Born in the fishing community of Treasure Beach, Georgie captained boats for most of his life. An injury to his back prevents him from going out to sea, and now Georgie now relies on his carvings to survive. 

Although Georgie carves a variety of objects, his life as a fisherman continues to inform a lot of his work. Georgie carves Jamaican canoes, which resemble the traditional dug-out canoes his father used to build by hand from cotton trees. This is a practice passed down from Jamaica’s indigenous Tainos.

Georgie works with lignum vitae (wood of life), a high quality wood native to Jamaica. Nicknamed 'iron wood’ it is a labour intensive building material which requires a lot of time and energy to shape. With limited resources and tools, Georgie continues to use a completely hand-based practice of carving and whittling. On many occasions Georgie has shown me an array of newly broken saws, screw drivers and other makeshift tools which were unable to stand up to the ‘iron wood’.