These pictures from our final art exhibit just begin to describe the excitment of the event. With over one hundred artists participating, we filled the walls of the entryway and the gathering room of the church. The Mt.Zion community was so welcoming and supportive. Putting on an art show is perhaps always a little heartbreaking, There is the task of making sure there is no one left out, that is that there is at least one picture on the wall for every artist. A special thank you to counselor Ms. Dianne who did some follow up name writing during our workshops. There is the matter of children and their families being at different heights, hanging the work so that all can see. Refreshments were lovingly provided by Ms. Lillian, who is the head counselor at the EYMCA, Ms. Mindy, and the Marsha Barbour Community Center.
The church has a wonderful sound system and Mr. Fred Kately, who participated in the workshops with us and who supports many of the young people in our local youth group, Mr. Fred was our DJ and soundman. Wonderful jazz transported the event. We had flowers on the tables and tea lights in crystal glasses. Storms during the day suggested that our turnout may be slim, but we were overwhelmed with families coming to the art show. Parents, and grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends, our artist participants brought the work to life. Here was one stage of the work complete! Children standing before their pictures for paparazzi photographs, children finding other pictures that interested them and talking with others about what they saw. Families enjoying the non-competitive success. Families being celebrated for supporting each other in their creativity. We said a few words and invited two speakers Mia from the MBCC and Breanna from the EYMCA. We invited them to speak on their experiences. Mia liked the ink drawing of faces at the park and by the gulf, because she said it is fun and you can take in everything around you and make something different. Breanna said it is cool and it is fun to paint, she drawing people in poses and mixing learning about mixing colors. Casey’s mother shared with us that she came home and said, “I have homework, I have to free think,” and she put a blindfold over her eyes to practice drawing without looking.

All of that and we led two more workshops in the morning before the show. I introduced Pamela’s perceptual memory painting to five of the seniors who meet every Wednesday at the church and Monica led the MBCC youth group. Today we had the large wonderful paper which supported satisfying luxurious results for everyone. One of the lovingest art shows I have ever attended.

-youme

On our last day teaching at East Hancock elementary school we bring the big paper. The children use ink, working from each other as models, they recreate poses of what they were doing during Katrina times. When the ink is dry, they mix remembered colors.

These last two weeks have brought us so many powerful,dynamic and meditative paintings, we wonder if there is enough room on the walls to exhibit their work. We are planning to show one of each student's paintings. That is a minimum of seventy images on the walls. The opening is tonight at 6:00, we have two workshops today and so the art marathon continues.

Lorenzo, our local volunteer, brought over a total of four cardboard cut out "drawings" and dazzled us with his charcoal drawings, his willingness to experiment with new materials, and his artisitic vision.

I am deeply moved by the support Lorenzo's family gives him, to find his way and to be himself. We have had conversations about art, education, philosophy, American history, Mississippi and sociology which have enriched my understanding of myself and the world. I realize examples would best illustrate what I am talking about. I will start by saying look at the cardboard cut outs, read his blog, comment and ask questions. At the end of our first day, Lorenzo asks us, what would I need to do to stay in touch with and get more involved in the work of Making Art Everywhere in the future?

Today we have a workshop with a group of elders, and then one more class with the local young people.
Ms. Viola comes over to say good morning and to ask what I am drawing at six thirty am, she walks almost every day and we have waved to each other, as I sit on the front steps preparing for the day. We talk of Katrina and art, changes in Pass Christian and DeLisle.

Lorenzo's Blog

My name is Lorenzo Fletcher and I am a recent Graduate from Pass Christian High School. I have hung out with Pamela, Youme, and Monica. I am just starting out with my art and every second with them has really opened my eyes to a whole new world. I have been using cardboard to speak my mind. It a fun way to use old cardboard and make beautiful things from it. I cut into the cardboard with a box cutter and make designs. Monica actually collaborated with me on the latest one called, "Open your Eyes."
Oh and LPF stands for Living Proof of Freedom.
Influences. Influences are everywhere around you. That may have been the most important thing I have learned from Youme, Monica and Pamela. They are the chillest people I have ever met. Art is an escape from everyday life. Your imagination is in complete control. I went to the YMCA with the Yorkers. There are many kids there who let their imagination run wild. Even while they are mixing colors. Every color to them is their creation. Art is freedom. That is what I have taken from Making Art Everywhere.

remembering storms

We have a wonderful volunteer from the community. He is an eighteen year old artist. I have invited him to write on the blog. Lorenzo. L.P.F. Pamela leads memory painting , we talk with the young people about storms, and brush strokes, colors in memory.

The weekend is already over, but this is only a little surprising. Friday was spent on the beach again, little hands darting back and forth across big paper with trails of color streaming behind. They are all becoming more confident and daring, and rather than needing to encourage them to experiment and try, now there comes the need to slow them down, pull them back, before they have mixed so many colors and spread them so many ways that the once slightly perceivable ocean and sand becomes one giant brown blob with traces of blue and half of a name in the corner. Already some of the students aren’t going to be back next week, and when they tell me I realize I will maybe not see these tiny people again and it was all over too soon, my heart breaks and then grows back together with smiles and hugs and intuitive knowing, trust, love.
I spend Friday night on the beach, a bonfire, lightning storm far off in the sky (don’t stand in the water) and I am occasionally alone in the wind and heat of the fire singing to it all. Shadows of people I barely know laugh, talk, quiet whispers crawling along the Gulf. There is a family with flashlights and little nets doing something or other in the water, blonde hair peeking out underneath the small hats on small heads while gentle hands guide them along. The people I speak to are friendly, when the fire is out I ride in the back of a truck –“You're in Mississippi now!”- and grin, grin, grin out at the road that flows out underneath and behind me. These are other workers I’m with, Americorps/Habitat for Humanity/Boys and Girls Club people, and we are fast friends; I think we all remind each other of other friends we have. The faces only rotate, the essence remains the same. I sleep on an immensely comfy couch that night after playing with kittens in a garage.
I am making a lot of art. Nothing to do in the house? Go sketch the same tree from the back porch again. Go for a bike ride and sketch the crossroads and the trees that line them. I come home and let the mosquitoes bite me as I use the last light to paint from the front steps, catching the tree next to Mount Zion turning black as the sun sets behind it. So I do a lot of trees. I can't help it, they're so brilliant here.
The people here are all patient and kind. There is no rush for the sake of rushing. I am growing so fond of the characters I have met here, and could not be more grateful for their warm smiles and hearty laughter that shows me that I really have yet to learn to laugh. Youme and I go out to lunch with Ella, James, and Lorenzo on Sunday, and everything about it feels like home. I understand more than ever that "Home is where the heart is".
It will be hard to leave.
Monica

Self portraits and the environment

Mr. Dedeaux said,"It is good to have some people coming to share culture and art with our community, so many people are coming to build houses,I think you are the first artists who have come through to share your work after Katrina. Our children, and not just our children, need to see people making art ....
Ms. Moultrie, the youth director said please tell everybody, "we still need you, we are going to need people to help with recovery for at least ten more years. We need you to come and just do what you do, you might be an artist, a builder, a singer, whatever you do, don't forget we are here." Lorenzo's going to Germany. He showed up yesterday with a five foot work of art. See picture.
-youme

Making art while being everywhere

One of the biggest challenges for an artist who loves to teach is to allow enough time to make one’s own art. When my painting is going full steam ahead I know that I have more to share as a teacher. I love deadlines, and so the fact that I have two shows coming up is a great motivator. Also, art-making in solitude- a situation often hard-won and a challenge to arrange- provides me with a time to allow my naturally reflective nature to achieve a tangible result. Ironically, I have gotten some of my best New York- inspired work in such far-flung places as Sri Lanka and now here in Mississippi. I am making a composite painting that will eventually have ninety rectangles that is comprised of the windows of a skyscraper view at night. I brought a couple of pastels of the view with me, “180 ML night drawing 1 and 2”.

Pamela

Sunday morning, mockingbird

on the power lines

Calliandra emarginata
day lillies planted beside an ancient palm
pecan trees

somewhere the wild fruit of summer

http://deltafarmpress.com/mag/farming_count_summer_wild/

-youme

They incorporate sand into their paintings

From the top Amaya's painting of herself with the observed color of water behind her,Keisha's painting of herself with remembered color of water behond her, artists at work, and our East YMCA second painting beach day. The wind and the beach present opportunities and challenges, which we all embrace. Sand gets into the palettes, the children see it as a way to change the texture. A spill, we decide to pour water from the gulf onto the page. We are honored by a visit from the local paper, the Seacoast Echo.

-youme

sea painting

"We leave together, we come home together"

Part of my personal artmaking involves sharing meals and stories with community members, there is no way of knowing when the heart of my work will be revealed. A lot of my observable time is listening, and asking questions and more listening.

What does all this have to do with MAE? I am still learning what it means to be an MAE artist, but I have found that an important part of being a working artist is the support from friends and family, both in networking, and shared understanding that cooperatively we accomplish more than we could without one another. Yes, it is the theme of all of my books, and perhaps even, my name.

The MAE experience is wonderful because their is so much support for our work. The Marsha Barbour Center, The DeLisle Mt. Zion Church, The East Hancock YMCA, Illumine, The MAE Board, The young people who work with us, Monica, Clarence, Ms. Leona, The Amazing Ella, her husband James Dedeaux and her son Lorenzo, Jake, Mr. Fred. Ms. Lisa, Ms. Dianne, Ms. Lillian. (Sometimes I think all of my work could be described by a list of names.

from a september 2005 CNN transcript,
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: There is something, Miles, very particular, I think it's fair to say, of the folks who live in New Orleans. And that is that, that sense of home and of place here. You consistently ask people, why would you want to stay? It smells. There are flies. The water is filthy doesn't come close to describing how bad it is. And they say, this is where I was born, this is where I plan to die. We've heard that time and time and time again. And I don't know that I've been anywhere elsewhere where people have that kind of connection to their own land as they do here in New Orleans.

Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: You know, I was reading this morning, Soledad, this is true. New Orleans is home to more natives, more natives, than any other city in the U.S. And it is not uncommon for those natives to have lived on the same block in some cases for as long as five generations next to other families that have done the same thing. It really is an extraordinary place in a country that is so mobile.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We've met a lot of people, especially at the Red Cross shelter where we were reporting from in the middle of the week, who going to the shelter outside and being transported outside of the state and then coming back, that was the first time they'd ever left their homes. The first time they had ever left their communities. And that, again, we hear that story over and over again. And that, I think, really reemphasizes that sense of wanting to return home.

-youme

See the sea

two hundred children?

Today at nine we met with eighteen young people in the Mt. Zion Church and their very fine counselors. They are some the young people who live in walking distance and will be served by the Marsha Barbour center. They embraced this new way of drawing (blind contour, not looking at the paper, looking only at your subject, really looking, without looking away) and were then led to paint self-portraits with india ink and acrylic. Blue, yellow and red, pink and brown faces appeared on the pages, sophisticated and gentle. How often does our artwork come from such an open place?

At eleven thirty I cross the street to our home and studio, future site of the Marsha Barbour Community Center and prepare for the ninety children expected from the boys and girls club. I share Selavi with them. (more about this). We make ninety small folded paper books, with books ranging from "what to do when i don't have friends", "my life" and "If i were desperate what would i do."I let them take the unfinished books with them, and hope to see them again at the art show, it will take some doing as this is a side project, and we have plenty to do with our scheduled work and collective volunteering. We finish at one and by two we are on the road to meet up with The East Hancock Elementary school YMCA group. These are the forty one young people we have been painting and drawing with most days. Today is drawing and painting at the beach. (more to say here too). That group is scheduled from three until five most days. By six they have cleaned up and pulled out of the parking lot, we walk into the muddy water, which we see others jumping and playing in. Later we learn that the water also holds the bodies of many dead. I don't know how else to say that.

By eight thirty we are back at the house preparing materials for Thursday, we will take our Mt. Zion group to the beach tomorrow in the morning and have been invited for an afternoon visit to New Orleans, just sixty four miles away.

Too many entries have become sleep. Our days involve a great deal of the secret and physical preparation for the magic show which is moments of clarity in a painters life. My colleagues, sometimes look at me with surprise when I struggle to articulate my appreciation. Doing more than I can is not option. I am overwhelmed as usual by the welcoming, the wisdom, and the gentle teaching in all with whom I interact. The uniqueness of this community seems to be an extreme self-awareness and tenderness. There is a genuine intergenerational respect which this whole nation can benefit from knowing.

youme

Being here I return in my mind to Indian Ocean memories: breathtaking ocean breezes, hypnotizing sun, the rebuilding of the devastated earth, Katrina and the tsunami persisting into the present. In both places, I experience the pleasure of color mixing with the children (and their parents at times too) for the first time. The beauty of perceptual painting in which the student draws from their surroundings (or “environment”, as one student volunteered today) is that in each a unique setting is depicted, in ink, charcoal, watercolor.

We decided on day two of our teaching to divide into three smaller groups. It was fascinating to work with the youngest ones, and to see how they approached drawing from observation. To see them focus in ways they’d seemingly never embraced before- that of making their hand and drawing tool follow their eyes- was rewarding. “Look what I did! I made the fence”! How their usage of color compares to that of children from other countries has yet to be determined. It is exhilarating to be here, keeping the mind in the present a necessity.
Pamela

Our house is becoming lived in. Our house is now "let's go home". We are a house of three women artists, and there are trees on the walls. Piles and stacks and assortments of children's art and the accumulation of our scattered belongings are pushed into corners and under windows. There are writing utensils and empty water bottles everywhere, but mostly on the kitchen counter. Gulf washed clothing hangs from the nails on our porch, we are out of well water. One red candle grows smaller every night. We finally have speakers to play my folk music loudly. Thank goodness.
All of a sudden I know how to teach, or think I do, which may be the same thing. Maybe fifteen kids today on the beach, and their attention spans were short and their shirts very yellow, they kept spilling the paint water, (but it was funny). I am honestly impressed by them today, especially the little one who finally filled the whole page, and the boy who painted the red underneath the water. I am being completely charmed by these little people and their art, their personalities, their growth, the blue paint on the nose, the trys and re-trys. I kept kicking sand on them by accident though, but they were already covered in it. I know all of their names today. With some variations. (Brenden/brandan? Coby/Colby?) Maybe tomorrow. The bus pulled away and I'm excited for Friday; the local newspaper and television station are coming to the beach to watch us teach. I'll have to wear my nice ripped dirty jeans.
I walked as far as I could into the Gulf to try and make it to where my feet couldn't touch, but it didn't happen. I swam back and said hello to the dead catfish floating nearby, and wondered if it had died of old age. We three, Pamela, Youme and me, lounged in three feet of water before sleepily finding our way home.
I sneakily prepared pretty much the same dinner I did the first night, the difference was the asparagus. I really don't know why the gravy on the chicken tastes so good; the ingredients don't make any sense. Together, that is.
We're going to New Orleans tomorrow, but in the morning we're teaching the Mount Zion kids at another beach. Hurrah!
Monica

self portraits at the DeLisle Mt. Zion Church Day camp

color

We begin to sort out the rhythm of our work. Today "connecting people to what is around them," with oil pastels and water color, I worked with the second graders.
youme

Abstraction

Another storm today, and it seems there is always thunder rolling in the distance, slowly approaching. It hit today as Youme gently eased our massive van down the endless thin roads towards the school where we are teaching. I teach the older children today, about eight or nine twelve year olds. I am still growing used to small faces looking up at me for guidance, for teaching, but this is what I am here for. It is only now am I understanding the massive responsibility teachers hold in their hands, the fragility of that task, and I sink into the two hours with my hands careful as I become teacher and student, all at once. The best is outside, seated around a picnic table in the glaring sunlight, and I see that they are grasping the concepts, and walking back I have a beautiful conversation with a little girl about what "abstract" means. What I love most about this project of blind contour drawing is the way in which these children are being forced to change their idea of beauty, and they are being taught that these abstract drawings and paintings they are producing are not wrong or ugly, but they are lovely, unique, original, fantastic. This is something I hope they will carry with them.
Monica

drawing without looking at the paper

it never hurts to ask a question

Half of our day is preparation, half is teaching, half is artmaking, and then half is the very important meditative appreciation and consideration of how so many halves add up to more than whole, simultaneous so that our cups of life run over and back to the sea. This was our first day meeting children, and they were deliriously bright with the full range of confident to immobile, playful to tired, all of them eager to be the best that they could be and then go swimming. We met the wonderful counselors who guide the students through these summer days, and we introduced vine charcoal, successfully redistributing much of it to the floor and hands of our young artists. Pamela introduced excellently mark making on giant pieces of paper, and then blind contour drawing, sophisticated new forms pour from tiny hands. "It's hard" becomes "look what I did!". I am impressed with the building blocks, and so grateful again to be cultivating individual art skills which I have always felt are useful for everyone. I visited the Mount Zion Church across the street, central to this rebuilding community, and our nearest neighbor Mrs. Barnes. The chapel has large blue rooms so that everyone attending must be bathed in blue light. The building seems well designed to support community. We will have our art exhibit there on June 27th, showing children's and elder's art work. (play). We are focused and committed to sharing the gift of a creative approach to everything. I want to share Mrs. Barnes with you, and walking by the shrimp docks,walking into the warm gulf, the ancient wise live oaks. Mrs. Barnes says there weren't really hurricanes in the area until 1947 which everyone thought was bad, and then Camille came.

youme

Arriving in Pass Christian and DeLisle. The New Center

My name is Youme Landowne. I write and illustrate books for children and adults. I am a community artist, which can mean a lot of things, but in my case it means that I work with local people around the world to create collaborative art works, to develop the awareness that everyone is creative and we can employ creativity to engage in struggle. This summer I have accepted the invitation to participate in Making Art Everywhere's pilot program in Misissippi. We are scheduled to work afternoons with a daycamp, a few mornings with seniors, and invited to work with our local young people. Our workshops have been developed by Pamela Lawton through her work in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami. Our materials are charcoal, oil pastel, sumi ink, watercolor, acrylic, sketch paper, bristol board, watercolor paper.

Pamela Lawton is the artist and teacher who developed Making Art Everywhere with her students three years ago.

Monica Scheerer is a student of Dance and arts education at Eugene Lang college. She is volunteering her time to be here with us.

I have so many wonderful things to share about all of us, but I am hoping that Pamela and Monica will introduce themselves.

We arrived in a rainstorm at about ten in the morning. A long gray sky meeting the long gray coast. Mindy Pizzetta , the Executive Director for the Marsha Barbour Center greeted us warmly, approaching three dazed New Yorkers with,"We hug in the South." We are so grateful and excited to be here. We are also very sleepy from our 4am departure.Mindy grew up in the area. During Katrina her house was spared the water, but she had had to swim to her brother's house. She drove us the 64 miles from New Orleans to Delisle and Pass Christian. Pointing out "Katrina houses (also called Mema houses), the kit houses designed to replace trailers (they come in pink, blue, green, Mindy tells us, "most people want yellow, but you don't get to choose your color.") She shared with us some of what recovery efforts have been like here, "many businesses are waiting to see if a walmart is going to open up, because they don't feel they could compete, but walmart hasn't said yet whether or not they will build." We see many platforms from which the houses have washed away and we see Dayton Scoggins carved oak trees. We are Making Art Everywhere, here to share skills, make art and learn from local artists and community workers. Through generous sponsorship by the Illumine company and the Marsha Barbour Community Center we will be here for two weeks working with children in a summer camp and with the community of diverse faith which gathers at Mt. Zion church. At the end of the evening Monica cooks an amazing meal, later to sit on the quiet back porch, singing into the soft night " I am going and I am gone."