During these 64 days of lockdown, visual artist, musician (pianist) and graphic designer, Évanor Ficadière, produced bags and pendants made from calabashes harvested from his father’s garden in Capesterre Belle-Eau.
As Évanor Ficadière was unable to fly back to the Paris region where he lives, he was confined to his parents’ home in Capesterre Belle-Eau from March 17 to May 11. Instead of twiddling his thumbs, the artist set his sights on the calabashes in the garden of his father (and neighbours) and decided to transform them.
Immediately, the visual artist sent his first images to Kariculture.net to show us how he was occupying himself during those days of confinement. “In fact, I had already worked on calabash when I was 14 years old, I really liked handicrafts, but at the time it was very difficult because I had no tools. Now, I work faster with this raw material found in nature because I learned things about scraping, for example. It seems that there are 200 varieties of calabashes in Guadeloupe with different shapes, the biggest would grow in Pointe-Noire. I learned a lot about local flora”, he said.
Bags and pendants…
Every morning, during lockdown, it was the same ritual: “I woke up between 7:00 and 8:00 am, I said my prayers, I had a lemongrass tea (I don’t drink milk or coffee), I went for a walk in the garden and then I went to look after the animals (pigs, goats, chickens…). Around 9:00 am, I started my artistic activities, around 1:00 pm I had lunch, sometimes I didn’t even eat, I went back to work around 2:00 pm to finish between 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm. In fact, I lived this lockdown well”, he told.
During these almost eight weeks in the family home, Évanor Ficadière, who graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, had time to turn more than twenty calabashes into pendants and several models of bags inside which he put madras fabric, especially black and white madras, that he prefers. On the outside surface, the face of the “King of Reggae”, Bob Marley, who would have turned 75 this year, hummingbirds, hibiscus among others things were painted with acrylic. “Someone told me there are about 20 species of hibiscus in Guadeloupe and she sent me some amazing photos”, he said.
The artist hopes that his creations will find buyers before returning to France.
