Well-known Main Street artist dies

Odeen (left) and Merecia Phillips with one of their father’s pieces at the Marriott Hotel

Accomplished sculptor Marvin Roberts Phillips, who spent more than 30 years of his life on Main Street selling and creating his work, died on December 29, 2018.

His children, in a sit down with The Scene, spoke of their father’s journey.

“There was always something about wood for him. Daddy would see a piece and he’d look at the wood and turn it around and really look at the piece, then he’d say what he sees that can be made from it. He first began by helping another sculptor Gary Thomas with the sanding of his pieces and then he began making his own,” his eldest daughter Odeen Phillips recounted.

Phillips, who hailed from Fifth Street, Patentia Housing Scheme, West Bank Demerara, spent his early years selling icicles and ice blocks in Wales prior to taking up sculpting. Odeen spoke of her father’s struggle to secure a permanent location and recalled him selling on the parapet of Guyana Stores Limited before being forced to move. Phillips and the other sculptors, for a short period, sold in front of the Bank of Guyana until they moved to Main Street where sculptors remain even today selling their pieces.