After we had finished speaking with Juliana Hughes on Monday she had to ready herself to travel to Florida the next day to participate in the Guyana Trade, Tourism and Investment Expo 2014. Local craftspeople set much store by overseas events and perhaps more than most Hughes believes that events like the Florida Expo are a commercial lifeline for the local craft community. She is not alone among her compatriots who believe that at least 75 per cent of the purchases in the craft sector are made by foreigners.
The 59-year-old Rastafarian is an outspoken critic of what she believes is a widespread local indifference to indigenous craft. Having travelled to and stayed in other countries on the continent including Suriname and Brazil, she says she finds the propensity by Guyanese to distance themselves from local craft disturbing. At least in part, she says, it is a consequence of a strong tradition of wearing gold jewellery. She says that elsewhere in the hemisphere indigenous jewellers are well-respected and that the locals wear their jewellery with pride.
She had, it seems, thought that her return to Guyana in 2005 and the launch by herself and her husband Wesley George of the commercial craft establishment Jah Works might precipitate a
