Strange developments at Ashraph's studio

One of the baffling notes at Ashraph's studio in Woodbrook, Port of Spain.

The studio on Roberts Street, Woodbrook, is filled with picture frames. A group of people, fresh from a red wine-infused literary event at the nearby Alice Yard that evening, are looking around, playing with things. 

But on a table at the far end of the room, laying like the abandoned robe of the bad witch in The Wizard of Oz, is a costume of some sort. What strange things this man, framemaker and artist Ashraph, has in his studio! The robe is like a graduation gown, meets vampire cape, meets barrister's court costume.

But there are disturbing little clues about this mystery, too, all over the studio. What is going on here? On the wall at another end of the room are cryptic drawings, small frantic notes, with diagrams and slogans.

Has Ashraph lost it? No, he has not. It appears as though he--and a band of mysterious confederates--are bringing out a Carnival band for 2010.

Last year, he brought out a band of cows. This year, it's a band of cobos. Robes, then, are really wings, are really pleated capes in which masqueraders hide or will hide or have hidden, and then reveal themselves. More later.

He has many fans, as this note on the wall of his studio reveals.

SEE the cows from 2009 here.