Bill “Mussey” Ming is one of Bermuda’s most original and innovative visual artists— and among the few to have earned international recognition. His work is owned by galleries and private collectors in Britain and Bermuda, and his commissions have included several significant public works of art.
Working primarily as a sculptor, Ming uses a range of materials, but predominantly wood and found objects, to create “cultural collages”—distinctive and often life-sized works that draw heavily on both his personal experiences, his Bermudian heritage and his African ancestry.
“Mussey”—a boyhood nickname given to him by an aunt—was born in Devonshire, in 1944 and attended Elliott School and the Bermuda Technical Institute, but dropped out, at age 14, in 1958.
As a boy, a bad stammer made him shy and reluctant to talk, but he learned to express himself though writing poetry, sketching and early experiments with sculpture. Being able to convey his emotions through “words and shapes of healing” helped Ming cope with other challenging periods in his life.
He worked as a printer at The Royal Gazette, spent three years at sea as a sous-chef aboard the Queen of Bermuda, and also worked for the Bermuda Telephone Company, in construction, and in airport catering before following his artistic instincts.
However, it was not until he took the advice of a visiting American artist, who had seen Ming’s early work and told him that he needed to get out of Bermuda, that he was able to fulfil his artistic destiny.
In 1971, aged 27, Ming moved to England to attend art school. College entry requirements meant he had to complete his high school education and studying for ‘O’ levels in his twenties was the hardest thing he had ever done. He studied at Mansfield College of Art from 1975 to 1976.
He met his wife Nadia at Mansfield and followed her to Maidstone College of Art in Kent where he earned a degree in sculpture and creative writing in 1979. After graduation, Bill and Nadia settled in Newark, Nottinghamshire, where he set up a studio and began to establish himself as an artist, teaching himself woodcarving and surviving by working winters in a sugar factory.
Growing recognition led to critically acclaimed solo exhibitions at the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, and the Commonwealth Institute and Africa Centre in London, among others.
He became very involved in community arts work in Newark where his talent and passion for teaching art and sculpture has resulted in thousands of British schoolchildren discovering African art and the sheer joy of creativity.
He played an active role in the AEMS (Arts Education for a Multicultural Society) project and has acted as an adviser and an exhibition selector for the East Midlands Arts Council.
In 1992, Bill Ming received the honour of being named the first Henry Moore Sculpture Fellow at John Moores University in Liverpool. Studying Liverpool’s history as a slave port deepened his understanding of the roots and impact of the slave trade—a recurring theme in his work. In 1993, he produced an acclaimed solo exhibition, ‘Two Rock Passage to Liverpool’, at the city’s historic Bluecoat Gallery that was named the best visual arts exhibition of the year.
Despite his growing reputation in England, it was not until 1994’s ‘Home Comin’’ show at the Bermuda National Gallery—his first major solo exhibition in Bermuda and opened by the Queen—that Bill Ming’s work received widespread recognition and appreciation in his own country.
Today, three of his sculptures are among the Island’s most prominent public works of art.
‘Family Circle’, an imposing seven-foot-high circle of wooden figures, is owned by the Corporation of Hamilton and stands in City Hall. ‘Figurehead’, a memorial for those lost at sea, stands in Great Head Park, St. David’s and ‘Against Da Tide’, a large bronze depicting figures pulling on a rope, was commissioned by banking firm HSBC Bermuda and stands outside its Front Street office.
‘Figurehead’, an 18-foot high, 12-ton bronze sculpture, was commissioned in 2004 by the Bermuda Government in the aftermath of Hurricane Fabian. Ming won the competition to design and build the Island’s first piece of “non-colonial” public art and the memorial was unveiled by Prince Andrew in 2005 and formally dedicated a year later.
The making of ‘Figurehead’ was documented in Bill Ming: Stories of Wood, Wind and Fire by UK filmmaker Andy McKay. It was premiered to a standing ovation at the 2007 Bermuda International Film Festival.
As an ex-seaman, Ming says the theme of maritime life is close to his heart and frequently reflected in his work. ‘Figurehead’, which depicts an upturned boat on a compass, “honours our local fishermen/women who cast their nets and pots to scrape an existence from their catch; Bermudians lost to their loved ones as a result of storms or hurricanes and the African slaves who perished during the long arduous Middle Passage.”
Through his art, Bill Ming continually explores his heritage and how it relates to his own personal history, carving stories and ideas that are “rich in colour, texture and context”, according to David Mitchell, curator of ‘From Ship to Shore’, a retrospective of Ming’s work at the Bermuda National Gallery in 2005.
“His often-provocative work draws equally on the past and the present, reaching back to the agonies of the Middle Passage, resonating with echoes of his Bermuda childhood, and his time at sea, or evoking the horrific pyres of cattle burned to combat BSC (mad cow disease) during the 1990s in the U.K.”
Ironically, it was only after settling in the UK that Ming began to truly understand and appreciate his own ancestry through discovering African artifacts and culture in British museums. As he once wrote: “I went to Europe and found Africa.”
He sees himself as continuing African traditions of carving and storytelling. “I share my visions and messages with a multicultural village that links instinct and early impressions with a contemporary western perspective formed through my education and experience.
“These ideas are reflected in my sculpture and collage. I often reuse old work along with fragments of timber and found objects. The reuse of other materials makes their relationship tangible with my and our collective past. They exist as a kind of cultural archaeology, their present meanings both echoing and reflected in times gone by.
“My work as an artist is a journey of exploration; whether on stormy or calm seas fellow travellers are essential for this life excursion. As the captain says, ‘All are welcome aboard’.”
In November 2006, the Bermuda Arts Council honoured Bill Ming with a Lifetime Achievement Award. At the awards ceremony, he was described as “an international Bermudian, taking our island culture to people across the world, and bringing home stories and pictures of his journeys”.
