A 24-year-old Guyanese craftsman who has won both national recognition and high marks from the Institute of Private Enterprise Develop-ment (IPED) for his dedicated entrepreneurship, is hoping to secure the support of the public and private sectors to facilitate his participation in the June 27-30 Barbados Manufacturers Exhibition (BMEX) at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre in Bridgetown. Lexton Williams whose LW Creations has attracted considerable attention in the local art and craft community told Stabroek Business in an interview earlier this week that his decision to travel to the prestigious regional manufacturers’ exhibition is based on his conviction that the local art and craft industry needs to break through the glass ceiling that confines high-quality work to very limited local markets and stunts the growth of the industry, while retarding the economic progress of artists and craftspeople.
“We need to be realistic about this. The situation is not good. People struggle in silence,” Williams says. The problem stems from an ever-widening gap between the vocal acknowledgement of the creative talents of local artists and craftspeople and the transformation of those rave reviews into sales, he says.
Williams believes that most of Guyana’s crafts- people persist at a subsistence level, periodically seizing the limited opportunities afforded by an event like the annual state-run GuyExpo to make a proverbial killing. Otherwise, they may meet a visitor to
