Alix Baptiste was born on April 29, 1964, on a small island in Haiti. Mr. Baptiste has come a long way since his early days of survival. Mr. Baptiste is now a household name for his beautiful paintings in Savannah, Georgia. Entering his twentieth year as an artist, he owns an art gallery in City Market. There you can watch him at work though the front of his art gallery window's to see what's in store for his next project.
During Alix Baptiste's childhood he had little schooling do to the lack of the families financial state. Mr. Batiste says, " I could remember when I would go to the field's and picked mangoes and coconuts, then take them to the city to sell for food and what school supplies I needed". When Alix Baptiste become older he became an advent sailor, sailing to partner islands trading and selling what he could to make ends meet (Rada, "Southern Living" pg.24-26).
At the age of 21, Mr. Baptiste wanted to make something better of his life. "I wanted to survive, I wanted to be something and make a better of life", stated Mr. Baptiste. In early 1984 Alix embarked on a trip that would change the course of his life forever. He spent fifteen days on the Atlantic Ocean without any friends or family, just people exactly like him, trying to find a better life. On their journey through the Atlantic, many others did not survive and died of hunger, thirst, and dehydration. As his sea voyage came to an end he had reached The Turks & Caicos islands, where he worked on a freighter, arranging passages in return for a deal to enter the ports of the United States (Rada, "Southern Living" pg.24-26). Alix's changes came a few years later when he afforded a deal including cash that would take him to the United States. The journey, Mr. Baptiste recalls, lasted about three to four days long hiding in the bottom of the cargo ship. Eventually, Mr. Baptiste found himself in the ports of Miami.
With only a little cash to his name, Alix Baptiste secured a one-way ticket to Savannah, where he was told his father might live. "It was a chance I was going to have to take and I think it was the best decision of my life.
...to believe anything was possible. Their journey was hard, but the Lost Boys felt their time in America reflected a better future and a chance to return learned American concepts back home.
his father left his mother and him to start another life with another family. His mother
was years. With his courage, he built a boat and sailed off to another island for
One with an intimate relationship with their family likely views McCandless as narrow minded and selfish. The intelligence, courage, and ambition of McCandless are often overlooked. McCandless, referred to as the “teenage Tolstoyan” (115), always displayed interest in entrepreneurship, but most importantly, McCandless always loved traveling, making solo endeavors as a teen. Thus, McCandless possessed enough intrepidity to embark on his journey. His only companions being rice, books, and clothing, McCandless was able to reach the sequestered Alaskan wilderness. It takes great courage to embark on a great journey with a small chance of success. A risk taken with good intentions resulted in an irrevocable adversity. Despite all of the calamities encountered, McCandless withstood the treacherous wilderness with great
For 63 days, the Amistad had been drifting toward the American shoreline. As conditions deteriorated aboard the vessel, it's inhabitants at the time, Africans, sick and dying, were in need of food and water. Desperate, they took a chance, anchored the ship and went aboard land in hopes of trading with natives, the ships cargo for needed supplies. On land, they were confronted by two sea captains, one of whom was named Henry Green. Green convinced the Africans that he would help them sail back to Sierra Leone. Having an ulterior motive, he intended to get a hold of the ship, sail it into port and claim it's cargo for salvage. However, before Green could carry out his plan, the USS Washington arrived, boarded the ship, took the Africans captive, and towed the vessel into New London, Connecticut.
Audubon was born on April 26, 1785 in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. (now Haiti). JJA was the son of the intelligent Jean Audubon, a French Naval officer, marine captain and a sugar plantation owner. (Source #4 pg. 17) His mother was a French chambermaid from the village of Mazures who died about six months after his birth. It was when JJA was in middle school when he started skipping classes to wander off into the wilderness and pursue his passion of painting what he saw. With the guidance and help from his father, JJA began drawing “feathered tribes”. His father would point out the birds “elegant movements and the beauty and softness of their plumage” (Pg. 18 of source #4) In 1803, his father sent him to America to over see his families property at Mill Grove in Philadelphia. It was then when JJA immediately f...
Eugene Atget was born February 12, 1857 in France. He was a photographer known for his photographs documenting the street scenes and architecture of Paris.
One flight. That’s all it took for his family to pursue the American Dream. At one and a half years old, Andy Garcia was clueless as to what was going on. He left his native born country, Cuba, alongside his mother and father, to fly to Miami, Florida. Growing up as an immigrant has its challenges: having nothing to rely on, learning the language, and having no one to support him through life, so he took to watching television. Garcia says he learned what his achievements needed to be in life by watching the television. What he saw on television is what he believed was the right thing to do, so he followed in those footsteps.
Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in the rectory of Zundert in Barbant (Burra). His father was a soft-spoken Dutch clergyman. The only thing Van Gogh got from his father, was the desire to be involved in the family church. Even at an early age, Vincent showed artistic talent but neither he nor his parents imagined that painting would take him where it did later in life. One of his first jobs came at the age of sixteen, as an art dealer’s assistant. He went to work for Goupil and Company, an art gallery where an uncle had been working for some time. Three of his father’s brothers were art dealers, and he was christened after the most distinguished of his uncles, who was manager of the Hague branch of the famous Goupil Galleries (Meier-Graefe). His parents were poor, so his rich uncle offered to take him ...
The author describes his journey as, “Setting out with small backpacks and big hopes” (Anderson 8). Similar to his journey, my father embarked on his journey to America with little more than a change of clothing and dreams of a better future. In his own words, my father
When he was thirteen he decided to buy a small boat and learn how to sail in the San Francisco Bay. Later on, he bought a larger boat and became an expert sailor and joined his father in the sea. His father was injured so he had to go out on his own. He chose to join a small group known as the oyster pirates. They would raid the oyster beds at night and sell the stolen oysters to markets in San Francisco. Afraid of going to prison, he decided that to join the California Fish
Archibald Motley Jr. was born in 1891 in New Orleans. Ever since, Archibald was a child he had the desire to be an artist. His family moved to a Chicago neighborhood in the 1890’s, but the family would take frequent trips back to New Orleans in the summer. Later we find out that these two similar settings were the determining factor for Archibald’s paintings. He decided to study art at the Institute of Chicago and was recognized by being one of the few African American artists during that time.
So he sailed out on a seal hunting expedition on board a schooner called Sophia Sutherland. He was brought to Japan and the Bonin Islands. This was possibly the shortest of all his work, as he found the job cruel and miserable, so he soon quit and wandered back to San Francisco to begin work as coal heaver, then a mill worker, and finally he crossed America as a hobo until he was caught and served time for Vagrancy. His time in jail encouraged him to shape up. (Brandt) In his personal journal he wrote, “I had been born in the working-class,” he recalled, “and I was now, at the age of eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in the cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery . . . I was in the pit, the abyss, the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel house of our civilization. . . . I was scared into thinking.”
Being the descendant of Haitian and Puerto Rican ancestry, Basquiat’s diverse culture is a main factor behind his creative tactics and his artwork. Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 22, 1960. His father was Haitian-American, Gerard Basquiat with an occupation of an accountant and his mother Matilde Basquiat was Puerto Rican
A man nicknamed “SAMO” becomes one of the greatest artists of all time! However, there is always a back story to people. His actual name was Jean-Michel Basquiat. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 22, 1960, into a diverse family. Basquiat’s parents were Puerto Rican and Haitian-American, and per an article from biography.com, they said that this diversity contributed to Basquiat’s inspiration. Another inspiration was his mother, being the one who motivated him as a child to continually pursue his artistic side as he was being self-taught in his early years. However, Basquiat’s parents became separated, this caused Basquiat and his two younger sisters to stay in Brooklyn with their father until 1974 when they moved to Puerto Rico to live