On Saturday, October 5, from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, the Centre des Métiers d’Art (CMA), located in the small industrial park of Bergevin in Pointe-à-Pitre since 1973, presented to the general public all of its activities.
The public responded to the invitation of the Centre des Métiers d’Art because, despite the many obligations of Saturday (housework, market, shopping etc.), over a hundred visitors came to meet the teaching staff. Among them, there were not only people from the city of Pointe-à-Pitre, indeed some came from Basse-Terre or Sainte-Rose… Schoolchildren, students, employees, job seekers or retired people were able to ask all the questions they wanted to the trainers of the various workshops, to practise some activities such as pottery or mosaic and to enroll for courses offered by this association which is a pioneer in teaching and democratization of artistic activities in Guadeloupe since 1973. In spite of the approach of fifty, the CMA has continuously diversified its workshops which are today drawing, plastic arts, modelling, pottery, sculpting, paper mache, photography, comics, computer graphics, floral design, wickerwork, sewing.
The CMA, a talent scout
“The Centre des Métiers d’Art is reviving an old tradition by organizing its open days this Saturday. We always did it irregularly, but for the past three years we joined in the open days of the associations organized by the city of Pointe-à-Pitre. I must say the CMA was even the first to make this kind of meeting with the public because more than 25 years ago, the director of the time, Henri Angélique, had initiated the “Meeting of the Arts” and there were workshops and exhibitions throughout the patio and the rooms. Fifteen years ago the CMA received 250 children, every Wednesday – a day dedicated to children – there were four courses in the morning and three in the afternoon. Other structures have been created in recent years (…) Since 9:00 am, people are asking for information about our activities and they even act by signing up with the secretariat. In the morning, we welcomed a 94-year-old lady who participated in the mosaic workshop; we also enrolled a 16-year-old girl who has a great talent for drawing, she will take classes here to learn the necessary techniques and later, perhaps, that she will want to join our preparatory class for art schools”, Martine Céraphe-Ardens, the director of the Centre des Métiers d’Art in Pointe-à-Pitre, said.
This event to promote art and craft among the general public ended at 2:00 pm happily.
