Ensemble 5
Magnets ... My Journey Yours
Doing/Making Puzzles? ... Playing? ... On avance on avance ...?
1971-2020
Each drawing: 60"x40"
Tableau: 75"x144"x2.5"
"Please TOUCH! Ensemble 5 includes two puzzles. Feel free to move their pieces around, do them or undo them at will."
These two black and white puzzles, are made of images on black PVC. Magnets attach to a galvanized steel plate behind the drawings. Yes you can touch and play. And we can help you create your own puzzles for your walls, for educational purposes or for gifts! Or for a business!
Interested? Contact Pam or Gwylene at TINYisPOWERFUL@gmail.com or JEMAGWGA@gmail.com
The image on the left is a 1971 ‘selfie’ from a sequence of photographs documenting a day in Paris(France) and sent to an artist friend doing his military service in Togo. Sadly, the full sequence was lost in the ‘diplomatic bag’ at the end of his time! The collage on the right shows the renovation of James Simons Montessori Public School and the 2011-2012 Martin Luther King day parades in Charleston.
MY JOURNEY YOURS: The hands at work are from eight refugee women, embroidering “an imaginary island where they could have met on their journey to America.” Here “art is a conveyor, an explorer, a community builder, a platform for so many cultures…” Actually everyone had a different way of saying it. Professionals and every day artists or craftswomen joined practices. With small or large pieces, they defined such a unique touch, an unforgettable style that a participant, who had recorded her own dramatic journey, declared that now she understood what art is and can do! Then her hands went on enriching the/their island with her own embroidery style.
The island was a purely “Participatory art” piece, made with passion and resistance all along.
Aren’t they both major criteria of artistic excellence as well?
Other images depict culminating works of the final installation of MY JOURNEY YOURS, a two year program with Refugee Family Services (RFS) and the Youth Art Connection (YAC) – Atlanta.
Sadly, both organizations no longer exist.
Bobby King and the RFS staff, Rebecca DesMarais (YAC) and Rebekah Stone were the coordinators for this project..
There were three color wax coated tables, engraved in multiple languages (Arabic, Vietnamese, Bosniac, Somali). One of them said “I will fly, I will imagine, I will give a call, I will have a dream, I will meet you on an island, the sky will be free and my children too…”
Arianne King Comer, Yves Gaudin, Elise Witt, Opal Muhammad Taha, Marcia Kure, Melissa Bisic, Fikret Sejfulovic, Sakhidad Hatif, the RFS Sewing Circle co-led workshops.
The film is by Aaron Volkner, aka AAVO.
The song My Journey Yours was developed further by Elise Witt w/staff of Refugee Family Services © Non Si Sa Mai Music ASCAP * Sung by Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley * Sung by Cantus and recorded LIVE from the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.
Bags were hand-made in fiber or 6-pack ringers. Songs brought tears. Stone lettering (carving names of family members, hometown, refugee camps) became an outlet for anger and nostalgia.
Difficulties arose on the use of electric tools or handsaws by youth. While African American children depend on organizations which protect them to prevent any accidents and insurance issues, Refugee are encouraged to take opportunities. We were not ready for the reactions of staff when youth met and worked together. The stress did not help our integrative efforts and our own performance.
Now though we were not using guns !
A conversation needs to happen !
Access to tools, the love of tools is not access to guns.
It is educational !!
See the bridge pitted with mortar shell craters and fleeing families. Visual elements were handmade by all during the program.
