Jeffrey Meris does himself and his family proud

Wed, Apr 22nd 2015, 12:14 PM

"College was not something I was exposed to in my family, so it's crazy to believe that in a few days I'm going to have an actual degree, so right now I'm taking in all the emotions, and super grateful to the Lyford Cay Foundation because they opened like so many doors for me," said Meris.

He will graduate Temple with a 3.80 grade point average (GPA) and Latin honors. During the graduation ceremony he will also be awarded the J. Arthur Kirk Award, which is given to one recipient from the Center for the Arts encompassing the art school, the music college, and theater and film college who shows commitment to a public kind of practice within the creative arts field. Five nominees are chosen each year and interviewed, with one person receiving the award. He will also be given the Sculpture Project Award which is given to the student in the Sculpture Department, and the undergraduate who shows promise in sculpture.

Meris, a Lyford Cay Foundation Harry Moore Scholar ($10,000 annual award) and a Ministry of Education, Science and Technology scholarship recipient ($7,500 annually) --scholarships that added up to a mere drop in the bucket annually for the $47,000 a year Temple tuition, which he said subsidizing was an "adventure" for him.

"I just kind of figured it out," he said. "Every year I had either an exhibition or worked on a project, or I entered competitions and figured out my tuition annually."

Meris who was born in Haiti and moved to New Providence at eight months old is the son of Maggie Meris-Cadu and George Cadu. He earned an Associate degree in Arts and Crafts at the College of The Bahamas before he was afforded the opportunity to pursue his Bachelor's degree at TU through his scholarship awards.

Opportunity

"The scholarships kind of provided me with this unique opportunity to engage in this immersive environment and really challenge what I understood to be art or artwork. Because of the Lyford Cay Foundation and the Harry C. Moore award, I was able to develop my craft and become a part of a wider conversation that I'm really grateful for," he said.

Upon graduation in the short term, Meris will head to Venice, Italy, in May, for the Venice Biennale, a contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years. At the Venice Biennale he will show support for one of his professors who will be representing Poland at the event.

Another immediate goal for next summer he has is to do a stint at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. It's a non-degree program for which 65 students are chosen to participate out of a pool of 3,000 candidates annually.

And in three years, he has his sights set on graduate school for his Master's of Fine Art in Sculpture and is looking at applying to Yale University; Stadelschule in Frankfurt, Germany; Hunter's College; Virginia Commonwealth University and Colombia University.

Long term he sees himself using his art to make the lives of others better. "Art has this somewhat mystical power to change things and I'm really interested in continuing that conversation as to how can art be used as an alternative tool for social change," he said

A graduate of C.R. Walker Senior School, Meris said art came to him in a "weird way." He recalled the One Family Junkanoo group opening a shack across the street from where he lived and how he met Jackson Burnside, who was a noted Bahamian painter and architect. Access to the shack allowed him to develop a fascination with Junkanoo, and what people could do with crepe paper, cardboard and a little bit of glue -- and of course creativity. For 10 years he said he became a part of Junkanoo, and eventually found out that there was an art community in New Providence.

The push

When he finished high school, a high school teacher told him to consider studying art at college. At the time his thoughts centered around the woman being "crazy." He eventually went, with Jackson pushing him to explore post secondary high school options for art school. He then met John Cox, a mixed media artist who became an important mentor figure in his life, along with a number of other individuals. He said they supported him as he made his decision to study art and continue to support him today. Meris who has a younger sister said he anticipates his sibling now doing the same thing and pursuing higher education in the arts, and being the second person in his family to earn a college degree.

"Outside being blood related, I really want to see young Bahamians in the art community move forward and do similar things and go off to art school and just be able to see what's out there," he said.

While he's of the creative set, Meris' firmly believes in the importance of reading, writing and arithmetic which he said is a super important foundation for anything a person wants to do, even the arts -- and in his case, he says yes to reading and writing, and that arithmetic isn't really his strong suit.

But he admits to always having understood and recognized the importance of an education and where it could take you.

"I graduated valedictorian from primary school, even though that was a very long time ago. I was deputy head boy of my junior school. In senior school I wasn't as academically adept. It wasn't until I started my Associate's of art in art and craft at the College of The Bahamas that I really started to really be keen on education, and try to do my best in all that I do. And then going off to school that took the message home that it's through the generosity of someone else that I'm afforded an education, so I didn't want to squander it."

Giving of himself

Meris is also the fundraising chair for Temple Project Haiti, a student organization at Temple University that goes to Haiti during Spring Break annually, to work at orphanage which houses children who lost their parents in the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.

The organization's members fundraise throughout the year and use the money to upgrade the orphanage. This year they built a chicken coop to assist the orphanage with becoming food sustainable. Last year they installed running water and a concrete floor in the kitchen. Next year the group plans to open a bakery to assist the orphanage in terms of making some kind of revenue.

"I was in Haiti trying to bond with the kids and trying to do something external of myself because I was born in Haiti and kind of feel I have a moral obligation to give back in some kind of way, and Temple Project Haiti made that avenue accessible to me," he said.

With graduation mere days away, Meris who is expecting at least 15 people to descend upon Temple to cheer him on as he walks across the stage, says he wants to not just be an example for people who are blood related to him, but to people within the community.

"I think it's super important that you follow your dreams -- whatever it is. I think it's about time that we move from looking at education and employment as being this homogeneous kind of model and if you're not a doctor or lawyer or policeman that means you're not successful. I think we need to diversify the way we look at education and employment. I want to encourage younger people to really consider education and what that can do for society and to just always keep positive and do the best that they can, and not allow geography to determine their future."

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