In the intervening weeks between our conversation in mid-November focused on the Old House series and our follow-up fully two months later, Dudley Charles and I engaged in very fluid discussions on art in Guyana and circumstances for artists. Although physically distant, he is attuned with what is going on enough to keep me abreast of things. As we chatted, he told me of an encounter with Denis Williams [b. 1923, d. 1998]. Denis was instrumental in founding the Walter Roth Museum and the Museum of African Heritage, the E.R Burrowes School of Art and Castellani House.
DC: As I was working on the old house series, Denis Williams would come around and he’d look. He wouldn’t say anything, he would just look. Then one day he was looking at a painting and he said, “Why are you trying to analyse? You are getting too analytical.” I didn’t say anything. I just listened but he was right. I was thinking about colour and things, trying to do this and that. So, I had to stop and look.
