When she lost her pet parrot to the vicious attack of a chicken hawk, ensuring that the bird’s memory lived on became her primary focus.
Lisette Stevens tells of the day that she lost what she considered her “feathered child,” Ernie, and noted that paying tribute to him was the reason she started painting the island’s national birds.
“His death was so tragic and I was so destitute that I started painting parrots and I got the idea that it would be really good to paint the endemic birds of Dominica, namely the Sisserou and the Jacko parrot and other birds, so that everybody could see the beauty of the colors,” she told Dominica News Online.
Stevens, who is originally from Britain, now resides in the Layou Valley and explained that her paintings are for printing on post cards and table mats.
According to her, the paintings allow the spirit of Ernie to live on.
Lisette Stevens is currently in partnership with a local printing company which helps her produce the items which she sells to visitors.
“They produce the tablemats and the postcards and in the future we are hoping to do t-shirts, aprons and tea towels so that when people come to Dominica they have a real product of Dominica to take back with them,” she said.
She added that people need to start considering birds as one of the main attributes of Dominica’s beauty since Dominica’s birds and the animals are unique.
Lisette Stevens’ work is currently being displayed at the 2014 Caribbean Endemic Birds Festival now taking place at the Botanic Gardens.
Forest Officer and Coordinator of the festival, Jacqueline Andre, noted that Dominica has been celebrating Caribbean Endemic birds for the past 13 years. She said that the festival is a fun way of showing how important birds are.
Andre said that Dominica has been doing a magnificent job in protecting its national birds.
“If we have to look back at when the hurricanes damaged their habitat in 1979, their food trees and so on were damaged,” she noted. “What we have seen is that we have got laws to protect them, a national park was established as a result of them so I think we are doing a good job.”
She added, however, that the citizens need to be more careful in some of their farming and other practices.
“People need to be more careful with some of the plastics that they are throwing away and some of the other things that we use, such as pesticides and other things, since they are harmful to the birds,” she noted.
Andre pointed out further that recent Black Sigatoka and Citrus Greening Disease have not been affecting the parrots since they fly at a higher elevation and not really in the forest.
beautiful what came out of it, however i do not support having pet parrots. i hope it wasn’t a local bird.
Beutiful work Lisette and such a tribute to Ernie. I knew and loved him… such a wonderful pet.
Well done, Lisette! Although I missed your show, I have seen a lot of your previous paintings of our parrots. Such beautiful work. Love the ideas you have for creating more awareness of these beautiful birds. Best of luck!
Nice Article DNO. Just a pity people fail to comment and react to such stories. Maybe they don’t even read them. SAD.
I have seen a lot of this ladies work and she is a very talented artist. I wish her all the very best in this venture.
doh worry maam…it was a “terrorist” malfini …
I bought a print at the exhibit – Lisette has some beautiful works, and it is great that she is promoting the beautiful birds of the Nature Isle.
that’s good very original!
this a great idea ,well done ,miss
Keep up the Great work Liz… You have amazing Talent
That’s commendable and nice that she chose such an avenue to remember a lost pet.
My question to DNO tho is are you sure she didn’t mean distraught instead of destitute?
unique