a1725: DREAMS OF GLORY (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

DREAMS OF GLORY
By NERY YNCLAN
nynclan@herald.com


The peacock and branches that envelop the swarm of birds are so intricately
cut and hammered that at a distance, the large folding screen resembles
lace. It's hard to believe that the artist who crafted it extracted such
fancy from a reclaimed oil drum.

Gingerbread, a new warehouse gallery in Miami-Dade's Design District, is
filled with such unlikely creations. The collection was put together by
Axelle Liautaud, who, like a mother coddling young, warms her tony space
with Haitian antiques, crafts and paintings that defy their humble
beginnings.

Liautaud, who's preparing for a grand opening Wednesday, hopes her pieces
will remind the world that Haitian art is far more than the brightly colored
streetscapes more commonly sold.

''Forty years ago, every art collector in this country knew that there were
amazing paintings to be collected in Haiti, and they were collected,'' she
says. ``What we're suffering now is cultural isolation, and the only way we
can go back to the place we deserve is if we break this isolation and show
the best that we can offer.''

Carol Damian, chairwoman of Florida International University's art
department, curated a show of modern Haitian art several years ago in Miami
Beach. She agrees there's exceptional work being done in Haiti that has
little outlet.

''In the 1940s in Port-au-Prince, a very important school was established
where they went out into the countryside and found untrained artists who
were intuitively excellent artists,'' Damian says. ``They opened up an art
gallery to promote the work and that started the whole interest in Haitian
art, and it became an industry. A lot of Americans were collecting at the
time. It really put Haitian art on the world stage.

``There's work now that needs to be seen not in the context of Haitian art,
but of all contemporary art.''

To that end, Liautaud, a trained fashion designer, has been traveling
between the United States and Haiti, toting back her treasures. Her
long-term hope is to organize shows with other galleries and museums and
bring more of Haiti's highest-end art and sculpture to Miami's Design
District.

Liautaud's loft, at 4030 N. Miami Ave. (look for the metal door inside the
chain-link-fenced parking lot between 40th and 41st streets), already boasts
of works by Haitian masters Rigaud Benoit and Wilson Bigaud, which can sell
for as much $15,000, as well as sparkling beaded bottles for $45.

In between are huge, marvelous, aluminum candelabras for $250, mahogany
sleigh beds for $650 to $750 and $125 cement pots covered in a rainbow of
mosaic tiles.

Liautaud says most Haitian sculptors use recycled materials -- steel,
aluminum, glass, car parts, whatever they can get.

``Everyone's buying power in Haiti has dropped to zero. It's a real struggle
to keep buying art, to keep the artists going. My hope is to make a
difference in their lives because the situation is very difficult.''

Liautaud, 54, who grew up in Haiti, comes from a family of artists and
designers. She studied fashion design in Canada and France and eventually
opened Gingerbread in Port-au-Prince. There, she came to know many of the
island's finest artists and crafts people. Her store in Haiti is still
operating, but there are few customers.

''There are no tourists or visitors of any kind,'' she says. ``The airplanes
to Haiti are filled with Haitians because of the political situation, and
when people don't visit your country, they lose interest in the culture.''

Gingerbread will fill a void and find an audience, says John Protomaster,
president of the Miami Design District Merchants Association and owner of
Protomaster & Company.

''We have a good ethnic mix, but the one thing we're lacking is Haitian.
She'll do well,'' says Protomaster.

''We have some Indonesian, African and Latin American. Having a place with a
high-end look -- that's exactly the thing the Design District wants to
attract. We want to be known for exceptional goods, not just a repeat of
what you have at the DCOTA,'' the Design Center of the Americas, in Dania.

The pieces that will greet guests at the opening include a seven-foot-long
mermaid made of recycled aluminum, bits of green beer bottles and mirrored
circles. One fascinating oil titled The Underworld has one cast of
characters by day that are joined by several other mysterious figures by
night, when the piece is illuminated.

One of the most noted Haitian painters living in Miami, Edouard Duval
Carrie, is encouraged by Liautaud's efforts.

''There's very few outposts for Haitian artists and craftsmen,'' Duval
Carrie says. ``There's no support system for them. They end up selling
McDonald's and cooking on the beach.

''The annual salary for Haitians is just a few hundred dollars a year. It's
a very sad situation,'' he says. ``There's so much potential to create
exceptional things there, but there's no economy for them. Trying to help is
a must.''

One of the ways Liautaud tries to help is by guiding craftspeople to make
marketable items.

She recently sold several dozen Haitian-made handbags to Kate Spade
representatives in New York, who plan to display them in all their
showrooms. Liautaud gives the seamstresses general guidance, then allows
them to fill the cloth bags with brightly colored sequin designs of their
own creation.

The purses, covered with faces, flowers, insects and the occasional skull
and crossbones, are for sale ($45 to $250 depending on size) at the Museum
of Contemporary Art in North Miami and the Bass Museum in Miami Beach in
addition to Liautaud's store.

''Each is one-of-a-kind,'' she says. ``I guide the craftspeople to make more
useful items of high quality, like handbags and eyeglass cases. Good
zippers, good stitching -- that's what will sell here. I try to steer them
to do work that they can make a living from.

``The incredible thing is that while I try to guide them, they always
surprise me with their amazing creations. During the worst of the worst of
times I find these artists who create such beautiful things. They keep me
inspired and somehow they find it in themselves to be inspired.''

Liautaud says she hopes to be a bridge to her beloved Haiti.

''The only way people become interested in a culture is if they see where
it's alive, in its streets, its architecture, its people, but it's not
happening,'' she says. ``That's why I like the combination of art, furniture
and crafts in my gallery, because when you look around here you feel like
you're in a house and the work is alive.

``I've been tempted to quit because times have been so difficult in Haiti,
but the artists I work with give me so much, they surprise me so much, it's
hard to turn my back on them.''


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