- WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
Dr. Leslie Toby, General practitioner.Andrea Downer, Outlook Writer
HE IS from the land of calypso and steel pan rhythms, yet he dubs his painting 'Reggae Art.'
A medical doctor and an artist, Dr. Leslie Toby is a man of contrasts and contradictions. A reserved, soft-spoken individual, he effortlessly embraces two contrasting disciplines - science and the arts - and has managed to retain his roots that are buried in the small town of San Fernando in Trinidad, while he flourishes alternately in the teeming city of Kingston and the cool climes of Bog Walk, St. Catherine.
Sitting in his modest apartment in Kingston, his paintings holding court on the walls around him, he clutches two pencil-thin paintbrushes in one hand and his stethoscope in the other - symbols of his two passions that he said have co-existed peacefully in his life since he was five years old.
EARLY INTEREST
"From the age of five, I developed a serious interest in art. I was always drawing and painting and my parents encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do in art. But, I was able to tell them even from that age that I did not want to be an artist, I wanted to be a doctor. We got that very clear within the family that art was always going to be a sideline occupation," he explained solemnly.
He explained that his firm decision to pursue medicine as a full-time career was influenced by the prospect of helping people through his work as a doctor.
"I always loved the idea of helping people, trying to help the sick and I just always wanted to be a doctor," he stated.
Having made his career choice, Dr. Toby went to England and spent four years studying preliminary medicine and then applied to study medicine at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in 1965. Those four years he spent in Jamaica would influence a number of significant occurrences in his life. In his final year at UWI, he met and fell in love with a Jamaican girl, Rosalie Feurtado, whom he later married.
After graduating from UWI, Dr. Toby spent a year in England and then returned to Trinidad to set up his medical practice. In 1986, he took a one-year hiatus from practising medicine to concentrate fully on painting.
"I spent that one year just recording old buildings around Port-of-Spain," he explained. For that one year, he painted 24 buildings and he still has all the original paintings as he has sold only copies of his works.
OLD BUILDINGS
Dr. Toby explained that he loves painting old buildings and he is able to capture their old-world charm and other characteristics, even though he has no formal training in art.
For Dr. Toby, each building is a living, breathing thing.
"I just love the old buildings, because each building has a life of its own and the challenge is to capture it on paper," he explained. "I see each building as having its own characteristic, its own soul, and you have to get the building to speak to you and tell you about itself," he continued.
And Dr. Toby's buildings do seem to come alive on canvas. Old buildings, some way past their useful lifespan, abandoned, forgotten and cloaked with the haunting memories they inherited from those who inhabited them, are dressed up and immortalised by Dr. Toby's brush and made beautiful again.
Dr. Toby explained that he and his family, including his two daughters, Ann-Marie and Elizabeth, relocated to Jamaica 10 years ago to be close to his wife's ailing parents who have since passed away. He now has an 11-year-old granddaughter, Laurie-Ann Rowe and his younger daughter, Elizabeth, who just graduated from the University of the West Indies, is also an artist. However, unlike her father she attended the Edna Manley School of Art.
JAMAICA'S GREAT HOUSES
Dr. Toby harbours hopes of painting some of Jamaica's great houses, but said he is still working out how to achieve that as he has had difficulty accessing some of them, which are privately owned. In the meantime, he spends most of his time at his private medical practice in Bog Walk St. Catherine, which he has been operating for the past five years.
Despite the often gruelling journey to get to Bog Walk four days per week from Kingston that often includes bumper to bumper traffic, long delays in the gorge and lengthy detours through Sligoville or Barry, Dr. Toby says he enjoys his work, with the people in that rural community.
"I love it down there, I am quite attached to the area now and my practice is a really good one," he stated.
He says while he practises in Kingston one day per week, he would not relocate to Kingston or any other area, even though he sometimes has to offer discounts to his patients, many of whom are not always able to find the fee to visit him for medical attention, while he sometimes sees others without charging. In addition, he sometimes operates free clinics in some communities.
While he is content with how his practice is progressing, many of his dreams as an artist have not yet been realised. Like a neglected lover, these as yet unfulfilled objectives are queued, waiting their turn.
He hopes to reproduce some of his semi-abstract designs onto fabric in the near future. He also hopes to be able to mount an exhibition of his work in Jamaica some time next year. However, he said he has a wider vision.
"My ambition is not to just establish myself as an artist, but to help unite the region through art," he stated. His work has been displayed in a number of exhibitions, including an art show in Trinidad last year, which included other artists from the Caribbean. In 2000, he did his own exhibition at the Trinidad High Commission in London and in 2001, with the assistance of Jamaican actress, Karen Harriott, he mounted an exhibition at the Jamaican High Commission in London.
GETTING ARTISTS TOGETHER
Dr. Toby lamented the absence of cohesion in the art movement in the Caribbean. "The art movement in the Caribbean needs some kind of stimulation, a unifying force to get the artists together because if the artists come together, we can accomplish a lot," he stated. He sees himself playing an integral role in that process.
"I love Jamaica and in spite of the many problems Jamaica has, I see many similarities between Jamaica and Trinidad and I would like to help establish Jamaica in the world as a force to be reckoned with the in terms of art," he stated. "I have difficulty coping with the relative insularity of artists. People in the industry sometimes have very narrow perspectives. I look at art on the broadest possible scale, not only locally, but regionally as well," he continued.
Dr. Toby is happy with where his life has led him. He was president of Commonwealth Medical Association for two years and served as the chairman of the St. Catherine Red Cross in Jamaica for four years.
His wife of 34 years, who is a judge with the Family Court, has lived in Montego Bay for six years and he travels to Montego Bay at least twice per month to be with her. But with his children grown and his wife living hundreds of miles away, in his quiet hours, Dr. Toby finds solace in his plants.
A robust garden, which thrives on the small patio of his second-storey apartment, is his personal oasis where he relaxes and recharges. He heals, nurtures and creates masterpieces with his hands.
