Artist focuses on CAL for IWD 2025: First female captain immortalised in painting

SAN­DRA L BLOOD

sandyl­blood@gmail.com

Sev­en days pre­ced­ing Feb­ru­ary 25, To­ba­go-based writer, Trompe L’oeil spe­cial­ist and painter, Vidya Birk­hoff, said she stood be­fore her easel, proud that she was able to cap­ture not just an­oth­er im­age, but a lega­cy—an ex­am­ple of re­silience, am­bi­tion, and the pur­suit of a dream.

On the said date, she com­plet­ed a trib­ute paint­ing to the first fe­male cap­tain for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al air­line, British West In­di­an Air­ways (BWIA), now Caribbean Air­lines, Cap­tain Wendy Yawch­ing.

Birk­hoff de­scribed Yawch­ing as “a woman whose wings broke through bar­ri­ers and soared be­yond ex­pec­ta­tions.”

“I find that my brush is guid­ed more by emo­tion, by the depth of hu­man sto­ries, and by the un­spo­ken words that im­ages and colours can con­vey,” re­vealed Birk­hoff.

Of Cap­tain Yawch­ing, Birk­hoff said, “When I first heard about her in­cred­i­ble jour­ney, I felt an im­me­di­ate need to get to know her. Born and raised in Trinidad and To­ba­go, her jour­ney from as­pir­ing avi­a­tor to cap­tain of a ma­jor air­line was any­thing but con­ven­tion­al. Her achieve­ments sym­bol­ise the pow­er of per­se­ver­ance and the im­por­tance of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in spaces where women have his­tor­i­cal­ly been un­der­rep­re­sent­ed.”

She fur­ther de­scribed Yawch­ing as a pi­o­neer, a woman who carved a path in a field long dom­i­nat­ed by men, and one who did so with grace, courage, and de­ter­mi­na­tion, and for that, the paint­ing, ti­tled Cap­tain Wendy Yawch­ing, was done in trib­ute to her and in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day (IWD) 2025.

Birk­hoff said the paint­ing ho­n­ours Cap­tain Yawch­ing’s sto­ry and cel­e­brates the strength she em­bod­ies and the in­spi­ra­tion she of­fers to gen­er­a­tions of women and young girls dream­ing of tak­ing flight—whether in avi­a­tion or in life’s many en­deav­ours.

She said she en­vi­sioned more than a sim­ple por­trait. It had to re­flect Yawch­ing’s spir­it and jour­ney. She said she start­ed with the eyes, in­flu­enced by the adage, “The eyes are the win­dows to the soul,” to cap­ture the de­ter­mi­na­tion and qui­et con­fi­dence of a woman who has com­mand­ed the sky. She said they re­flect strength of the many hours spent train­ing, prov­ing her­self, and break­ing bar­ri­ers. Then, Birk­hoff ad­vanced to the uni­form, which she said sym­bol­is­es achieve­ment; a tes­ta­ment to years of ded­i­ca­tion and per­se­ver­ance. The crisp white stands out in con­trast to the black, but she soft­ened the edges slight­ly, al­low­ing the brush­strokes to cre­ate a sense of move­ment, de­pict­ing Yawch­ing’s sto­ry progress and push­ing for­ward. She said fur­ther im­por­tance was placed on the four stripes’ in­signia on her sleeves: gleam with a qui­et au­thor­i­ty, a nod to the re­spect she has earned in an in­dus­try that wasn’t al­ways wel­com­ing to women.

“Art plays a ma­jor role in cel­e­brat­ing pi­o­neers, and it has long been a medi­um to ho­n­our trail­blaz­ers,” Birk­hoff stat­ed.

She hopes that through this paint­ing, she was able to ho­n­our Yawch­ing in her cap­tain’s uni­form, stand­ing proud­ly in­side a BWIA air­craft which she com­mand­ed.

“I hope that this paint­ing serves as a pow­er­ful re­minder of how one woman’s de­ter­mi­na­tion can in­spire change. I hope Wendy’s sto­ry will live on, en­cour­ag­ing fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to dream fear­less­ly and pur­sue their pas­sions un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly,” she ar­tic­u­lat­ed.

She ex­plained that the paint­ing isn’t just about one woman’s suc­cess but the pos­si­bil­i­ty she cre­at­ed for oth­ers and about the lit­tle girl who will look at this paint­ing and see her­self in that uni­form one day. It is al­so about every woman who has ever been told she couldn’t, yet did any­way.

Birk­hoff elab­o­rat­ed that Yawch­ing’s sto­ry is one of per­se­ver­ance, and in paint­ing her, she felt a deep sense of grat­i­tude for pi­o­neers like her.

“This paint­ing is my way of say­ing, ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for show­ing us that the sky is not the lim­it—it is on­ly the be­gin­ning. I hope this art­work serves as a re­minder that women have al­ways be­longed in every space on the ground, in the air, and be­yond, and with each stroke of my brush, I cel­e­brate not just Cap­tain Yawch­ing, but every woman who dares to dream and dares to fly,” Birk­hoff con­clud­ed.

In an emo­tion­al pre­sen­ta­tion on Feb­ru­ary 27 at Birk­hoff’s To­ba­go stu­dio, Yel­low­But­ter­fly, she gift­ed Cap­tain Yawch­ing with the por­trait.

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