Contribution short abstract:

Barbadian women have been making shellwork souvenirs for centuries, utilizing collective memory and technical skills for financial autonomy. As such traditions are passed down/ modified, and as stories of post-emancipated artistic processes are unveiled, notions of tourist art/ craft become murky.

Contribution long abstract:

Historically believed to have been made by sailors, Sailors’ Valentines are actually souvenirs originating from Barbados crafted by Afro-Barbadian women from c. 1850-1920. These Valentines are wooden, octagonal boxes (often two hinged together) embedded with seashell mosaics. Often, a romantic phrase such as ‘Be Mine’ is illustrated in seashells throughout the mosaics. In the decades following Barbadian emancipation (1834), these women utilized their crafting skills to form cottage industries to financially support themselves. When no longer beholden to plantations, they combined their handicraft knowledge of European fancywork, i.e.: embroidery, ancestral memories of West African Yoruba practices, and regional ‘folk art’ traditions to make the Valentines, which were then sold to northern sailors and tourists. My great-grandfather, who worked on Newfoundland trading schooners in the late 19th century, gave a Valentine to his wife in c. 1890 from Barbados, and it has lived with my family ever since. My grandmother saw it as symbolic of social status—its ‘exotic’ shellwork stood out from her other everyday items, and it became a marker of family identity. The tradition of making and selling shellwork souvenirs to northern tourists continues in Barbados, particularly among working-class women. While aesthetics of shellcraft have changed due to environmental factors and market interests, it remains an inherent part of Barbados’s tourism industry. Using Valentines as a springboard, I examine how cultural creolization, collective memory, economic necessity, and sense of place give rich meaning to ‘souvenirs’, and complicate contemporary (and historical) definitions of folk, tourist, and craft art.