It's been a week since we returned from our great adventure, and I'm beginning to catch up - though I still have a ton of blogs to visit and emails to return.
As I was creating this collage, and thinking about how special this time was with my daughters, I was also listening to the news about the more than
200 Nigerian high school girls kidnapped this week, and how their government is doing next to nothing to find them.
I can only imagine the anguish of their mothers, sisters, aunts, and friends. Why is the world so quiet about this? I was always taught to take a stand against injustice. Being a quiet bystander is antithetical to all I have been brought up to believe. But what to do....
I had one of
the circle journals open on my work-table (alas - it is the last one I get to work on. I have loved this collaboration so much!). I started painting - drawing a line up and down the page -
remembering some of what I learned in Jane Davies' workshop - and letting the line take on a life of its own - thinking of the path of these girls - how they were off to take high school exams when their lives abruptly turned course - thinking of how the paths of their families have abruptly changed too. I thought about the places they might be hidden, the mystery of the forest, which had become the landscape of fear and dread. I stamped lots of circles with different caps - could they be here? Could they be there? My page evolved.
I opened up my
April stencils from Stencil Club, which had arrived while we were away on our trip and which I hadn't used yet. This month, they are designed by
Carolyn Dube - who created gorgeous images for us to work from. The large clock seemed perfect to symbolize the time ticking away for these girls, and the agonizing minutes their loved ones are enduring. I used the letters to represent their names - I don't know them, will never know them, but they each have a name and I wanted to acknowledge that somehow.
I
created a silhouette from a picture in a magazine ad of an African woman in profile, and line her up along the page. I had the windows stenciled already on some tags (using the
Doors & Windows Stencil), and cut them out and adhered them. I imagine the anxious parents looking out of the windows for their children.
I punched some circles from a gelli print - I loved the way the purple worked with the warm colors already on the page. And finally, this beautiful quote from Herbert Hoover: "Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit."
May these girls be freed. May all people all over the world be free to pursue their education, to live lives without fear.
Please sign this petition if you are so moved.
Here is a video of my process:
For my daughters - for all daughters everywhere. Linking to
Art Journal Every Day,
Paint Party Friday, and
Art Journal Journey (Circles).
Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here.
I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.
