If you haven’t visited the Mind’s Eye Cultural Centre yet, today, Friday 21 September, is your chance to do so. It’s the Mind’s Eye Watch Day and, in addition to a number of school tours of the home of the late Gladwyn K. Bush, an open house will be held from 5.30 to 7.30pm.
There will be guided tours, handouts and educational sheets. Light refreshments will be provided.
Following a visionary experience at the age of 62, Miss Lassie, as she was better known, began to paint, despite never having had an interest in painting before. She painted canvases but she also painted the walls, windows and furnishing of her South Sound home. All her paintings depicted religious and biblical scenes. Today, her work is in private art collections around the world and she has been profiled in books on intuitive art.
Her home, now known as the Mind’s Eye Cultural Centre, has been undergoing extensive restoration, spearheaded by the Cayman National Cultural Foundation. Earlier this year, the Mind’s Eye Cultural Centre was added to the 2012 World Monument Fund’s Watch List and this Watch Day is aimed at raising public awareness of this cultural treasure.
“While we believe that many people know of Miss Lassie’s house we feel we need to continue our campaign to bring the significance of the home to the public in general,” says CNCF Artistic Director Henry Muttoo. “We still need lots of funding to complete the restoration and maintain the property while it is open to the public. We hope that more people will contribute to our efforts after they see the property in a different light.”
The public will be able to tour the colourfully painted, traditional Caymanian wattle and daub home and learn about the restoration work that has taken place so far. This includes stabilising the building itself as well as the paintings, removing the doors and windows and commissioning a local artist to create replicas of these. There is more work to be done, but Henry Muttoo hopes to be able to open the first phase of the Mind’s Eye Cultural Centre to the public in December of this year.
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