Do You Hear Them? Mixed Media, Marcia Carole
Making visual art is a powerful, life-giving gift. Just to be able to sit down and draw something or place colored shapes next to each other to express an idea, a feeling or part of one’s story, is really miraculous. When I think of all the tasks I perform within any given day, from washing the dishes, taking out the trash to sorting through the mail, reading bank statements, swallowing a zillion supplements with carrot juice to stop cancer, watering the plants I hope to keep alive, feeding my collection of birds out back and walking for an hour, it is miracle time in my soul, when I make art.
Art makes visible, that which is invisible. It exposes the thoughts and intents of one’s heart. It can give “voice” to a part of one’s story that has been hidden when one has been unable to speak up. I think of a gentle woman in Hungary, who had lost her husband when a drunk driver had slammed into his car. As she softly wept and shared her sorrow through her art, we women sat with her, knowing it was a sacred moment, a miracle moment of healing. Later that day, she shared with me that making the art had lifted the heaviness, the weight of the sorrow, from her heart.
The piece above has been brewing in my mind and heart for days. I’ve been wanting to do something in response to the horror of sex-trafficking that expresses the woman, boy or girl’s sense of bondage or the feeling of being trapped. She is excluded from the beauty of life outside slavery. I want to give a voice for the voiceless, and end slavery, I think, as I lay down colors and shapes. The art is redemptive for me, and I pray, miracle making for the voiceless.
“These little ones believe in me. It would be best for the person who causes one of them to lose faith to be drowned in the sea with a large stone hung around his neck.” Matthew 18:6
