with you that it's a difficult space in the country and I don't know how much respect we give it. So I'll piggyback on your example of you go to different countries and you see the art of the country as soon as you land. Yeah, and you tend to come into our airports, one of them brand new now, and there's very little that connects who we are visually. It's just, it's an airport. It's built for utility, right.
Speaker 1:And I always used to ask myself you know, okay, what Minshild do with all them costumes? You know how come those things can't be on display every time we come into the country to show people? Or forget Minshild for a minute, the King and Queen. Last year Nobody knew what that looked like. I think any youth now would have a hard time telling you what the King and Queen of Carnival was looking like. It just seems to be a gap. But you do see Carnival time now If people come in for carnival. You have some displays in the airport. You have some. You know whether it's the artists or the performers or you have the costumes in the airport. Do you find that carnival time is the time that you most recognize in the creative industry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you could say so it's mostly, then mostly there, because I mean when we do weddings it's also wow, but it's only for private. Yes, I see, yeah, carnival and carnival. I would call it private too, because CIC is a private fed. Yeah, when it comes to I mean, the March, gra and the Savannah and you know it's so much more could be done on a permanent scale because this fed we set it up for what? Six hours, right, and then I have to come back down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but if we get opportunity to do something that would last for the whole carnival season, everybody could appreciate it. So it's not like we just want to do CIC, no, we just need the opportunity to do something, because take, for example, the avenue. I mean they redo the avenue the other day and I don't see. No, wow, you know what I mean. There's so much more we could have done and create stuff, you know, to have tourists come in and say, whoa, you know, because them, coming from from art, let's say their, their place is full of sculptures, and and then they come to our island, to the. We call it the greatest show, of course, and let me tell you, we've been to different carnivals, like up the Caribbean, and it ain't nothing compared to here, to Trinidad. We're the mecca, but we don't treat it like that. Yeah, we just take it for granted. There's so much more we can do to make this thing a wow like.
Speaker 1:One of the things I hear from people a lot here is um, the road march, for instance, makes the competition, leads to a poor experience for somebody who watching mass in the savannah, because now you're gonna hear party and carry it over and over and over all day long, right, and I sometimes wonder, as you're saying, if we do enough to make the savannah visually appealing, like it's so raw. The Grandstand and the Northstand, I mean, and the stage itself. Yeah, there's nothing done on this stage, really Nothing. Yeah, you think it's something that we will see change here, boy, well, I don't know.
Speaker 3:It all depends on the authorities and who's in charge?
Speaker 2:Yes, of course Again at the end is vision.
Speaker 3:If you don't have vision, we get nowhere. You know, you had to see it and you had to see for what it could do, because so much could be done. In our carnival we could take Brazil, brazil. I mean I would say I wouldn't personally want to go to Brazil carnival because it's so rigid and just so sad, but they take it to the next level. Yeah, they do. It's like amazing. You want to go and see, but in terms of enjoying yourself and how we have our time in Trinidad chocolate cheese Hard, hard to match.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And one of the things I see with Rio that I always wonder how come we don't do more of is the floats. Yeah, because they pay attention to what the float looks like coming on the road. There's some massive installations and designs, but sometimes we just put music trucks out on the road as if, again, it's just utility. There's not outside of, maybe, spirit Mass. They've taken on a kind of approach where they're doing some design on the trucks as you go along, but other than that, it's just utility. The drinks truck is just for drinks and what you do is you wrap a whole bunch of sponsor banners around it and that becomes what we call beauty.
Speaker 3:Well, we did some work for Tribe last year and this year in terms of trucks as well, and they're trying to take it up. But again, at the end it is all about budget, of course. But you know, if you have again things put in place for a carnival where we could get certain things sponsored, you know, make it part of the carnival. I understand Not relying on just the band to produce this, because they have budgets too, of course.
Speaker 1:And that's very fleeting and temporary. So in other words, if I sit in the Savannah and I see some beauty, it passed by, it gone, rather than doing things that are permanently there. So there's some wow factor. I like your comparison to Disney, because Disney or Universal Studios and them, they don't forget that wow factor from the gate. It transforms it like a little child. Yeah, especially the part where you spend all your money like a little child too. You know what I mean. It increases how much you're willing to spend when you go there and how much time you're willing to spend there.
Speaker 3:And the memories, oh yeah. I mean like Tomorrowland. They started from the invitation and then the actual flight Right, and then when you get to the venue, I mean there are people camping out. Of course Our carnival could be so much bigger.
Speaker 1:Now you bring up sponsors right. Uh-huh, sponsors. I work in marketing, so I work with sponsors. So what we do is like companies that might sponsor events. Like companies that might sponsor events. So, for instance, you're working for Sony and they might sponsor the World Cup team when we went in 2006.
Speaker 1:So, whatever they want to do, we have to get produced here the banners on the side of the field and all those things. One of the things I have difficulty with with sponsors locally here is that, like for Steelpan, the sponsor name comes before the ban. So you'll see BP Renegades and like I listened to all calypsos and hear people say cartelli all stars and cartelli is no longer a company. I wonder if the sponsors you know we need the sponsors to be a part of what we do to boost it right, but we also need to make sure that all stars is a star, not the sponsor. I've never heard of the nike chicago bulls. You know things like that. They will never give away their brand name before.
Speaker 1:I always wonder for people like you. You work in an environment where they have sponsors and you have to do design, but you seem to be able to do a tasteful design in an event without a big I don't want to call no company name, but one coming to mind without a big banner covering the entrance. How do you work around to work through those things, or is it an issue for you at all?
Speaker 3:No, well, they do sometimes come and want to put banners next to the deco and I let them know. You know this is my piece. You know this is what I'm doing. I don't give. I mean you, yes, you're paying sponsors, whatever, but you got to promoters. You can't come and just put a banner on my, my material. No, yeah, I I looking, see, I trying to create a product for myself, just like I can't come up with a banner in front of their banner. Of course, yeah, of course they have to understand. Okay, they can't do that. Go to the side, yeah, yeah, although you're a sponsor, you still need to go to the side.
Speaker 1:My thing is my thing yeah, I appreciate you doing that.
Speaker 3:More people need to yeah because I, at the end of the day. You see blue water banners strapped all over. You see Coca-Cola strapped all over. It's a gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes it takes away from the event. Yes, yeah, I think you'll.
Speaker 3:It can be done a little more tasteful sometimes. I mean sometimes they do have the panache and do nice little signs. Right, I'm not gonna most of the time yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:People want to put if they could get you to walk through their banner to come into the venue, that's what they will get.
Speaker 2:A lot of times.
Speaker 1:So work outside a carnival now. So you say you do weddings and those types of things, do you get a lot of corporate jobs from those sponsors to do things for them? Um, in terms of the bigger companies, uh, there's a question for Janine. You only should see Janine's face. It's great.
Speaker 2:We're going to get Janine around this table next time so we, we do events right, but again it's through either an advertising agency or another decorator. They would call us in to have a piece, a specific piece, done.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's how we do it so it's in the context of a bigger, bigger production, then, or they might be doing a booth or event and you're doing a just a part of it doing a piece.
Speaker 2:They may just want us to do the stage deck or only yeah, and that would be probably in higher to wherever. Wherever the location is mainly the focal point.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh well, I guess, I guess I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess now I'm asking that question because, again, as we had when we started our company, we used to represent brands, like I tell you. Sony was one and I was telling you before we recorded that was a challenge we had. One time we had hired a guy who now I them days, I don't know what is prop design, right, right, I don't know, I never heard of the term, but I know what I want the event to look like in the end. I understand where the outcome needs to be and what they hired us to do was they were launching in price, smart quotes and standards. Sony was launching a stereo system. It was the first home stereo system that had 2000 watts of power home. So I hope your neighbor never buy one, right. But it was a big setup for a home system and what they wanted and they showed us examples of it all over the wheel when they launched they wanted to make the entrance that stereo system. So when I watch your installations and your insert now I know you could do it. I understand that you all will get it done.
Speaker 1:But I went to a guy who I won't call no name, but let me say he's a joiner at best and he told me, yeah, he could get anything done. You know what I mean. Just send him the renders and all that and send him pictures of it, and on the night what we end up with is three very heavy boxes that's number one I talk about prohibitively heavy. We could barely move it to put it in place. And he put two speakers like that and then put the console on top and then he wrapped the banner with the picture I sent him from my phone of the stereo system. So you know, we can't get paid. I can't put that up.
Speaker 1:The other thing I said you know, this is not looking safe Because this big heavy thing over people's heads what naturalities are? I had to think about that. So I was completely stuck. Of course we had to credit the client for everything that we said we was going to do, and so on, and it spoils the event overall. So and so on, and it spoils the event overall. So I wonder if there's space for you all. Well, I could tell you there's space for you all to do those kind of things, because companies, particularly the ones who are operating internationally, I guess they're just used to some of these things and I found it difficult to find providers here that could do it. Yeah, it's been a real, real challenge. Outside of weddings and so on, most of your work year-round comes from what type of events then?
Speaker 2:Well, we also have a big I call it a niche for Christmas props. So we have clientele that like right now, actually as soon as Carnival was over.
Speaker 1:We got our call.
Speaker 2:I'm ready for Christmas, because Christmas is a big thing for us as well.
Speaker 1:And it would be like malls. What type of places?
Speaker 3:Well, we do stuff for the malls, the premier malls, but it's private homes. Oh really, yeah, private. Oh, look at that.
Speaker 1:I'll cut this part out.
Speaker 3:I can't let my wife hear that. No, no, but if I can do Christmas for the the entire year, yeah, I can. Um, because I have to put people on hold. I say okay because, like, if you call me october for christmas, I was like it's too late. Then they say, okay, we don't mind, we wait for next year. Really I was like, yeah, okay, no problem, and yeah. Then we get the call right after carnival. It's like, yeah, we're ready.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you, yeah, you booked out, then I guess, yes, and what about things like so in in, things like theater and so on? Those would be things that you would do, like set design and stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, we'd usually, um, we want that kind of thing. We help them with the sets, right, you know, build props and that kind of thing. A few others, yeah, we work through Queensall Napa, that kind of thing. It all depends on what their team is, what they want. Yeah, you know, they come to us and we do some sets. I really do some sets for Edwin. Yeah, edwin is no longer with us, but let me tell you, he was growing and as a theater production, yeah, yeah, he used to do some crazy designs and every time he come to me he's like bend this right one.
Speaker 3:I was like yeah, no problem all right okay yeah, he was a teacher in utt, I think a professor in utt. I used to enjoy working with him because he was one of our architect type things. So when he bring a drawing to me it has specs to detail, so I don't want to work anything out. This one is my one. I just have to do and that used to be so simple. It's like he used to be like when you finish it, he's like yeah, I like what you call it simple.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean because somebody come to me, um, with a picture, even I I would then have to scale it. They'll say how big you want this thing, um, 20 feet tall, okay, then I now have to start working this out. You know, if it's a, then I now have to start working this out. If it's a big head, they have to know where the face is going to be, where the eyes is going to be.
Speaker 1:So there are a lot of maths involved in terms of working out scale and that kind of thing Gotcha, gotcha and mass bands, that kind of thing King and Queen of Caraval, those things you'll do or you'll do.
Speaker 3:It's something we kind of tried, we worked in through a few clients, but it's, it's a way to say to me it's a work by itself. It's a job by itself, right, it's not something you can just okay carnival coming up, we can jump in it. No, it's something too we'll have to put some time into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I usually see people who are in wirebending and stuff. They have a very, very long process too from designing to coming up with the final costume.
Speaker 3:A lot of people they start their costume right after. Yeah, a lot of people then scrap down their backpacks and they're ready for next year. So that's a time consuming thing. I mean, this year we did two individuals for tribe lost tribe. We tribe, lost tribe, lost tribe. We did two individuals for them and they were quite happy. It's the first time we give it a try, right, you know. And then we helped Ruth Mendes with her costume a queen she had she had done, but unfortunately she didn't make it to the finals. But it was a fun, yeah, rewarding work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But if we had the time, oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned McFarlane and I saw that you all had worked together on the mural that's outside Tower D, that's the parliamentary tower.
Speaker 3:Yes, that was done for the 50th anniversary of Independent and it was supposed to come down at the end of the year, just as everything else. Oh really, yeah, we built stuff for all inside our Hyatt. We did stuff and that was part of it to come down, but they kind of fell in love with it and they said they're going to keep it up. So it was never done as a permanent structure.
Speaker 1:But it could hold up. What material that?
Speaker 3:is Well, again it's all stereotypes, serious pyrotex people serious yeah, people thought it was metal.
Speaker 1:I think it's metal, right I?
Speaker 3:would have thought so, right. No, it's again where foam is concerned.
Speaker 1:We could make it look like anything like wood, metal and I guess, once somebody don't physically damage it that day.
Speaker 3:Well, we had some people come and you know, knock it, dig it. It was within a six-year period. We had took it down, refurbished it and put it back up. But now I'm seeing it needs a little touching up again. But again, it was never done as a permanent fixture.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:But McFarlane, that's a company I used to work for, as I mentioned earlier. I started with him Because of the jobs that he got at the the time he was getting all the big jobs. So that kind of allowed me to spread my wings and experiment with different things and, you know, try different things. And then up to this day I'm still providing stuff for him.
Speaker 1:I see, yeah, but he still does things like events on those things.
Speaker 3:There's a Christmas shows and weddings, and well, he's been decorating Girl City for quite some time.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see Christmas Gotcha gotcha. Yeah, christmas will always bring more and more work, right yeah?
Speaker 3:So every time he has an installation for Christmas he wants something in the atrium. We build it out for him, you know.
Speaker 1:So those types of designs I mean you said that that wasn't set out to be permanent but those things that you would want to work on, because, again, if you have something that marks the parliamentary building, let's assume that they redo the Red House and there's art that could be there. Or you remember one time they had done a series of artists around the Oval, just paintings, right? Yeah, I'm assuming that was supposed to be temporary too, because that was just canvas and I know how long that will last. But those are things that you might want to do, like installations like those.
Speaker 3:Of course, yeah, of course even the ones on parliament right now. I don't mind taking it down again and refurbishing it, even adding to it, you know, and making it permanent, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1:the theme then was just culture of the country, some symbols of culture.
Speaker 2:It basically represented where we came from and, yeah, the different cultures that make up Trinidad and Tobago, because you saw the Amerindians there. They had Chinese, syrian, lebanese. Yeah everybody, everyone was there the Africans, the Indians, the indentured liberals, everyone was depicted there, and even Tobago was depicted, if you look at it.
Speaker 1:Everyone was depicted there and even Tobago was depicted, gotcha, if you look at it. Yeah, it's one of my personal gripes. You know it's something that I always look at things like that and how it could represent, because if you come to Trinidad, you could, as a foreigner who don't know anything about the place it's a very difficult place to navigate or learn anything about or from. You know, if you just travel solo, just watching it's hard. From you know, if you just travel solo, just watching it's hard. And then there was one time that the atrium in the airport used to be that space. That would tell a little bit of a story. But of course now we get out to Starbucks, which has wonder sometimes, you know, like what do you?
Speaker 3:do you know what do you? Again, if you don't have a love for art or vision for art, you know busy things would happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that profit profit would would overcome. Yeah, and I wonder what kind of profits? You know the definition of profit, sometimes so narrow because it's the only part of our local or airport, the trinidad airport that is, that has the height to do some of the older costumes or the bigger installations.
Speaker 1:It it was anything grand and it could help shape your experience. If you're coming into the country for the first time, you know like, hey, come in here, Wow. But again, I guess Starbucks. You know coffee, People need coffee, you know. So you'll notice that the cultural exhibitions now they start to move to the outside of the arrival lounge so they might have tassel, they might have steel balancing plane when people leave. I find it to be unfortunate, but it's so related to what you're saying about respect for the art.
Speaker 1:And I had, um, I had a guest here last time. He was talking about how how people were treated during covid. I saw y'all talking about that in an article as well. He was an event promoter and I was talking about. His whole life is event promotion. This is wow events, Adrian Schoon. And he said I want to meet Ben. I never told him you was coming, he said. But I really like Ben Woodboy. He said I don't know if I could afford Ben. I said well, I'll go ask him when he come and make the contact. They're all two real visionaries.
Speaker 3:I mean, a lot of people is like take what we expend. I mean, at the end of the day we work with quality material and then we put out quality work, Of course. So it would cost something. You know you can't do it for free, of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that time of COVID and the way the whole events were shut down. The country was shut down. You like him. Your life, work is in creating things for spaces that people come together, where there's weddings, there's events, there's fets. Yeah, what was that like when, when things were shut down.
Speaker 3:That was like a full stop and I was like you know, I was like what do we do? What do we do? But fortunately, because I am not solely into decorating, I didn't go under totally. People were still calling for stuff, yeah, yeah. So we kind of had a little bit going on, unlike other people who just like who's into equipments and, yeah, everything, just park up. Yeah, everything was just yeah. So we started feeling it. You know, it's like wow, you know what I mean, and they did nothing for us. Yeah, we, wow, you know what I mean, and they did nothing for us. Yeah, we was like the last. I mean, we, we, we always been treated like that in our event and I would say even in CIC, they always treat us like the decorator, not important, really. Yeah, the party needs the DJ, the equipments, the roof, the tents, you know, and the food and drink, but we can leave the deck out.
Speaker 2:Not the promoter.
Speaker 3:Not the promoter.
Speaker 2:We're talking just in general other vendors oh.
Speaker 1:I see.
Speaker 2:We were actually told at one time that the deck doesn't have to go up, but the music has to be up. Or else this would not go on. Yeah, that's the disrespect we have to deal with.
Speaker 1:That's fight for real estate, something inside the event.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean at the end if you don't have Marshall and Kess, and you know I mean, nobody wants to come to that FET. You know the top artists, nobody want to come to the FET.
Speaker 1:So it's like we've been treated like okay, yeah, yeah, just push them aside yeah, I might argue different, you know, because I think that, um, if you have to do a survey as to why people want to go next year, I could, I could bet that a lot of people will see is because of how it looks. The look at the fetters. What I don't want to say, that's the only thing. I don't want to take anything away from any other part, but they have a hundred FETs. You could see Marshall for the year, but there's that one Ben Gaia, I could call it St Mary's FET, but there's that one time that you will see something as as consuming as that visually when you walk into the event. So I was surprised. But I mean other vendors. I suppose people want to. As you say, man wants a rap banner and you think people want to arrest Daspin. You must get some of that.
Speaker 3:Well, again, you know, we just talk about the vibes and the vibes, because I hear people talk about Fatima and it was good. I mean, they don't have the atmosphere.
Speaker 1:I have a real challenge with it. Honestly, I love Fatima. I have a Fatima old boy and some of my friends are old boys on the committee. But I find inside of Fatima number one, the school is a beautiful school, the building but what happens is that it is I don't know if you ever went to it at all no, it is sponsor mania inside there. What you see is a lot of tents none of it cohesive Everybody coming to sell their products. So you might see a Campari boot that have a slight step up that'll lock one and it'll rock you when you step onto it. And a next food thing here that have a sign that ain't related and no way to the next sign on the next side. So I always feel it is a real good vibe. It is a good fit.
Speaker 1:Them fellas and they have some of the top bands. They had back Marshall this year for the first time in some years. So no knock on the vibe in the event. But I wonder if people or the committee sees where the, how much it could be enhanced if it look in a certain way beyond that. But I know budgets and so on because from the time I tell them about it, they say budgets, they say them fellas and them have big budgets in St Mary's. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, well, I mean yes and no, it's totally the same school.
Speaker 1:If you think about it, they're under the same roof Only God's fathers, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so why not management? It's the same thing with the country, you know, like if we don't have management and people have vision, we end up the same way. So if you can't see, okay, this, we can do something by this roundabout grant, or in the airport, or the boardwalk, or the boardwalk, you know. If you can't see that, well then we don't get nowhere, you know. But if you see the importance of it, like these, these two fellas, I mean they, they, they call me in Um, was this Joe harder than Roberto Ramirez? Yeah, they, I mean they have division.
Speaker 1:That's at St Mary's. St Mary's.
Speaker 3:They call me in and it's like Ben, we want we going to do to make it better next year. I was like brother, we could fix it up, no problem.
Speaker 3:But if you don't have that question happening. How do you grow, you know, if you just think about okay, we're just making the money, and I said, take the sacrifice, of course, because St Mary's you can't get tickets for, but at the end of the day they brought the party to what it is, or we brought the party what it is. Everybody else could do it, you know. So it's just about that management and putting things in place and everybody can be great.
Speaker 1:I just hope Oli accept. Oli rolled out all his parties. Nobody can't get any tickets. I just want to put that out there. That's one of the main reasons I hear Ben guy say tickets.
Speaker 3:I love it. I've been asking people be calling me Ben. We want 10 tickets.
Speaker 1:I was like, yeah, I know the promoters no but I have some ideas, because, besides them, installations, you can just form me into a few, if you just you know you create a little crawl space.
Speaker 3:Or you could come and be an actor, a dancer, a moko be, and I want to disappear and fed. They ain't gonna find me, those fellas end up in effect.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess my still walkers they end up in effect. So wait beyond just the decor. You would provide those things as well, and in any photo area.
Speaker 3:We had some, um, like years gone by, we had still walkers dressed up as trees, right you know. And then last year we had rock men. They would dress up like rock and trees. And then this year we kind of switched it up and we had what do we call them? Mirrormen, mirrormen. Okay, so they were all dressed in these mirror outfits Because we was all modern.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, futuristic. So you understand that, daryl, lime color, lime fit. We did lime two years, two years ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how that went. We just did the stage, just the stage, just the stage. It was good, it was exciting. A little project, we enhanced it and then they didn't call us back after that and I realized they didn't do anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they didn't do much.
Speaker 3:No, them calls go and come eh.
Speaker 1:Again. I mean, if you don't see the importance of it you won't bother. But this is now. It was the top tier ticket price. It was very, very hard to get and it was also one of those FETs. When you walk into it there was a wow factor. Now a big part of the wow factor was the house, and I guess who he is as well. Again, to go where Brian Lara is, and for the first maybe seven, eight years of that event, it was untouchable in that premium spot in Canberra. Now it seems to be St Mary's and Lime battling for that premium spot. And you see me as a man. I always read a thing where when Koreans wanted to get into vehicle manufacturing, right, they went and hired all the top engineers and gave them a ridiculous contract to come Korea and design. So I wonder if that call going and come.
Speaker 3:If you're fighting for the top spot, call the top guys, you know I mean, at the end of the day, if you have a all-inclusive that that's selling out, um, you know, and you don't have to, yeah I guess that's always part of it, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, and to tie that back to what you're saying about the country, I wonder if, because we have a carnival that's selling out, or at least we had an energy sector that was keeping the hotels and the airports full, if it's why you're not getting calls yet from the ministry or culture to do installations, I don't know, I don't know. You know, look at what this savannah could look like off-season, or, as you say, roundabouts. So independence, you get them kind of calls, as you say, roundabouts and yeah. So independence, you get them kind of calls like those types of things.
Speaker 3:Well, we had to limit that because independent kind of falls where Christmas happening and then Christmas is always in between where carnavans start.
Speaker 2:I see what you're saying, so we used to do the, the grandstand I we used to work with another company it's another decorating company under them but we did the installations and built out stuff for them a few years we haven't done it for for like, not for a while, yeah we've stopped because we have other work to attend to but that could be huge too, you know, and they usually leave it up for republic day and and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it will stay up for a while at least.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I mean that you could appreciate, you know, not coming down six days after Six hours, six hours after.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always used to watch like I grew up in St James right and Hussein was a big part of my upbringing and you used to watch the amount of work that used to go in. You have, yeah, and then you had to throw away the second part of the religion as well, but I don't know how small these are. Throw it in the sea. Now I see they take apart the more valuable parts of it and they don't throw away the whole thing. But I wonder about them. Things with temporary installations, yeah. But going back to COVID for a minute, one of the things you said about COVID in the article I found was interesting was stopping of the financial part of the creative sector, but the creative part as a. As a person who is creative, you tend to find most creatives talk about just that outlet. How was that during covid, where your amount of creativity is limited in terms of where you could create or build?
Speaker 2:we. What we had to deal with in covid and I'm I believe I'm speaking for everybody is the fact that it wasn't just um, what can I say? No physical work, but we had to deal with a mental issue. You know, we're just being locked away um, our hands are tied. We can't do what we normally usually are able to do. Um, in our case, we, we actually did some work on the house.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, that's how we.
Speaker 2:That's the outlet, yeah we sort of you know did that and, as he said, we had the clients who had their little personal Christmas decor that they wanted done All right gotcha. That kind of kept us going, but it was not easy. Yeah, yeah mentally, mentally, emotionally, you know, every night I I actually remember every night I would get up around probably or two o'clock in the morning and I would just buy out of my sleep and be like, oh my god, covid, yeah, it was that bad it was a strange time right, yeah, it was
Speaker 1:it was crazy yeah, especially when you say I liked how you all spoke about creatives being forgotten during that time, because I genuinely believe that most people who creative would find that that isolation was a difficult thing the inability to do what you love or the limitation of it out. Well, but I felt like this year just experiencing carnival. This year, I feel like 2025 was our first return to normal. It took a little while to build back up, yeah, in terms of the amount of people in events, how people enjoy it, how much people share on social media. I feel like we just back to that energy. Yeah, so I hope it continues to propel that way. So, where you see the future of of the business, where you are now, given the type of work that you're doing, the jobs that you're doing now and the calls that will hopefully come from the other feds and the ministries, particularly, what will you have as your vision for where you're going with the company?
Speaker 3:Well, we would like to grow, everybody would like to grow, but at the end of the day, in order for me to grow, I would have to rely on people. You know, there's only so much I can do for myself, so we'll have to hire new people, artists, in order to take on more projects. You know, mainly another space, bigger space, in order to manage two or three events at the same time. We need the space, of course. You know so, I think things like that. But apart from that, since COVID, actually, we was like why, why are we not teach this thing?
Speaker 2:We actually have been discussing it a few years now, off and on. You know, we've even told some schools. If you all have art students, you know sometimes you don't know what's there for you until you try it right. Um, like, for instance, we had a student who came to us. He was, he was into art and um, this was this is before covid and he came and he did a one day, a few hours basically, with us and he carved out it was an alligator right For his as his art project. And you know they were all stunned that this could be done, you know, so quickly and he learned and whatnot. He went on to go into photography and graphic arts and whatnot. He came from. I believe his dad is an accountant.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So that would have been the way to go, of course, but when he was opened up to what he can do. You know, he went the other way. Right Now we have a young artist with us who came out from curacy and he is excellent and he's learning on the band and he's learning quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as in.
Speaker 2:he's already good, so that the time that he would have taken to figure things out he's under him. So he just tells him no, just do whatever, and he figures it out, you know. And well, he's in UWE as well, so he's part with us, but he's in UWE doing his stuff, you know.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But we want more like that, Of course. So this all comes back down to again, maybe the Ministry of Education. This is an outlet. Like we passed by a school, I believe it's a home for boys, and I was like that's a home for boys and he was like, yes, I said, but maybe we could, you know, get them to get their hands dirty and see if this is something that they might be interested in. So we actually have been thinking about it, but it's just a matter of getting the right people to you know take on the role of, because we are definitely about helping the youth.
Speaker 2:You know, you just never know where you could get that person. Yeah At the end of the day, you know, and I mean, we came from basically nothing, Right, People wouldn't know that, but we worked our way up and you know we used what we were given and, you know, built ourselves. So I would like to see that for anybody else.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:You know yeah.
Speaker 1:It's similar to what you said your teacher would have done for you in Southeast, right? Yeah, yeah, I feel like and I try not to make this into a whole gripe session I mean, every time you talk it reminds me of some of the difficulties we have here. But you're right, If you are to lend your talent and treasure to things like this and you're willing to do it, I have found that the more people I talk to, the more I find that people want to do what you do. You need to have more mentoring, or getting more people involved, or helping youths more people involved or helping youths and especially because our school system I don't know if it's designed to find or create people like yourselves very easily. It's not. It's not right.
Speaker 3:It's as a basic. You know, nine to five, go learn the curriculum. That's it the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and the curriculum helps you to. If you're really really good, you will do well in some profession like doctor, engineer, accountant, those things. If you're, if you're okay or you're good and you're not exceptional, you'll probably get very good jobs in those fields. But it doesn't help you much with things like arts or entrepreneurship or innovation, and to me those are the things that are like. When I look at over the past few weeks, we're in the heat of our election season, right, so everybody knows what they could do to fix the country. Everybody's figuring it out about two weeks before the election. It's beautiful, I love it, and they know what needs to be done. But the things that will really save the country, if we had to depend on somebody who have oil and somebody who say if we could get it, or we can't get it, or you could use it or not use it, it's really people like, like yourselves, who innovate, try something, do something differently and employ many, many people who might, might not hope or might not chances. When it's about home for the boys, I wonder how ministries like if you say ministry education, how you could turn down something like that, like why wouldn't you fund people who want to help you. So, yeah, I always feel like it's sometimes it's just a spark people need right, especially young people. They just need to see because, as you say, the, the, when you say carve out a styrofoam, right, I don't know what I mean because the first thing I think is, will you get a big block of styrofoam? So I styrofoam to me is a little ticket Ice box. Yeah, exactly, packaging.
Speaker 1:My biggest exposure to styrofoam was a fellow in St Jamesville. His father used to build mass and he used to bring these little styrofoam pieces home. I don't know if he used to use it for mass or what, but we used to take the ice pick and play darts with that. And boy, it looks like fire when you see that man father, each of them Right. And boy, it looks like fire when you see that man farther. He told me take your little Styrotex and dig it up.
Speaker 3:So I don't know what it is. Well, Styrotex is one aspect that you know. I mean, it's just an easy method of using, but they have companies that are doing it in Trinidad. They bring down the raw products and they do blocks. They do blocks as big as 16 feet. Oh, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:And yes, and then we start from that and we cut it to so what other application?
Speaker 3:they have other than what you're doing. What people use that for industry? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, for insulation, I see, I see, for quite a bit of things. Oh, a lot of it in the marine industry as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, makes sense. Yeah, styrofoam floats yeah.
Speaker 3:You live and live where icebox coolers. You know that happening. But most of those delivery vehicles, all of those panels that you see that build up in the back there's it's Cyretex inside. Ah gotcha, yeah.
Speaker 2:It looks like metal, right yeah?
Speaker 3:All of them has that foam in between. So this foam has been, has been used for years in Trinidad and still been used in Trinidad. You know, gotcha? I mean you have the little talks with people about the environment and this and that, but, um, um, I mean this is what we're giving. You know what else?
Speaker 1:Of course, of course, yeah, well, it makes sense. I'm glad to hear you'll say that mentorship is the case. And in terms of the future, again painting and stuff things again back to you going back and do your exhibition or there's more something.
Speaker 3:I mean, actually we recognized that way about 10 years ago sometime. One day we were driving down Rice Road and I was like, looking at the pieces that we did on the Parliament building, she was like, you know, you always wanted to have an exhibition. But guess what? Oh, yes, it's true, your work is being exhibited. And we came to like, yeah, it's true, I always want to have an exhibition and we have one as big an exhibition as you can get. I mean everybody that passes there take pictures in front of it.
Speaker 3:Of course, wedding pictures you see all the time, so when you think to yourself okay, this is what you want to do, I want to have an exhibition, the creator have more, much more installed for you. You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't be that. No, so in terms of going back to paint has gone down quite a bit since. I mean, since these fancy printers come out, you can take a picture of yourself and turn it into a portrait, of course, She'll look like a painting Somebody physically don't have to do that again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know that's just technology, so it has died. You know the whole fine arts has. That has went down quite a bit. So it's not like I was looking for it for the money, but I still would like people to appreciate the work. So if you don't have an audience for it, it don't make sense. I mean, I love creating three-dimensional stuff where 3D is concerned and bringing that to life.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm hoping these things fall on your right ears, because some of the things you talk about here I would here, I would love to see come to pass, yeah, and when this other come to pass, I would love to be a part of it. So just let me know a comment, because if there's the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Everybody says yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and also do installations in places that public, because that it must be a proud feeling to pass by that parliament building or even to be scrolling through instagram and see people, the wedding pictures and stuff in front of it.
Speaker 3:Just a just a little while ago, we were driving up the highway and we see the Jameson bottles on the highway. Yeah, we recently did those. Oh yeah. Yeah, they were five feet tall, three-dimensional. Oh, I see they were built out of fiberglass.
Speaker 1:Where is this on the highway? This is like sorry between the medium. Oh right.
Speaker 3:And the way? Oh right, I know what you're talking about. What is this Going down the middle? Yeah, they have a few bottles straight down to Rice Road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just passed it I was like whoa, I felt proud. I was like, hey, that's my bottle. Yeah boy, you see, this is my problem.
Speaker 3:I want to come out of the car telling people that I was like, hey, I build the bottle and then Sinewave, they did the wrap and they covered it and they installed it of course. I produced them with the bottle, yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess the Sine companies will be working closer to them all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like a lot of bottles from Angostura, the huge bottles that you see from Angostura that came from us. All of them are going to be styrofoam. It would be fiberglass. Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1:So fiberglass would be like just a little more permanent if it had to be there longer or it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's the only time we use glass is if it's going to be there in the weather, taking weather for years and that kind of thing. So that's the only. There's a lot of Christmas insulation. We use some fiberglass because, and so forth, they'll be out in the weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gotcha, gotcha, but it's not something that we do like all the time. I understand, I understand, but listen, just know the affordable imports. People go and run me out of here and I might keep it here a whole day if I get the chance. But this is a huge amount of learning for me because I'll tell you, even in preparing to talk to you, it takes to make these things. I saw you, know you. Just the finished product is all I want to see it's like. I can't wait to see what it come out like. So just hearing about what goes into the background of it is impressive.
Speaker 3:So we don't just do one thing, because we kind of being labeled as the person who's do CIC, fet.
Speaker 1:Of course I would imagine Right quite a bit of other things too. Yeah, it's one of the things about being in the background in industries. You know people will see and enjoy your work and then it's hard to tie together. So if you need to hire somebody to come and tell people is all you do it, let me know. I could come and flag people and tell them, of course.
Speaker 1:I could let it be known. Yes, I have one more question before you go. What's the likelihood you think again Janine on camera the next time you come here? What do you feel? On a scale of 1 to 10, janine, what's the likelihood again you're on camera the next time? Let's see how aligned you are with these answers. What's the likelihood again you're on camera the next time? Felicity silence. Well, listen, I want to thank you a lot, millian. This was great. I think it's a lot that people could learn from it and I appreciate your point and all the other things that you all work on, because it's a vast field and I hope it continues to grow. I hope some of the things you all talk about come true. Thanks a million.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. You're most welcome, thank you.