Furniture as art

UNIQUE: Artistic furniture maker Yamidé stands with a lamp she created and which was featured at a recent exhibition at the Horizons Art Gallery, Mucurapo Road, St James. An artist and furniture maker working out of Les Coteaux, Tobago, Yamidé creates unique and very artistic furniture-end tables, lamp chairs and more using-wood, steel, glass and other items. Some of her new creations were featured in a recent exhibition at the Horizons Art Gallery, Mucurapo Road, St James, where visitors were awed by the pieces on show. Born Lisa Marsh in Kingston, Jamaica, Yamidé (yah-mi-dey) migrated to Los Angeles when she was 16 years old and studied journalism at Santa Monica College. She also developed an interest in fashion and established a clothing line for girls known as the Elizabeth March Line. Yamidé then moved to New York, where she met her first husband, a Trinidadian, with whom she came to live in Trinidad in 1988. The mother of four, three girls and a boy, Yamidé in 1994 moved to Tobago with her second husband where her interest in art and nature began to develop even further. Initially she created her artistic furniture as a hobby and to be given to friends as gifts. As more people saw her creations and requested that she make pieces for them, Yamidé began to do commissioned pieces. Yamidé has been featured at two exhibitions at Horizons thus far and she told the Express, since then, people from Trinidad have been approaching her to make pieces for them. At this time, she explained, she has no plans of expanding and working towards exporting to other countries because, as it is, the commissioned works and her own pieces created under inspiration keep her very busy. ’Since the two exhibitions things have moved from just commissioned work to a broader market in Trinidad. I don’t know if I am looking to go into exporting because the studio is small and I am very busy as it is. I do not want what I do to take over my life. I may consider exporting to Jamaica, though, because, as you would expect, Jamaica is close to my heart and I believe there will be a market for me there,’ Yamidé said. She is inspired by nature and she loves to work with wood, which she finds at sawmills, lumber yards and along the way. She explained that she does not like reshaping the wood too much and tries to work it into what she is creating. The natural shape of the wood will dictate whether the piece will be a chair or a table. ’I have always been intrigued by nature and how it creates itself. I love wood and I let it lead me as I decide what I will set out to create with it. My pieces must be durable and useful as well as stylish. When I am doing pieces for exhibition, I keep them affordable and at a size that is easily transported because, remember, I am coming over from Tobago. With the commissioned pieces, I work according to what the client wants.’