About | Bingy

Cecil ‘Bingy’ Smith (b.1950)
Annotto Bay, St Mary

Trained as a pastry chef, Bingy took up weaving late in life after having a stroke which left him without movement in three of his fingers. Over time he has developed a hat design which uses locally harvested calabash with a brim of woven screw pine. Bingy exhibits his work from a roadside rest-stop in Annotto Bay, hanging his piece on wooden beams and bamboo posts along the outside of the building.

Bingy’s calabash surfaces are left rough, raw and natural; highlighting their organic textures and unique characteristics. With limited tools Bingy works slowly and methodically to create each hat. To create the ventilation holes on the side of the hats - along with all the holes to weave into -Bingy uses a small razor to bore through the calabash.