
ARTIST: MARSHA PIPPENGER, Dayton, Ohio
POET: AIMEE NOEL, Dayton, Ohio
INTRODUCTION: This exhibition will hang at The McMillan Gallery in Dayton, Ohio through the spring. Due to coronavirus, the opening was live on Facebook. Collaborating with a talented local poet, Aimee Noel, I made art and she wrote poetry in response to the art. Following is our theme.
In our conversations about collaborating on a joint art/poetry exhibition, Aimee and I realized that we were both concerned about the treatment of refugees and immigrants to this country. People turned back at the border, people traumatized by dangerous travel, people separated from their family members, people being treated poorly because they were from somewhere else. In addition, we knew people who had come to Dayton from other countries because their own homes were not safe, who took risks that we could only imagine, who landed here and made a life, a good one, and who are now integral members of our community. So we decided to talk to some people about this topic called Immigration.
I started creating art, and Aimee looked at my art and started writing poetry. This is the result.
Abdi’s Journey
Aunties. Silhouetted
faces eclipse my sky.
Near-song words
flow into me.
They pass me
from cradled arm
to arm-cradle. My baby feet
never touch the Kenyan—
I run from other boys.
They catch me when
I stumble and they kick
powdered dirt at my face
until it traps my breath. I learn
their Somali words, stronger than
Swahili, for hurling back at them.
Grandfather joins pirates for routine,
he says, and money. He practices
lobbing a pipe the length of dynamite
until black plumes of diesel carry him—
I go home, to Kenya, to leave. Aunties cluck at my foreign-
bird sounds and fuss over my height and
pass papers in a circle like they are sharing
a cherished photo. I am to carry the papers.
Because I am a lone runner, it is easy
to believe that I am the fastest in my family—
Modesto cousins point to their shoes, their bed,
their dad and say Mine. I do not know this English word.
I do not know any word they want me to say. I eat
from their discards. They leave for school and I wash
clothes and am warned not to leave the house.
But eventually I end up—
This is my stepdad, they say. Stepdad. San Diego. He beats
English words into me, but not fast enough for him to—
Grandmother teaches me how to make her tea. I match
the drink’s temperature to the weather. It is winter and
her tea could melt all the snow in Toronto. I am helpful,
add Arabic, and pretend my grandmother wants me to stay.
I pretend she is my mother. We are both afraid of all the cars that—
Columbus, I learn, understood my family’s future. He knew how
to enslave. To cut off hands of those who robbed the gold mines.
That young girls were the same value as a farm to the right man.
That dogs are worth feeding for the terror they caused. Fitting city
for me in Ohio. No one, not even the fastest in the family, could out run—
I move to a corn town where I am a crow. I join my mother. I meet siblings who wear citizenship like the right name brand. Easily. Unconsciously. I miss school to attend
my asylum hearings. Twice denied. I agree to join the military. For routine. And for money.
Welcome
because your daughter had to find different ways home from school
because you were on the losing side of a war you did not start
because you were on the losing side of a war you did not fight
because you could not leave work at a predictable time
because you eventually had to leave work
because they kidnapped your father-in-law
because you had to close the restaurant
because protection money ran out
because your friend was murdered
because a ransom was demanded
because you still have a bag packed
because you still check for exits
because you had to move
because you had to move
because you had to move
because we have enough
because we certainly have enough
because we certainly have enough to share
Tumbling Walls
Once upon a time, our leader
called for a wall’s deconstruction.
And both sides cheered.
Once upon a time.
Maybe someday we will
be the swift current,
reminded of our own
checkered-sky past,
undercutting foundations
of this concrete hubris
until top-heavy sections
topple like hated monuments
into a stained-glass sea.
But that is more hopeful
than I can be. Right now
I can only offer masonry
dust and rusted flakes of hate
and ask you to remember
[ Aurora ]
[ Dayton ]
[Charlottesville ]
[ Squirrel Hill ]
[ El Paso ]
that, before blueprints,
walls were built
in our own minds.
Lady Liberty’s Truth
for Emma Lazarus
She arrived a mere skeleton, copper over iron bones,
for solace on American soil. She waited in the ship’s hold
while this country, arguing over where she should land,
scraped together a spit of sand. The island they offered,
having already harbored pestilence and plague,
seemed a fitting proposal for the woman dressed
as a slave. This country had no vision to see Liberty
over their mounds of money. Only washerwomen
and children had piled their pennies to build her a base,
so, offshore, she waited for months in crates. Until Emma
stabbed a pen to the center of our shame. And the wealthy,
who would not be left behind, hearkened to a Jewish woman’s
sonnet strong enough to pry open purses with subtle rhymes.
Give me your tired and your poor, every time.
Words by Heart
Concentric stories ripple
like emotional sonar:
a baby born along the way,
strangers sharing a garden row,
a job, loved or hated, left behind,
parents, too life-tired to leave.
Refugees flee with only their anthems,
harbor here and offer their best:
hard work, persistence. How lucky
we are, humbled by people
who remind us of our humanity.
Remind us how kindness grows
when used. That empty chair
in our home begs for another
human being. We have room
to share our own woven stories:
a baby born along the way,
a garden growing, world-weary parents.
And at the soft-organ center, beet red,
beating hearts repeat until
our circling lives sync because
nothing separates us beyond our skin.
Outwitted
He drew a circle that shut me out–
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
– Edwin Markham
First Friday of May I open a new exhibition with Aimee Noel who is a Dayton poet. The show, “Meet Me Home” is a response to issues of immigration. I made art and Aimee wrote poetry in response. Here’s a teaser:
Everything is viral in the current landscape. I decided I needed to add some new images, so I will be doing so to give y’all something new to view.
This collage was created for Harmony Creek Church in Dayton as part of a sermon series on Women in the Bible. This is Tamar, from the Old Testament.
The text states: “I am Tamar. I am Strength. I am Justice. I am Righteousness.”
Adding some new tapestries, photos long overdue!
So I have never mentioned that I also make collage jewelry. Sometimes it’s a nice change to work small and I enjoy making these tiny “jewels”. They are pendants about 1 by 3 inches, $18 per pendant, and you can add a matching chain for $2. It’s a great value for an original piece!
A good question! It has been a very active winter and spring, and I have not kept up with posts at all! So a quick update. I taught five classes during the winter – crazy crazy – but all are now successfully completed. I welcomed grandchild number two! I went to Italy. Now I am home and in the studio working on several new projects….to be revealed in the next update!
https://pippengerart.blogspot.com
Yesterday I read in the Dayton Daily News about the newest special exhibition at the Dayton Art Institute. The show is titled “Into the Ether: Contemporary Light Artists” and is the first of five exhibitions, each one focusing on one of the elements (air, earth, fire, water, and in this case, ether).
What struck me was a comment made by one of the artists, Daniel Rozin, who teaches at New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts. Referring to his work as a light artist, he commented: “It’s important to understand that the art is not necessarily the object. The art is the moment of the interaction.”
While Rozin goes on to say that this is unique to interactive art and not to painting, and by extension other forms of 2D art, I am not sure I agree.
My collages are art, of course, just as my painter friends’ paintings are art. However, they also exist in the dimension of experience, specifically, the viewer’s experience or interaction with the piece of art, no matter the media. Is not that communication also part of the art? It’s something to ponder.
Belgium, Netherlands, Christine de Pizan, New friends, and Art, art, art! And the Internet, did I mention the Internet?
Wow, what a summer I have had! So many new experiences, so many new friends from all over the world, and world class museums! Where do I start? In small bites I think.
Conference hosts Olivier and Tanya show off a thank you gift from conference participants: Framed images of my collages from The Dinner in the City series!
To begin, about two years ago, a medieval scholar from Chicago, Julia Nephew, discovered my artwork on the internet. She was writing an article on the 15th century writer Christine de Pizan for an academic journal. I just happened to have used Christine in a series of collages I created between 2003 and 2007.
Julia asked permission to use some of my images in her article. We negotiated a contract and some months later a book arrived from Florence, Italy containing Julia’s article and my images. Because of this I was invited to speak at the North American Conference of Medieval Scholars at Western Michigan University. Because of that, Julia and I were invited to co-present at the International Colloquium Christine de Pizan in Belgium!
So, off I go to Belgium, by way of the Netherlands. I will expand on that in a future post, but this time I want to give a shout out to the organizers of the conference, Oliver and Tanya of the Catholic University Louvain la Neuve in Belgium. They were the ultimate hosts!