Cito Velasquez in 2003
Media & Editorial Projects Ltd
The king-maker
Cito Velasquez, born 1929
The only thing that remains the same is change,” says Cito Velasquez. “Carnival is always changing, and even I changed it in my day, adding my own thing to the pretty mas.”
At his creative peak, 40 years ago,Velasquez was a powerful influence on Carnival design, especially the costumes of the fancy sailors, with their elaborate headpieces, and the large kings and queens of the bands. Before the introduction of fibreglass and plastics, most large costumes were constructed over intricate wire frames, which acted as skeletons to support what sometimes amounted to hundreds of pounds of cloth, sequins, and feathers. Without these wire frames, many of the era’s most dramatic costumes literally could not have got off the ground. Wire-bending was a specialised art, combining elements of structural engineering, architecture, and sculpture; and Cito Velasquez was indisputably the wire-bender of all wire-benders.
Fun and Laughter (1969)
Noel Norton
As a boy, growing up on Port of Spain’s St Vincent Street, Lewiscito Velasquez learned to sculpt at his family’s doll factory. “It wasn’t a big thing,” he says, but the basic techniques he picked up at home served him well over the decades of his career. In the late 40s, he started bending wire for the mas presentations of two east Port of Spain steelbands, Fascinators and Bar Twenty. His first designs were basic Indian headpieces. A masman named Tennessee Brown was the chief wire-bender for the Fascinators; Velasquez learned what he could from the older craftsman, but quickly realised he himself was the better draughtsman. “He couldn’t a’ draw: I coulda draw”. And drawing skills were essential to the art. Once the subject of the wire frame had been chosen, the system was to draw it in outline on the ground, then bend the wire over the image, using the sketch as a template.
As Velasquez’s mastery grew, his imagination gave old ideas a new soul. “That is how it is with mas,” he reminds us, “you have to take nothing and make something.” In 1959, from his mas camp in Barataria, three miles east of Port of Spain, he produced his first band, Fruits and Flowers, depicting giant tropical fruits and flowers made from 12- or 16-gauge wire and papier mâché, decorated with such artistry that they looked uncannily real. Each then became a fancy sailor headpiece. The band so impressed the public that its headpieces were chosen to decorate downtown Port of Spain for the independence celebrations of 1962.
Velasquez at the Savannah Grand Stand
seandrakes.com
Velasq. . .
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