Art for the People
- Michelle Tappin-Davis
- Aug 23
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 25
Today Women In Art Organization of Trinidad and Tobago pays tribute to member artist Valerie Belgrave, a brilliant academic, artist, author and social activist, who died on August 23rd, nine years ago.
I remember meeting Valerie years ago at one of WIAOTT's meetings. I can still see her standing, confident and radiant, promoting one of her books, Art for the People. Years later, when I became President of WIAOTT in 2015, she submitted a gorgeous painting called The Girls’ Club, especially created for our WIAOTT Annual Members’ Exhibition in September and I still remember it quite vividly because it gave me such joy to behold. So, when I learned almost a year later that Valerie had succumbed to cancer, it came as a great shock and a great loss to me. I, together with several other members, attended her funeral and it was there that I learned the full impact of how much we had really lost when Valerie died.
Valerie's impact on the civil rights movement on the local and international stage has been memorialized in the documentary, Ninth Floor, and upon her death, the local media published much about her work as an artist and author. However, I hope that the following excerpts of my exclusive interview with her son and heir, Chenier Belgrave, provide an insight about Valerie as a mother and who she was at her core.
Interview With Chenier Belgrave, dated, 19/8/25 @1:pm
Subject: Valerie Belgrave, artist, author, humanitarian, activist
“She was a problem-solver. She was not the type of person to look at a problem and say, “Oh woe is me.” She would say “OK, this is the problem, now how do we solve it”
Q: Can you give me an example of this?
A: (After an accident at school) I remember ending up in Casualty and while everyone else was panicking, she was very focused on asking the relevant questions to address the emergency... even my birth was planned.
While Valerie was a student in Canada she had her son there so that he obtained a Canadian passport and as a Canadian citizen, was eligible to study at the Sir George Williams University (now Concordia), the very location of the sit-in protest against racism that Valerie participated in, which led to the documentary film, Ninth Floor.
Valerie was also a planner and her work “had a commercial purpose to it”. According to Chenier “we committed to find our way through art”. When she returned from Canada in the early 1970’s she staged her first solo Textile show, consisting of Batik designs, under the theme “The Medium is the Message” at the Trinidad Hilton. This statement was echoed with greater resonance as Valerie’s designs were launched to the sound of Tassa and African drums, a first for the Hilton in a post- colonial era. It was a statement that art should be accessible to everyone, not just the elite.
Q: How did you experience your mom’s creative process as a child?
A: Art was always happening. My mother was a person who would burn water. Housework took a back seat. She lived her art. You know there are some who pose as artists? She didn't pose... she was an artist. But she knew how to make adjustments, she never missed a Parents’ Meeting, but when she was making art, everybody knew what time it was.
Q: What life lesson did Valerie leave that had the biggest influence on you?
A: Believe in what you believe. Believe in what you are doing.
Valerie “did not try to sound bright." She lived her philosophy of “power to the people” and believed that “once everything belonged to the community, then everything would be alright”.
Chenier quotes his father, Teddy Belgrave, as saying that “He admired how she lived what she believed”, for although she was “one of the architects of the Black Power Movement she did not “embrace it one hundred percent ” as she was against oppression of all forms... not just oppression specific to black people... so she had white friends”.
Valerie “enjoyed being the Permanent Secretary of the Student Guild at The University of The West Indies because it allowed her to influence some of the bright, intellectual minds such as David Abdullah and Brother Resistance to name a few. They called her Val”. She, however, eventually gave up the position for the sake of an important self-care ritual - her afternoon siesta from noon to 3:00 pm.
Apart from the minds that she molded in life, Valerie’s legacy lives on through her paintings such as: The Girls' Club, (created for WIAOTT Members Show 2015,) Walking In The Rain, Girl with Hoola Hoop, (inspired by a friend ‘s daughter) and Great Fête Weekend, (an initiative of her son, Chenier).
Before she died, Valerie traveled extensively to Egypt, South Africa, India and the Mediterranean but her artwork continued to be deeply influenced by her cultural identity as a Caribbean woman.
As a testament to her focus and clinical genius, Valerie’s home in San Juan, was designed to include an art gallery and it is Chenier’s intention to exhibit her work there. In 2024 he relaunched his mother's book, Art for the People and he also plans to make reproductions of selected original paintings.
Valerie was also an accomplished author. She wrote Ti Marie (1988), Dance the Water (2002) Night of The Wolf (1991 based on The Coup of 1990) and Adventure of The Magic Steelpan (a Children’s Book)
Her books are currently available at TriniShop, (Trincity Mall and Piarco) and will soon be available in our online shop.
The brilliance of Valerie Belgraves’ creative genius cannot be overstated and it is my hope that her life and legacy will inspire women all over the world.
About The NINTH FLOOR
Ninth Floor is a documentary produced by the Canadian National Film Board in 2015 written and directed by Mina Shum. It explores a pivotal moment in Canadian race relations when in 1969, a group of Black West-Indian students at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) in Montreal accused a biology professor of discrimination based on evidence of unfair grading. The lack-lustre response from the University generated multiple student-led meetings, sit-ins, and peaceful protests. Things came to a head when over 400 students occupied the university’s computer lab and engaged in negotiations with a reluctant administration. A break-down in negotiations resulted in 97 arrests by the riot police and $2 million worth of damage some of which was allegedly attributed to the students.
All local images have been posted with the kind permission of Chenier Belgrave.
The author also references an article published in the Trinidad Guardian dated 16/10/16 by Fayola K J Fraser, as a source of information.
Written by: Michelle Tappin-Davis
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