37, Vodou flag artist
We spoke to George Valentin Valeris in 2011 in his studio. He showed us the sequined flag he makes that depict Vodou spirits, or loas, and other Vodou themes. When we asked about one flag that showed a two-faced loa, he explained that one face is the loa called Baron Samedi, the other Erzulie. “They share the same head,” he said. “They serve the same purpose. Baron Samedi represents death. And Erzulie is the spirit of love. So together, they represent love and death.”
I was born in Port-au-Prince in Pétionville.1 What they say is true: in Pétionville, you see a lot of the bourgeois. But you’ll see people from the middle class and the lower class as well. I was born November 11, 1979. My dad is an artist. I can say that I know everywhere in this city. It’s the city where I grew up.
It’s not the same as it was before. Because of urbanization, everyone is coming to the city. The result is that there are too many people. In every corner you see people. They’re coming from the countryside, from all over they’re coming. And now everywhere you go, you see people selling. They’re selling on the streets and you see the streets are getting dirtier and dirtier. The city was not this dirty before. When I was growing up, certain parts of Port-au-Prince, there was nobody there. No construction. Now you can see it’s only houses in Delmas.2 You don’t even see a tree.
In 1989, I became an artist. I started making Vodou flags. I really loved it. I was going to school, but I was very interested in art. At the age of twenty-five, I started my own shop. So like, this week, I had seven people working with me. And this is how they support their families, with the work they do for me. I work for a bunch of Vodou people. I make flags for them. When they need something they call me. But I don’t have any relationship with Vodou because I don’t serve any of the loa.3 Sometimes I can say that the loa may use me to design something, but I don’t serve them. I’m still a Seventh-day Adventist.
It’s true that Vodou didn’t start here in Haiti. Vodou came into Haiti when the slaves were brought here from Africa. The Africans were using Vodou a lot, but now Haitians use it more. When the slaves came, each of them came with a little statue of their loa. Each of them came with something. Some of them had the little Virgin Mary statue. They were always calling on their loa, and they were always praying. With the same spirit, they fought for independence. When they were planning the revolt for their independence, they had a big ceremony—it’s called the cérémonie du Bois Caïman.4 Most of the time there are people who misunderstand Vodou because we took our independence with Vodou.
Since slaves came from Africa, Vodou spread through the country. More people started doing Vodou. They started using the loa to treat people, to make remedies. They use Vodou to make treatment for natural diseases as well as unnatural diseases, something somebody might have done to you. For example, somebody might put a zombie on you.5 Since Vodou gave you the disease, you have to use the same Vodou to cure it.
The houngan, the Vodou priest, can use limbs from trees or things that the loa give him, to treat people. What the loa tells him to do depends on the disease you have. The loa might tell the houngan to take the leaves from a tree, or to use oil to massage you—it depends on what you have.
A lot of people think that Vodou is the Devil, but that’s not true. It’s mystical, and it has a lot of good things. I’m not saying that Adventists should practice Vodou, but there’s some good in it for them. And for Haitians, Vodou is part of their roots. Unfortunately, there are people who don’t understand that Vodou is not here to do bad things, Vodou is not here to mistreat people. The person with the wisest loa is here to help people out. Somebody can use it to do bad things, but Vodou is not there to do bad things. It’s the same way in other religions. They can use their religion to do bad things. You can use anything to do bad things.
Most of the Protestant religions, they have a relationship with Vodou because in order to have members come into the church, they have to do some Vodou. The pastor doesn’t use a flag or music, but he does go to a houngan.
Not every religion has a rara band.6 Every religion has a way to manifest, to show happiness, to show their feeling. Vodou has rara. But if you go inside a Baptist church, you can see they have a different kind of music but they still have music, and the people are dancing. They don’t have the same rhythm as with rara, but they have their own way of manifesting. They each have different rhythm.
The head of the rara, he’s in the front of the dance line. They wanted to make sure that when he’s coming everybody could see him, so they started putting the sequins on his vest. Since the head of the line was wearing the vest, everybody saw it was beautiful. Then they started putting sequins on his hat. Everybody saw how beautiful it was, the audience liked it, so they say, Okay, then we’ll do the flag in sequins as well. Since so many people like it.
I love what I’m doing, I love being an artist, I can see when I draw something or after I make something, I’m asking myself What did I do? It’s not straightforward, like, Okay, I’m going to draw something from the loas. I’m Seventh-day Adventist, but I do Vodou art more than I do anything else. The Vodou is trying to take over.
How long does it take you to make these, with how many people?
About five days. Two people. Five days with two people. Eight hours a day, five days.
Ah, I see. So there are faces within faces?
Yeah, each big head is two heads. So these two loa, they share the same head. But they serve the same purpose. You can see that in that head, one of these two heads, one of them is smoking.
Baron Samedi. He represents death. Baron Samedi liked to smoke? And Erzulie is here.
Erzulie is the spirit of love. So together, they represent love and death.
You drew this whole thing in the middle of the night?
Yes, yes. I was sleeping, and in the middle of the night I woke up and designed it.
I HAD TO GET BACK ON MY FEET AND DO THE WORK
After the earthquake, there was lot of stress, but I had a lot of demand, people were asking me for my work. So I had to get back on my feet and do the work. I lost everything, but after a few months, I started the shop back again. I made a big effort to pull together my soul and my strength, everything I had, to concentrate because I was working. I started forgetting about the stress. All I did was do this work until I forgot, about everything, the past, and then, you know, it was just my work.
The hardest thing is that normally you’re doing great work. Not everybody gives importance to the work that you do. Sometimes Haitians forget where they’re from. They say they will have nothing to do with Vodou. Few Haitians understand the importance of the work. Some Haitians who serve loa, they buy from me. And some houngan buy. Mostly the foreigners appreciate the work.
It’s not easy work—not only to design everything—to sell it. The thing is, it takes a lot of time, a lot of days to work on a flag: to draw, to design, to put on the sequins and do everything, to teach other people to do it. It takes a lot of time, and you don’t sell it right away. With the political problems that we have here in Haiti, the tourists don’t really come. You have to ship the work to the United States in order for it to be sold.
The easiest part for a Haitian artist is to create.