"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