UPDATE ...
Good morning! .sharing this beautiful image...this mural was supposed to be done between St. Mary's School in India and St. Francis of Assisi School in Vista....but the Indian children couldn't stop themselves from painting a whole canvas....The theme is "Peace and the Environment." The school in Vista will do another one and we will ensure that both will be delivered to NYC UN for presentation to the Pope.
Amazing work as all murals are that come from the hearts and passion of the
world's children.
Joanne
Tawfilis
My Good Hello to All who read this blog and it is heartwarming to know that you are readers from all over our World. From time to time I post stories or images by others who have great and wonderful stories to share. Sometimes, the stories are joyful, other times the stories are sadly poignant about the state of our world and those who are struggling to survive. Yet even these stories had an art element which comes from the souls of those who write there stories with their lives...this is such a story.
Ruth Jameson
WATER BABIES, WOMEN AND WAR
We’ve all seen the photos of the 3 year old child, whose 5
year old brother and their Mother from Syria drowned in the Mediterranean
trying to reach safety on the European shore.
This has become the image and poster of only one of the many “WATER
BABIES” floating face down and washing ashore.
Somewhere amidst them are the women---the Mothers, sisters,
aunties, grandmothers with their lifeless bodies drift along the waves that
crest and fall, the surf making curling lines along the shore, sometimes
seeming like dancing and floating the women to and fro. Their silenced bodies and long dresses,
shoeless feet bobbing and rising to the top of those waves, until they too wash
ashore as the tide gently leaves them in muddy puddles along the shoreline in
jagged lines of death. They remain there
until someone pulls them from that shore or until the tides return again that
may or may not drag them back out to the darkened waters, often carrying them
far away and never to be seen again.
Somewhere along the drylands, the highlands, the world turns
their faces away from these images working hard to erase the thought of such
gruesome and inhumane deaths caused by people who used the war machines that
burst into cities, towns and villages while people sleep, and while soldiers
and so called freedom fighters, burn, rape and pillage, terrorizing those who
somehow manage to survive the continuous marauding evilness of violence and
war.
And SOMEHOW it is the WOMEN who do survive these endless
wars, violence and persecution that make them refugees, not migrants forcing
them to flee on foot crossing incomprehensible dangers caused by those war
machines through deserts, landmine fields, snipers, grenades and all without
food or water, carrying their children on their backs and having to leave all
their belongings behind again and again.
There are over 43 million “refugees” in the world today and according to
“CARE” almost 50% of the world’s forcibly displaced people are CHILDREN.
It isn’t just WATER BABIES near oceans and the seas, from
Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and African Nations—it’s also WATER BABIES from
Haiti, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nepal, Cuba and Latin America. And it isn’t just the war machines that have
resulted in WATER BABIES whose young lives have been lost; in the past two
decades they have become victims of floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, and typhoons
that are unparalleled in our history of lives lost to the rages of Mother
Nature. These situations are a different
kind of war, one where human rampages of waste and maltreatment of our earth
has begun to take its toll of those we love and treasure the most—our children.
And yes, it is the predominately the survivors, the WOMEN of
WAR that was the genesis of how the Art Miles Mural Project has evolved, based
on centuries of suffering children of war and the River Drina in Bosnia Hercegovina. Books
have been written spanning about four centuries starting with the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian rule
and a socialist domination of the region riding herd on the lives, destinies
and relations of the local populations of Muslims and Orthodox Christians living
in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It was there that I learned the history of the River Drina
and a famous story of how the children were
taken to the banks of the river and separated from their Mothers who
were left crying and wailing on the shore.
Throughout the tumultuous history ruled by royalty and conflict, that I
arrived on the scene following the July 1995 genocide of more than 7,000+ men
that disappeared in two days. To Fouad
and my dismay, the world is now filled with these millions of REFUGEES and
displaced persons.
The Art Miles Story will describe the heroic, heartbreaking
and horrific--sometimes fatal experiences of women’s challenges of surviving
these wars and conflicts around the world, beginning in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Nearly twenty years of interactions with women who have crossed these oceans,
seas, rivers and lakes, seeking asylum and safety at such great risks will not
be just another documentary, but a riveting true accounting of survival and the
anguish of losing their “water babies” throughout the world and how stretches
of simple canvas fabric painted by hands of children and people of all ages
throughout the world, by people of all ages from over 100 countries has managed
to bring communities together. Murals
painted by victims and survivors have been able to express themselves in a
creative and healing method serving as a “catharsis” that soothed their aching
souls. And painting murals by community
members throughout the world to send messages of hope and cheer, sharing their
grief in some way, has given this project HOPE—a HOPE that humanity is still
populated by good people who crave peace, who together through collaboration,
team building and building consensus have tried to support a Culture of Peace
versus a Culture of War.
This collection of
more than 4,000 murals and the people who witnessed the loss of their children,
family members and friends to WAR and survived have transported their pain and
memories onto canvas and the world community has responded by painting images
of hope and cheer from the hearts of humanity that still exists no matter how
dismal it seems. This visual
documentation of modern history, and the expressions of human emotion
represents a living hope that will carry humanity forward.
Joanne Tawfilis
