Project MAHITA Comes to Life (Again!)

Hi Everyone!

This week has been a very special one. My mom has been here visiting to help me with a pet project that is near to my heart. To learn more about it, check out this website that I built to explain the project. But overall, it's this:

PROJECT M.A.H.I.T.A. (Murals Aiding Health Information To All):

"MAHITA (verb) means "to see" in the Malagasy language, spoken on the island nation of Madagascar. American students (grades 3+) can help people in Madagascar by creating a mural on cloth, with an important health message. The mural they create will be shipped to Madagascar, and installed by Malagasy health educators in a rural village. Murals convey information visually, which is important where literacy rates are low. The American students gain a global perspective, while making a meaningful connection and artistic and helpful contribution to a rural community in Madagascar."

The idea for this project came to me in 2012, after I had returned from the Peace Corps in Madagascar, and was working as an intern at the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. I learned a technique in Philly, that allows you to paint a mural on special cloth, and then install it. My "aha" moment was when I realized this meant you could paint a mural anywhere in the world, and then install it anywhere ELSE in the world. Murals can teach things because they are PUBLIC and pictures can teach as well as written words. The idea for MAHITA solidified.

I made the first "pilot" Project MAHITA in 2012 with a group of 4th graders in Eugene. It was written up in the local paper! The kids had a blast and learned a lot about Madagascar. They created a mural about Malaria prevention - specifically, the care and use of mosquito nets. The mural was sent to a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in a rural village, who installed it on the wall of a local clinic where mothers could see it while waiting in line to get their babies vaccinated. That was all well and good, but the new model of MAHITA will have us sending murals to the director of a branch of Population Services International, in Madagascar (instead of to Peace Corps Volunteers). The PSI Director will have the Malagasy PSI Health Workers bring the mural along when they go out to rural villages to teach about Malaria, family planning, and other health topics. After the mural is explained, it will be installed, and left permanently somewhere in the village, as a reminder of what they taught. This model feels better because it's just an add-on to something that is already happening, Malagasy to Malagasy. 

So this week, was MAHITA project #2! My mom and I worked with an afterschool group at the school where I work. Overall, it went well and I think the kids enjoyed painting and learning. 

This coming week, my mom and I are teaching a seminar about Project MAHITA, to a group of about 40 teachers. We are hoping to gain some interest from teachers who may want to do this project in their classrooms. It's maybe a tough sell, in the current climate in education. BUT, we are hoping they see the value in, and find the time for, cultural exchange, community service projects, visual art practice, and instilling a global perspective in their students. Wish us luck! We are hoping to grow this project to the point where neither I, nor my mom, will need to be present for anyone to do this project. We are working on developing all the materials so that this can happen. 

It moves me so much that people I love are helping me on this project, in all different wonderful ways - sharing their knowledge and skills, to sharing their dollars. My good friend from Peace Corps, who is studying international development, will be researching the impact that murals have on impoverished communities abroad where literacy rates are low. My mom is making this her retirement project. My good family friend/mentor person is donating the money needed to buy a ton of the specialized mural fabric that we can provide to teachers doing the project. I truly have an incredibly supportive, caring, and smarty-pants network of friends and family. 

I am so happy to see my idea actually happening!! Here are some pics of the kids in action this week:

Attention Portland Readers!

Now that I have your attention....ha! I'm having an art show!

I am taking a break from mural-ing and freelance designing, to work on my own personal paintings. It's been too long since I really gave my focus to work that is entirely for myself and not commissioned. It feels great!! I've finished new paintings and touched up old ones....and getting ready to start some new ones again! And it's all because of the event flier below: an event I have been wanting to put on for a long time now. It's finally happening: an art show/slideshow about my experience in the Peace Corps in Madagascar. So if you're in Portland, I'm inviting you to come check it out! Hope to see you there! Stay tuned for updates of a slightly more personal kind this month. ;)

On Losing All Your Work

I just read this article that popped up on facebook called "Pixar, U2, and the Horrific Feeling of Losing all Your Work" . Not that much too it, just saying how it indeed, sucks to lose all your work. Just reminded me of my own experience losing an entire body of work. Here's the story.

This is what my house looked like while I was living in Madagascar. This is the "before" shot. Pretty gorgeous, huh? (Some days, it's painful how much I wanna go back to this exact spot and hang out.)

 Aaaaand this is the "after" shot: a bush fire rolled through the village and burnt my house entirely to the ground. I was out of town on business, but came home to this.

That's what the neighborhood looked like. :( My amazing friends and neighbors went into my BURNING HOUSE and rescued a lot of my belongings though, which I was so grateful for. They weren't however, able to rescue all the paintings I had been working on. I had them all hung up on my walls, and they were all done on paper, so I'm sure they were one of the first things to get swallowed up in the flames.

For me, the fire was kinda like spilling coffee on your laptop. And it was a horrible sinking feeling, knowing that all I had left were the fuzzy memories (no pictures) of what the paintings looked like, and some sketches in my journal (which thankfully, I had with me and was not in the house.) Anyway, I guess my point of this story is, things can get lost in an instant. A whole series of artwork can get lost in seconds. And it really sucks. But when I got home to the U.S., I re-painted them ALL. And you know what? Had I NOT lost those paintings, I never would have painted the following ones. And I really, truly, am much happier with the way the re-dos came out, rather than the originals (it helped that I had access to much better art supplies for the re-dos, too)

The series of paintings were all based on books I read during peace corps. I read a lot there, and just started painting the female protagonists of the stories, as I imagined them. I called the series, "Literary Heroines". Here's some of the work from the series. To see them all, clicky. 

So I guess my point in all this is: keep trying? Try again. Make it all the way over again. You might like things better that way anyway. :)

Latest painting and making plans!

I've had "Blog" on my to do list for awhile now, but haven't felt like I've had much to talk about. So I'll show you what I've been working on:

That's the latest in a series I've been working on since I guess technically, 2008. I've been drawing and painting about my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer living and working in Madagascar, since my first week in the country back in February of 2008....(holy crap I was 22!) Drawing in my journals, and painting murals on walls (the ones I could find that were sturdier than the ones made of reeds...like my own house there, haha!) kept me sane and happy. After I got evacuated, the need to paint about it was even stronger, since I was absolutely not ready to leave yet, but had to (I got to go back and finish my service tho...yay!) And now, coming up on 4 years since I came home, I still feel the need to paint about it. But now, it's mostly to help me feel connected to a place that's full of things and people I love, but is incredibly far away. I'm not sure how many more paintings I'll make for the series... or if I'll ever stop painting about Madagascar.  It will always be a second home and therefore something that feels good to paint about, but also, a wealth of ridiculously beautiful and inspiring subject matter. An artist's paradise. But I would like to start a new body of work at some point, too. Anyway, for the sake of putting things in writing that you want to have happen someday, here are my plans for the series, whenever I do finally decide it's done:

I work as a marketing person/graphic designer at a community center that holds a lot of events. I've talked briefly to our events person about the possibility of displaying this series sometime. I want to make it a party: Malagasy music videos playing, some fried banana donut things or other delicious street food that I will probably fail miserably at replicating, a little slideshow presentation/talk, a display of some of the awesome art that was done by Malagasy kids and friends that I brought home, and all my original art and a bunch of prints for sale, with most of the $$$ going to an organization or two that I trust and support that works in Madagascar. That's what I forsee: a giant art party with all my friends and family and strangers who want to support Mada. Yep, that's the plan. And I just put it out there to all of you, and the universe, so it's gonna happen. Right? Right. Now.... to finish the paintings! :)