About this project

In June, I will be traveling to Haiti with assistant and friend Erin Rogers to work with local youth and collaborate with Haitian and American artists to design and create a large- scale mosaic mural in partnership with the Art Creation Foundation For Haitian Children in Jacmel, Haiti.

The mural will serve as a memorial for the lives lost as a result of the devastating earthquake last January and serve as an affirmation for future rebuilding in Haiti.

The town of Jacmel, about 50 miles south of Port au Prince, was hit badly by the earthquake and thousands of people are living in tent cities and lacking basic resources.
There are many wonderful organizations that have stepped up and are working tirelessly to help. Many of these organizations have been working in Haiti for many years already. One of these is the Art Creation Foundation for Children.

Established in 2003 with a mission to help children achieve self-sufficiency via the arts and education as well as internalize a sense of social responsibility, community and connectedness, ACFFC has over 70 children in their program through which they offer art education, a food program, family support and entrepreneurial training in the arts.

The project for which I am seeking funding is for the design and creation of a permanent community mosaic mural that will serve as a memorial to honor the lives lost, offer healing through creative action in the present and affirm future of Jacmel and Haiti.

I will be collaborating with American artist Nancy Josephson, a board member of ACFFC and fellow world traveler as well as with Hatian artists affiliated with the Foundation and with ACFFC youth to design a mural that will depict an ancestral tree and will honor the sea, sky and spirits.
The mural will invite community interaction through the offering of prayers, which can be left in spaces created within the mural or through offering candles, which will rest on small shelves incorporated into the mural design.

The mural will be created from gathered and locally sourced materials and will include pieces of building materials salvaged from the rubble left in the wake of the earthquake. Materials such as ceramic tile, concrete, glass, mirror and other materials will be re-purposed with love into a mosaic mural. These materials will be combined with shells and stones from Jacmel as well as ceramic tile and glass donated for the project that we will bring.

The project will focus on skill- building and mosaic training for youth and young adults so that they may use these skills for future entrepreneurial development. It will serve as the beginning of a sustainable mosaic art program at ACFFC- as well as potential job training for teachers and trades people.

Subsequent phases of the project will include development of a seating area and gathering space for residents and visitors. Art is widely known to aid in the healing process and we hope that this mural can be a small part of building something beautiful and constructive out of this tragedy.

Project funding will cover all costs related to this project including travel, building of a concrete wall, all materials, supplies and incidentals to create this project and a dozen sets of professional mosaic tools to be donated to Art Center Foundation for Children in Jacmel, Haiti as part of the development of the ongoing mosaic program. We actually hope to surpass the project funding goal so that we may offer more.

We will be carrying as many tarps and tents to donate as possible, as well as other needed supplies.

We hope you will consider backing this project.

Haiti is still in a rough place. Things are still very raw there, but still the kids come to ACFFC every day ready to create - they are sleeping in tents on the grounds of the Center. We will meet them there in June.

Thank you so much,
Laurel True

For more information:
http://www.truemosaics.com/ghana.html
http://www.artforhaitianchildren.org/index.html

Photos provided by: ACFFC, Laurel True and Erin Rogers and US State Department.

Project location: Jacmel, Haiti

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Project By

Laurel True

New Orleans, LA

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_An adored teacher, True divides her time between private and public commissions by teaching in various parts of the world. Her energy is contagious, and her quest for experimentation and knowledge confirm her identity as a perpetual student.”___

— JoAnn Loctov, Author, Mosaic Art and Style: Designs for Living Environments

Laurel True is an artist and educator specializing in mixed media, mosaic and public art. She received her BA in African Art and Cultures and has studied at Studio Arte del Mosaico in Ravenna, Italy, Universite Chiek Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, Parsons School of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago. True is the co- founder of the Institute of Mosaic Art in Oakland, CA and has fostered education in the mosaic arts through teaching and lecturing around the world.

True has been facilitating public and community mosaic projects for almost 20 years and has helped to provide job training and arts education to under served communities in urban environments and developing areas. She has created hundreds of projects over the years, working with volunteers, assistants, students, trades people and artists of all ages on projects that reflect a sense of community pride and cultural significance in the locations where they are sited.

True’s public and commissioned work, created through True Mosaics Studio, can be found in private and civic collections as well as in hospitals, in parks, on commercial buildings and in schools across the United States.

She has also been known to create work that spontaneously emerges graffiti- like on concrete walls, in unexpected settings and with unexpected materials- many times through spontaneous community participation.

Her community projects have mainly been focused in West Africa, Oakland, CA and New Orleans, LA . She has been facilitating community mosaic mural projects in Ghana since 2001 where she not only works to encourage artistic expression through community mosaic making, but also helps to foster entrepreneurship, passing on skills that are economically viable.

Laurel has a particular investment in cross- cultural collaborative projects which involve feedback from participants from different parts of the world. In 2006 she began the Woven Stories Project, which focuses on creating permanent, site specific mosaic projects that highlight design collaboration between groups of youth in Africa and groups of youth in the US, specifically in under served areas of Oakland, CA and New Orleans, LA.

Projects are created using design feedback and/ or actual materials contributed from both groups, possibly having similar themes or visual content. Permanent artworks in the form of public art mosaics or community mosaic projects are created in both geographic locations - Africa and in the US. These partner projects highlight cross- cultural collaborations and foster a sense of community between youth of different cultures and from different continents.

Laurel's next project will be in Jacmel, Haiti.

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