You could tell from the expressionless mask that she wore that Veronica Clinton had heard it all before. When she came to see us on Friday, lugging black plastic bags of handbags, decorative fruit baskets and smaller works of craft, Veronica had not come for a gaff about the skills of Amerindian craftsmen and women and the beauty of their creations; she wanted to talk about the reasons why those skills had not, over many decades, been meaningfully materially rewarded and what, even now, could be done to have the work of our indigenous people not treated like some pretty sideshow to be patronizingly applauded but never really accorded its rightful commercial place.
She wanted people to know that Amerindian craft exists for more than just the kind of patronizing admiration to which it has long been subjected.
Still, it was hard not to applaud the skills exemplified in the pieces that she had brought for us to see. The fruit baskets would more than hold their own in the most tasteful of living rooms, here in Guyana and in most other places.
