community projects
Expressions Federal Corrections Institution (FCI)
November 4 2007- ongoing
I created a mentoring program, Expressions, in conjunction with the graduate program at Florida State. Assistant Warden Jason Stiles and I have been working for the past year to assist inmates in exploring their artistic side in order to rise above their current situation. I secured permission from Art Department of FSU, recruited, mentored, and organized artists for bi-annual art shows in the prison. This has been an extremely rewarding experience for me. Over a hundred inmates created work for the show, ten artists volunteered their time, and I had the opportunity to mentor.
Painter Robin Venable is now organizing the next show which will be held on March 2. The next graduate student will then be trained to curate a show in December, and so on. Although I will continue to be an active participant, the goal is to establish a long-term public service program organized by future graduate students to be self-sustaining.
Breaking Down Walls
July –August 2008
Currently I am collaborating with Tallahassee 25, a group working in conjunction with local girls’ and boys’ clubs. My project is an exercise in self-awareness, demonstrating a way to let go of the past. I am creating a wall of wood to show the cause and effect of a troubled childhood, along with the ability to make positive changes.
There are four homes for orphan children. In each home, I will install a section of the wood wall for a month. Each day, when the children have a counseling session, they will paint the wall with bright colors or paint an image of how they feel. The creation of a brightly colored wall will be an inspirational reminder of one’s ability to overcome adversity. The culmination of this project will be shown at Tallahassee 25’s Family Day on August 14th , when the individual walls will be joined for the first time, thus demonstrating the children’s ability to work together to overcome obstacles.
Ormond Beach Lighthouse School for the Blind
Summer 2008
Another of my projects is the creation of a series of inspirational plaques in Braille. The plaques will be bronze and installed on the stairwells. As students go from class to class, their hands will touch upon words of encouragement and poems of pride. I am working with a group of university students, who will recommend appropriate sayings. The next step will be to ask various artists from Tallahassee to create the plaques in Braille. My goal is to complete the project by the end of summer 2008.
Thank you, China (Beaches of Izu, Japan)
March 20-30 2008
March 20-30 will mark the second performance of my temporary installation in Izu, Japan, where I initiated a beach clean-up and found-object installation. Elementary school children collect garbage that washes up on the shores of Japan--90% of which comes from China. They write ‘THANK YOU’ on a billboard, post it, document the process, and finally dispose of the art piece. The hope is the sign will become smaller as awareness builds in China that their garbage floats over and lands on their neighbor’s shore. This awareness piece has been a wonderful experience for the participants by involving local businesses, and giving them the responsibility of overseeing the disposal of hazardous materials. This has become a community project with local impact.
Artists Without Borders
Created December 2007- ongoing
My extensive travel has given me the opportunity to bring friends and artists together toward a common goal. Art is being incorporated into local communities to encourage self-expression, self-awareness and self-esteem. The above projects have served as models for Artists Without Borders.
To date, I have organized and encouraged fellow artists in England, New York, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Florida, Denmark, and Ukraine to promote art in their communities. My plan is to identify additional artists and teachers in a far-reaching community, giving the project a global scope with a sense of the local. This could have world-wide impact springing from a humble beginning.
