Bell Jar Basket
Artist Simon Tatum provided the design for this unique covered basket, which has been beautifully woven by Powell. This piece is a wonderful example of a collaboration between a young contemporary artist and a local artisan, producing an object that speaks to both the older established craft tradition in Cayman and the vibrant contemporary art scene that we enjoy today.
About the Artist
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Powell
b. 1937
Born in West Bay, Grand Cayman, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Powell learned the skill of thatching from her mother, who made baskets for use on the family farm. In the early 1970s, she learned advanced techniques from a visiting teacher and became a professional basket maker. Powell is now a central member of the Cayman Islands Traditional Arts Council. Her work is featured in Art of the Cayman Islands, the Islands’ first formal art history (Scala Fine Art Publishers Ltd.: Fall 2016). She was a regular exhibitor at NGCI’s Art@Governor’s festival and NGCI exhibitions include: All Access (2015), Revive: Contemporary Caymanian Craft (2017), and Island of Women: Life at Home During our Maritime Years (2020).
About the Artist
Simon Tatum
b. 1995
Simon Tatum is currently pursuing his MFA in Sculpture and Expanded Media at Kent State University in Ohio. He completed his BA at the University of Missouri in 2017, for which he received the Cayman Islands Government Overseas Scholarship and the Deutsche Bank National Gallery Visual Arts Scholarship. Tatum’s work, which explores his Caymanian heritage, was featured in a three-artist exhibition, Evoke (Imago Gallery and Cultural Center, Columbia, Missouri, 2015) and he was selected to represent the University of Missouri in the SEC Academic Symposium’s Undergraduate and Graduate Fine Art Showcase in 2015. He has held two solo shows to date: Discover and Rediscover (2016), at the University of Missouri and Looking Back and Thinking Ahead at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands in 2017, as well as participating in several group exhibitions, including Open Air Prisons at LACE Gallery, Los Angeles (2016) and Sense of Place at Spinnerei Halle 18 in Leipzig, Germany (2018). Tatum was part of the Caribbean Linked IV residency programme in Oranjestad, Aruba, in 2016. In addition to his 2017 solo show, Tatum’s work was featured at NGCI in the exhibitions tIDal Shift: Explorations of Identity in Contemporary Caymanian Art (2015), Speak to Me (2016), Mediating Self (2017), Upon the Seas (2017), Revive: Contemporary Caymanian Craft (2017), and Tropical Visions (2019).
