Nadia Jabour is a creator and it is safe to say that she uses any and everything she puts her hand on to lovingly create pieces of jewellery that bring satisfaction to her customers.
Nadia, who now resides in St Lucia, describes her newfound career as a hobby which has blossomed into her only source of income and while she still enjoys doing it, she is also satisfied that she no longer has to toil in another area to put bread on her table.
“I did some of it [jewellery making] in Toronto because I have four kids and two were teenagers at the time and were into jewellery so instead of me buying stuff for them like costume jewellery I decided let me start making them,” Nadia told The Scene during a recent sit down.
The Scene caught up with this woman of substance during her recent visit to Guyana and she revealed that she left Guyana for Toronto, Canada, eight years ago where she completed her Masters in Toursim and Hospitality and worked for a while before moving to St Lucia two years ago.
“That was the plan, I was only spending a period of time in Toronto and then headed to St Lucia and I have settled there,” she said.
It was a little more than her children’s interest in jewellery that led her down that path as she revealed that boredom one summer made her turn to the jewellery and her children and their friends got into it. At that time she used mainly bought beads, but now she uses whatever inspires her adding that in “all of my creative stuff I always like natural things so seeds, and branches and whatever even in my decorating career here as a decorator I always used natural stuff from within.”
She said her jewellery caught on in Toronto but it was after she moved to St Lucia that it really became a business through her advertising of her work by wearing her pieces.
“I had on some and somebody said to me ‘well why don’t you [make some]’ and I started to make and it has just taken off with the tourism industry there and the local people really, really like local stuff. There is a big need throughout the Caribbean to utilise the local industry and local material because there are way too much imported stuff coming in,” Nadia said.
Nadia now supplies two of the Sandals’ chain of hotels and also four stores in St Lucia and has been featured in She magazine and another one called Fresh out of St Lucia. She said she does most of the work herself but would hire persons from time to time only if she has a large order. She does not have a store, but she has a large clientele and business is good. She has a show once a year in her home and which “does extremely well and I sell out in that” and she also has a show during the popular jazz festival in St Lucia.
“I pay all my bills, I pay my rent, my food everything comes from just that, I don’t do anything else so it is quite enjoyable.”
One of a kind
A lot of her material comes from Guyana such as driftwood, seeds, coconut, sea glass and leather and while she sometimes comes to purchase her relatives would purchase and send them to her. To keep her work unique, Nadia said, most of her pieces are one of a kind and she would only make two or three of one design, if it is really liked. The designs for the pieces just appear for Nadia. She explained that she is not sure how she gets her ideas as they would “just come into my head.
“I have a workshop and everything is laid out so things just come to me and I would add and put in various scenes and stuff with other things,” Nadia said adding that she is assisted by the material she received from around the world by her friends.
Nadia told The Scene that she likes to make cultural stuff and as such anything she gets her hands on becomes part of a jewellery piece.
“Look yesterday I was down at my brother’s workshop and they were cutting aluminium and they were striping the aluminium sheeting so they were all in curves and I picked up all of it and I will hammer that and create,” Nadia said as an example of her using any material to create her masterpieces.
Nadia is of the view that there is a need for people to appreciate what they have as around the world people feel that things that are imported are better than what they have in their home land. She said people just need to “stretch their imagination” and use what they have locally.
She said in St Lucia there is an appreciation for local products and the island has a very vibrant arts and craft association and she said she feels it is because of the tourism and the appreciation for arts and fine arts.
“We have good quality… good theatre so there is an appreciation so what ends up happening is that we have formed a group now that is a company so eight of us are now doing other stuff throughout the Caribbean. We don’t believe in competition, there is no competition…We have different styles and we work really well. So three of us are in jewellery, three in fabric and two are in ceramics.”
She said they would be attending different shows throughout the Caribbean and while all of them would not be able to afford to attend all the shows, whoever does would then display items from the other members.
Tourism
She said networking needs to be established in the Caribbean and those in the arts need to understand that if everyone works together then the entire industry throughout the region would benefit.
Before her jewellery career, Nadia noted, she worked in the tourism and hospitality industry and managed Palm Court and she also did interior decorating and is a qualified florist.
Nadia could well be described as multifaceted as her original career was not in the arts. She is a trained early childhood educator and while in Toronto she worked with the school board in the parenting and literacy progarmme. But it is not something she did while in Guyana, as she prefers to work in an environment where she can make a difference.
“Here I would be spinning a wheel and not getting anywhere,” she commented adding that many Guyanese make financial gain in Guyana but there is no personal growth.
When she left Guyana she was the administrator at the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) and according to her she was very involved in the tourism sector and helped to set up GTA. She once operated the White Water Adventure Tours and along with her work at Palm Court she became very involved in the sector.
She was forced to leave Guyana because her children needed to attend university and she wanted to further her studies but Nadia said part of why she left here was because while in Guyana she felt “like if I was on a wall, it was like you hit a wall and there is nowhere else for you to go…
“I personally need personal growth. I don’t care about money, all the jewellery I make right now I pay my rent, I pay for my food and I am happy. I don’t need to have a million dollars. I don’t need to prove to anybody that I am a millionaire.”
Nadia she said sadness engulfs her when she sees things about the art industry and she was even more saddened when she visited the Main Street Lime “and see what it evolved into.
“When we started Main Street Lime we were at the height of tourism and it was meant to showcase Guyana’s interior… to showcase tourism in Guyana. I am sorry; that is not happening now. We went to the ministry’s booth and talked to the girls there and it was like they didn’t even know why they were there…”
She said just one little section had some arts and craft, but most of the stuff was bought from China and other countries and put on display. In contrast, she said, during St Lucia’s jazz festival one cannot enter to vend if one’s product is not local or regionally made. Nadia suggested that the Police Band or the country’s steel orchestra play at the event instead of having several boom boxes blasting music.
“They should just stop it. They have reached a point where they should stop it for a year and re-think it and re-organise it,” Nadia said, adding that the standards of the event should not be lowered to attract a crowd.
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