Art-Full Life

I slipped into MICA last Friday, hoping to catch the closing reception for the MA in Community Arts thesis exhibition, and found myself alone.

The artists were still graduating downstairs in Falvey Hall. Periodically, I heard claps and cheers. I was tempted to sneak in and join the celebration. I would have liked to applaud these transformative artists and their works. In a very direct way, their work changes lives and entire communities for the better.

In a fiber piece, Races Woven Together, Barbara Joann Combs weaves white and colorful strips of fabric into a flag. She superimposes the contour of Maryland’s shoreline across the flag with a piece of string. On the subject of her work, Barbara writes:

“The strips are of various types of material and are different thicknesses. The type and thickness, along with the interweaving of these strips, represents the dynamic of cultures living together in Baltimore. Creating art is one way I express beauty and receive joy.”

Michelle Faulkner takes large paper bags painted with portraits and uses these seemingly cheerful images to extend an “Official Ghetto Pass.”  The commonplace material used for the portraits is intended to remind us of “the paper bag test.”  In post-slavery America, Michelle tells us, this practice perpetuated “colorism” between dark and light-skinned African Americans.  See these portraits in action:

 http://www.vimeo.com/13917768

On the third floor, I encountered Robert J. Fitzgerald’s Passage, which seemed to sum up his community arts work in East Baltimore. For Passage, he constructed a corridor made out of two-by-fours. Suspended randomly between studs in the corridor were Robert’s gorgeous photographs. Divided into two distinct sets—sober monotones and colorful shots, these images reinforced the dual experience of the space they occupied. Half focused on the challenges faced by East Baltimore with empty commercial buildings, fire escapes, and vacant lots. The other portion in vibrant colors recorded the promise of creating and tending to a community garden. The garden, the result of community participation, is as much Robert’s work as the corridor and photography.

You could look through the corridor’s walls to see the Brown Center’s magnificent glass windows or walk through the corridor onto a plywood floor littered with white paint chips. The chips were probably latex, not lead, but they still reminded me of the contrasts we see in this city— old and new, toxic and safe, affluent and poor. Quentin Gibeau made his experiences with social contrasts in Central Baltimore present with recordings of Baltimore’s sounds captured during both the day and night.

Hannah Brancato’s What Gives People Power, a booth decorated festively with play money and guns, invited participants to listen to the stories of women who suffered abuse.  In the enclosure and safety of this booth, you were empowered to add your own account.

Memories were also honored in Katti Sta. Ana’s clay “memory vessels,” which she made with senior students at Jubilee Arts, Baltimore Clayworks’ satellite location in Sandtown.  Her installation featured three of these large memory vessels made to contain written reflections and symbolic mementos of her students’ memorable life experiences (joyful or painful) and plans for their future. Each vessel conveyed a different mood.  In one, fresh green leaves bent outward in welcome. The two other vessels were covered by clay leaves or shells, their contents concealed. 

Holly Crawford-Seay’s installation, Table of Memory, honored four generations of women who shaped her life.  Four places were set around a vintage table, each one with a handmade book of photographs and narratives that documented memories, many about food and family gatherings.  It triggered my own recollections—my grandmother sewing or making soup, my mother in the kitchen when I came home from school each day, my daughter at play in Central Park.

Sarah Edelsburg’s mural/map of Collington Square, The Mighty, Mighty Club Kids, celebrates the children at the Club at Collington Square, a vibrant center that galvanizes community. Her drawings of the children—“true agents of change”, reflect her deep engagement with them.

The thesis exhibition closed Saturday, but I’m sure you’ll see the featured artists in and around Baltimore, using their talents to make a difference.