CaribPR Wire

“The Ripple Effect” debuts partnership’s impact, featuring works by Caribbean artists addressing climate, health, and cultural identity

CARIBPR WIRE, BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS, August 11, 2025: The Clara Lionel Foundation (CLF) and the Mellon Foundation today announced a key initiative of their groundbreaking partnership – The Ripple Effect – to elevate the Caribbean arts ecosystem.

The Ripple Effect exhibition, curated by Fresh Milk Barbados, is now open to the public at Caribbean Brushstrokes in Bridgetown through August 30. (Credit: Dondré Trotman)

The initiative represents a bold goal of building a future where artistry thrives not in isolation but as a shared, collective force. By empowering Barbadian artists through direct funding and support, CLF and the Mellon Foundation foster community-driven creative solutions and ensure broad access to art across Barbados and the wider Caribbean region. The partnership provides monetary support for cultural organizations like Fresh Milk Barbados, Operation Triple Threat, and Pinelands Creative Workshop to serve as regional arts hubs, while creating sustainable pathways to economic stability for artists and arts-focused organizations through specialized fellowships that allow artists to develop and market their work locally.

The Ripple Effect is marked by the public opening of a new exhibition in Bridgetown, Barbados. The exhibition, curated by Fresh Milk Barbados, is now open to the public and running through August 30 at Caribbean Brushstrokes in Bridgetown. It features works by various Barbadian artists, including CLF fellows Simone Asia, Russell Watson, Anna Gibson, and Ronald Williams. These artists are creating works that interact with CLF’s core pillars, spanning climate solutions to health access to women’s entrepreneurship and more, and intersecting these themes with authentic Caribbean cultural expression. The exhibition highlights how Caribbean voices are pioneering artistic innovation as a pathway to bolster economic development, drive career opportunities, and amplify cultural expression while creating avenues for Barbadian artists from diverse communities to showcase their talents locally, regionally, and globally.

“Thirteen years after CLF’s founding, our partnership with the Mellon Foundation represents a full-circle moment – amplifying the voices and talents that have always been part of our organization’s DNA, starting right here in Barbados,” said Jessie Schutt-Aine, Executive Director of the Clara Lionel Foundation. “What visitors will experience in this exhibition is the incredible artistry that has always existed here, now with the institutional backing to reach an international stage. This partnership honors CLF’s beginnings while leveraging our years of proven community-led impact across the Caribbean and beyond.”

“This partnership beautifully represents Mellon’s philosophy of cultural investment,” said Justin Garrett Moore, Program Director of the Mellon Foundation. “We’re recognizing Barbadian artists as essential voices in addressing the challenges that affect us all. These creators have been developing innovative, community-rooted solutions for generations, and our goal is to amplify their work to ensure it reaches the global stage it deserves.”

Building on CLF’s 13 years of experience delivering multi-year support to community-led innovators across five core impact areas, the CLF-Mellon partnership ensures local artists and cultural organizations have the support to build a self-sustaining creative ecosystem. The initiative supports Barbadian artists and creatives who push boundaries and reshape the meaning of Caribbean art, while ensuring all Barbadians can access and experience art regardless of their socioeconomic background. Organizations, artists, and community leaders now have the resources needed to imagine innovative climate solutions through art.

To learn more about the partnership between CLF and the Mellon Foundation and their ongoing efforts in the Caribbean, please visit claralionelfoundation.org.

About The Clara Lionel Foundation (CLF)

Founded in 2012 by Robyn Rihanna Fenty, the Clara Lionel Foundation builds thriving & resilient communities across the Caribbean, Africa, and US South by equipping community innovators to lead change from within. Taking a community-led and -centered approach, we create impact through five inter-connected pillars – climate solutions, women’s entrepreneurship, arts & culture, health access & equity, and future generations.

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive.

EDITOR’S NOTE: PHOTOS AVAILABLE FOR USE WITH THIS PRESS RELEASE HERE

New Book By Heather Dolland Tamam Shares Life Lessons Of Embracing Change And Navigating Uncertainty And Doubt

NEW YORK, Aug. 30, 2023 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Heather Dolland Taman, serial entrepreneur, author, speaker and life coach, announced the release of her groundbreaking new book, PIVOT BECAUSE LIFE DOESN’T ALWAYS GO AS PLANNED. The book is published by Doltam Creative Solutions www.doltam.com and is available for distribution through Ingram Spark https://www.ingramspark.com/.

The latest work from Heather Dolland Tamam is her first publication outside of the alcohol industry of which she has been a part for 14 years. Captured in a series of concise stories and experiences, the author shares her journey as a young woman from Grenada navigating her way through college then corporate life in New York. It’s an easy read that is an unfiltered account of the author’s life – both its challenges and triumphs. It’s a reminder that once we push forward and focus on getting up, the number of times we fall no longer matter. They are all opportunities to learn.

The paperback is available through retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The audio version is available on Audible.

About Heather Dolland Tamam
Heather Dolland Tamam was born in Grenada and moved to New York in 1995 to study Architecture. In 2003 she began her career as an Environmental Consultant. In 2012 she started her first company All The Tastes of New York and released her first book, Discovering The New York Craft Spirits Boom in 2015. In 2017 she started her second company Tastes Brands to work with Craft Distillers. She released her second book, Before The Glass: Things To Consider When Entering The BoozeBusiness in 2018. In 2021 she began her career as a Content Creator and Lifestyle Model. She lives in New York City and enjoys coaching, consulting and speaking.

About Doltam Creative Solutions
Doltam Creative Solutions was founded by Heather Dolland Tamam to provide coaching, consulting, speaking and voice over services. As a business owner who has worked with companies in a range of industries, I offer a unique perspective to clients and brands. As a female voice over actor, my areas of specialty are corporate and commercial narration. I also do biographies, documentaries, video narration and e-learning. As a keynote speaker, I focus primarily on transition speaking, helping individuals find clarity in their life and career.

CaribPR Wire, BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Fri. Feb. 18, 2022: The popular annual Caribbean Fine Art Fair, (CaFA), now in its 12^th year, returns virtually and in person to Barbados this March, with a spotlight on the works of over 40 Caribbean contemporary artists and a focus also on the hot topic of NFTs.

Art fans from across the world will be able to join CaFA 2022 at the NORMAN CENTRE, Broad Street in Bridgetown, Barbados, and without leaving their homes at caribbean.global/, from March 9th-23^rd.

“This year’s CaFA Fair Barbados presents a balanced selection of emerging and internationally known artists representing 14 Caribbean nations, Brazil, Ghana, the USA and the UK,” said CAFA executive director Anderson M. Pilgrim. “We are excited about our programming featuring an array of regional experts and talent.”

“With the incredible growth and interest in Caribbean Fine Art, the opportunity to present a broader vision of the cultural creativity from the region grows as well,” added Daniel Hort, the Executive Director of Onomatopoeia Art and a co-producer of the event. “This year’s presentation of costume designs by the renowned Barbadian artist Winston Jordan, offers a glimpse into the career of a national icon while providing the chance work with major pageant and fashion outlets to present the colors, style and artistry of carnival.”

This year’s fine art show will feature contemporary artists such as the renowned US-based Neo-African abstract expressionist painter, Danny Simmons, the older brother of hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons and rapper Joseph Simmons; as well as renowned Jamaican artist Bernard Stanley Hoyes and Barbadian Winston Jordan.

Jordan’s historical carnival costume design, constructed by Mahogany Bird and DHP, was recently part of New York Fashion Week on Feb. 13th at the Cosplay Runway produced by COSMODA at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, NYC.  The costume is slated for CaFA this March and represents the first time in over 20 years that the work of this renowned artist has been seen.

Other Caribbean artists showcasing their works at CaFA 2022 are: Ademola Olugebefola and Cheryl D. Miller of the US Virgin Islands; Carl F. Anderson of Guyana; Earl Darius Etienne of Dominica; Diogenes Ballester of Puerto Rico; Gilberto Wilson of Aruba Marlene; Millon Desvignes of Imat’s Creationsof Martinique; Patricia Brintle and Gina Samson of Haiti; Narciso Polanco, Palen Obesa and Rene de los Santos of Coronado Print Studio of the Dominican Republic; Joachim McMillan of Grenada; Ras Ilix Heartman, Alfred Weekes, Arlette St. Hill, Cher Antoinette Corbin, Hedy Klineman, Nicole Metzger, Steve Reid, Sylvester Adelabu Clarke and Tariq Bailey of Barbados. In addition, Central American artists Norma Lithgow of Costa Rica and Denae Howard of Panama will also showcase their work.

US artists participating, apart from Simmons, will be Brian Cannady, S. Ross Browne, Sadikisha Sandra Collier, Shenna Vaughn and Ebony Art, representing: Ernani Silva and Vernon McCauley. UK artists will be David Emmanuel Noel and Josh Kidd, while representing Ghana and the continent of Africa, will be TAFA.

In addition, the Fine Art Fair will feature 8 non-traditional artists – Alex Gibson, Délyt (Deandra Daniel), Donné Haynes, John Alleyne, Malique Shorey and Sydney McConney of Barbados, as well Sasha-Kay Nicole and Bonito “Don Dada” Thompson of Jamaica. It will be curated by Zoe Osborne of Mahogany Culture and presented at the Norman Centre simultaneously with the virtual platform caribbean.global/

CaFA 2022 will also include conversations and panel discussion around topics of international interest for the Caribbean, Black and global art communities, including a segment on NFTs by Osborne, one of the early adopters of NFTs in Barbados and the Caribbean. She will dedicate a portion of her panel discussion to explore NFTs and clarify facts around the new digital option for artists, for the uninitiated.

Other panels will include ‘Printmaking as an Art Form: Opportunities for beginning collectors by Pepe Coronado, Participating Printmakers and AMP on March 13^th; a conversation with Occhi Arts and Cheryl D. Miller, a pioneer black graphic artist and visual artist from the USVI on March 16^th; a fashion presentation by Imat’s Creations of Martinique and FW Brooklyn, NY on March 18^th, and ‘Politics of Art: Contemporary Black Art in the Mainstream,’ featuring Danny Simmons, Ademola Olugebefola, David Emmanuel Noel, Dr. Daniela Fifi and Dr. Loris Crawford on March 20^th.

CaFA 2022 will also feature the 3rd Bridgetown International Arts Festival, featuring musical, spoken word and theatrical performances on March 19^th.

CaFA was founded in 2011 and has established itself as the premier art event in the Caribbean. For more visit https://www.caribbean.global/ today.

SOURCE: CaFA

EDITOR’S NOTE: A photo for use with this press release is available HERE

CAPTION: Non-traditional artist Délyt (Deandra Daniel’s) work will also be a part of CaFA 2022. (Contributed image/ Délyt (Deandra Daniel))