An artist, designer and gardener, Suzanne and her husband Dan Tessier live near Treasure Beach, Jamaica at their cottage Fairwind, and in Florida and North Carolina. She is currently working on a series of sequined and beaded wall hangings that are influenced by Haitian Voodoo Flag Art and botanical drawings of plants found in her garden.























Sunday, October 10, 2010

Why Jamaica?

My first trip to Jamaica was over the Christmas  holiday in 1972 with 12 of my nearest and dearest friends to go visit Dan who was then living at the Sunrise Cottages in Negril.  It was not long until I fell in love with Dan and Jamaica.  From then on we were always going to Jamaica and except for a brief period, we never missed a year - sometimes going three times a year!  In the 90s we renovated our dear friends house, the Jamaican artist Herbie Rose, in Discovery Bay on the north coast.  It was during that time that we traveled to Treasure Beach and stayed at Coyaba in Billy's Bay.  The experience changed our lives forever.  Walking towards Fort Charles early one morning, on the then dirt road, we were engulfed in yellow butterflies - thousands of them raised up from the ground and it was as if we were in a Fellini movie - from then on we were totally addicted to Treasure Beach.  Returning to the USA to take care of family and this and that, we continued to return to Treasure Beach as often as we could.  In 2008 we purchased property in Beacon, just outside of Treasure Beach, overlooking the sea.  First Dan retired to build the house that I designed and then I retired and here we are...back where we began in the country of our choice. 

Fairwind - the name came early one morning as I sat meditating on our veranda overlooking the sea....it was a calm morning - and, very gently, a breeze moved up the hill from the sea and onto the veranda...a soft and sweet breeze...and so I thought "what a fair wind"...Fairwind was also the name of my father's sloop when I was a child growing up on the gulf coast of Florida.  My brother and I sailed her many times over the years. It seemed, then, appropriate that our cottage be named Fairwind, in honor and rememberance of my family.