Budding painter advocates for creatives

For some, $300,000 might be a drop in the bucket when it comes to tuition and materials for tertiary education. But for 21-year-old art student Isabel Thwaites, who has been battling the high costs of studying painting at Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, it's nothing short of a blessing.

"I am feeling blessed, proud and very grateful. I'm very happy that my hard work has been seen, appreciated and gifted," said Thwaites, moments after receiving the scholarship at the Sagicor Foundation Scholarship Awards on Tuesday.

"This is going straight to my tuition," added the final-year student.

Born and raised in Montego Bay, St James, Thwaites moved to Kingston to live with her sister to attend the island's only art school. Her image - pink hair with shades of purple - is a representation of her work.

"Very bright, very psychedelic! If you see my work, you'll know it's me."

But life as a budding painter has been challenging with one of the main obstacles being the financial constraints that come with attending tertiary school, especially at an art school.

"A lot of people don't realise that art school is not just tuition or books, it's the materials that you need. And me as a painter, I need paint, I need canvas, and that starts to add up."

"As much as we are the only art school in the English-speaking Caribbean, we do have a limited amount of resources. We don't have a painting studio at Edna Manley. We recently got it renovated by the Sagicor Sigma Foundation themselves, they renovated our painting studio that was burnt four years ago. So there is that tightness of space. We don't really have studio spaces. There's not a lot of just physical resources and materials for us as students and that extends to the wider Jamaica. Art isn't that invested in and seen as a resourceful income itself."

But she refuses to walk away from her passion, citing that lack of resources has never stopped her.

"I've always been interested in art from when I was little. I was always drawing, I was painting. It was never a hindrance." She noted that paint is very expensive but said she has been very fortunate to receive resources from other persons, including past students of the Edna Manley.

Thwaites' sister, Mishka, couldn't be prouder, and said the family has been proud of her for years "because we saw this trajectory".

"I did expect her to come to Kingston and do art from when she was a baby, and it's just been beautiful to watch her grow with it. All of the friends claim her as their child because you know this is their baby that they have watched as well grow in this direction. No one has ever discouraged her. They saw it. They rolled with it ... it was always, always encouraged," she said.

Veteran self-taught painter Jeffrey Perry, who has been in the Jamaican art scene for more than three decades, said Thwaites' focus is exactly what's needed.

"She is on the ball. Painting and art generally is expensive but because the materials are expensive doesn't mean one should not pursue their passion. She's fortunate to have parents that don't discourage her."

He knows firsthand that the cost of creating can be a hurdle.

"I have always been drawing and doing different types of art but I took it up professionally in my late 20s and I realise that the materials I use for portraits are expensive. But different art forms can be even more expensive depending on what is needed to complete a piece."

Looking forward, Thwaites wants more opportunities for local painters to get work.

"A lot of murals are going up through Kingston Creative, but there are just more opportunities that we could do more work, and I wish those opportunities were more advertised for us to know about them, to then do them as well," she said.