On Two Foot Bay road is the home of artist and author Claire Frank and her husband, Mackenzie. Here you are welcome to relax with a local drink or a coffee on the breezy gallery and browse through a wide collection of information about Barbuda. Claire specialises in local crafts and makes many of them herself. Her silk paintings are sold through Harmony Hall in Antigua and she prints all her own t-shirts. If you are looking for accommodation, she will answer your questions by e-mail and can help with most things Barbudan to ensure you have the best time while you are here.
In the ArtCafe, Claire has a small selection of local gifts, t-shirts and crafts, especially handmade prints and silk paintings. Silk painting is a technique similar to batik; hot wax is used to draw a picture and gold and silver gutta adds to the decoration. The pictures and cards are mounted on quality card or matte board or framed by a local frame-maker who creates beautiful hand-made frames to suit each individual picture. All of Claire's work is original, and can be bought on-line. Contact Claire for more information about her work.
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Claire has been published by Penguin in an anthology called “The Map of Me - True Tales of Mixed Heritage experience”. In today's Britain, thousands of people have parents from different cultural backgrounds. People from any background were asked to send in their true stories to illuminate the complexities, challenges and pleasures of having a mixed heritage. The results are as varied and colourful as they are true, honest and moving, but through all of them runs a universal theme: the desire to know and understand our own identity, and to forge a sense of self that surpasses the complex layers of places, parents and the past.
This book is the third and last anthology produced by Penguin in collaboration with the UK Arts Council. The previous two are Volume 1: New Voices from a Diverse Culture and From There to Here: Sixteen True Tales of Immigration to Britain. The press release (Word, 1MB) contains more information about the idea behind the book and the other contributors.
Claire's piece, “In the Middle of Nowhere”, told from the perspective of her daughter, is the story of children growing up on Barbuda, being blown off the island by Hurricane Luis and transplanted into the Norfolk countryside. Unfortunately, the anthology was a limited edition, but if you want to read Claire's story, you can buy a copy of it for UK£3.00 or equivalent through PayPal (you don't need a PayPal account). Once payment has been received, Claire will personally e-mail you a copy in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. Happy reading!
Claire has contributed information about Barbuda to several guide books on the Caribbean region, in particular the Footprint, Rough Guide and Lonely Planet guides below. Others are sometimes unreliable about Barbuda, but all are available here, and with some, you don't have to buy the whole book, just the chapter that you really want!
