Monday, October 7, 2013

LOVE LETTERS

"W" is for Woven Voices, the project I designed and guided from 2007 - 2011. In past postings I have shared some of the lessons that this project taught me. This posting will be about how the project has morphed into something new yet truly an out growth of "Woven Voices". Here are the details:

LOVE LETTERS 
 A community art installation guided by Artist Sarah Haskell


   Love defines us, motivates us and binds our lives together. In this hands-on activity inspired by Buddhist Prayer flags, participants will be invited to create a paper flag prompted by something or someone that they love. 


   On the front of each flag people are invited to write and draw the first letter of something or someone that they love.

  
On the reverse side of each flag we fill in the blank:


  _________ is for _______________________

_____________________________________

Name ______________Date______________
 
Newtown CT Art Festival 9/13


   All ages and abilities of community members  are able to participate in this project, allowing for a wide variety of love letters. People are invited to create two flags, one to take home and one to leave for a community installation. 


   At the end of the day, we assemble the letters and see what we inspiring words and messages we can spell from these "Love Letters", creating a visual story of who and what we love. For example if we collect the letters P, O, H, R, T, E, N, A, and E ~ we can spell "OPEN HEART".

   
   The completed string of brightly colored "Love Letters" is donated to a public location in celebration of the deep love that connects the community.  
We spelled "Family".

   In late September I was invited to guide "LOVE LETTERS" at the annual Newtown (CT) Arts Festival. Over 50 people participated in creating letters, and look what we were able to spell: "Newtown, We are family."


L is for Love.
 "LOVE LETTERS" has lead to my own alphabet of gratitude. I am making 26 lettered flags, each one is a hand embroidered letter sewn on a brightly colored lobster pot buoy flag.  I have completed 12 flags so far and am having fun creating words with these letters!
Spelling foods I love!
   I'll post more images on my website soon.

Time Passes....things change

Searsport Site July 2013
   One of the foundations of  "Woven Voices" is to witness the passing of time and to honor the Buddhist principle of impermanence. It's been over a year since my last posting, and the river of time has certainly moved along.
Searsport July 2013
   Our prayer flags, these little woven squares of fabric and paper, have weathered many seasons. Some have held up better than others. Some have completely disappeared. Some are replaced and others just abandoned.
   The site in Searsport along busy Route 1, where my brother was killed in July2011, has been a place that I installed prayer flags. This July a friend who travels by there frequently offered to hang some new flags up for me. So I sent him a couple of new sets of Tibetan flags as well  as a special bird flag with a "Dear Wes" letter on the back.
   True to the nature of impermanence, within a few days, the Maine State road crew came along a did their summer mowing. In the process of this summer cutting all of the flags, new and old, were ripped down and  mowed over.
  
September 2013, What's left.
   Another friend who travels by frequently stopped by the site and salvaged what she could of the remaining flag scraps.
   When I was in Searsport in September, I took these scraps and wrapped them around the telephone pole. This site will no longer be maintained as a memorial.

Time passes, things change.