Susan Shie's wonderful Paintings and Donations to Help Haiti

Now that the initial shock of the earthquake in Haiti has passed, and it seems that the only stories coming out of Haiti are ones of the missionaries who are being held for their "kidnapping" of children and the inability to do humanitarian airlifts to out-of-country hospitals for children in dire need because they may not have proper documentation, I feel that the flow of donations to Haiti and willingness to help has diminished.

Just as I was thinking this, Susan Shie, a professional art quilter who was among the early "Ohio Gang" who really made art quilting in the 1970s, posted on the Quiltart message board that she had done two 18" x 24" brush painted works on canvas which are being auctioned to raise funds for Haiti. The Auction will be held this Friday, February 12 at the Wayne Center for the Arts in Wooster, Ohio. Susan kindly shared her photos of her work from her Facebook page with me so that you could see them as well.

Susan is known both for her warm, liberal viewpoints as well as her work using airpen and incorporating script into her paintings. In fact, the script fascinates me. It adds texture and some shading as well as tells the story. I guess you could call her quilting "saga-quilting" (better that than sagging quilting!).
As an inveterate reader, I stand before her works for ages, reading what she has written.

Trained in traditional art, she usually goes beyond that. Her quilts are full of spiritualism. Her work incorporates bright colors and a playfulness. Usually, her people show their "third-eye".

The "Women of Haiti" seen here, I find breath taking. Consider that this piece is only 18" x 24", yet it has great depth and still incorporates her story telling. I think I may have accidentally insulted Susan, as I found this particular piece so different yet just the right touch from her usual works. Take a look at her gallery on her Turtle Moon Website and you'll see what I mean.


Here, her "Women of Haiti" utilizes restrained colors. The women appear strong, even while there is a hint of sadness. These are women who will do what they have to do under conditions that most of the world cannot imagine. Susan was inspired by Joe Dore's photographs on the Muncheez facebook album and drew her own images incorporating elements from many of his photographs. I find them captivating.

Haiti is beyond the understanding of most of us. A country which has been beset by a corrupt government and the lack of even the most basic of infrastructures. Our image of poverty in the U.S. doesn't even scratch the surface of the depth of poverty in Haiti.

Amid the devastation of the countryside from mudslides, hurricanes, and deforestation, the earthquake took away what little resources they had. How can seed and other necessities for everyday living come to the country so that they may feed themselves later on this year?

How can these people hope to fend off disease given the fact that there are no sanitary systems functioning? Where will they get clean water?

One enterprising soul is Gilbert Bailly who with his crew at Muncheez in Petitionville, Haiti have managed to feed 1,000 people a day. Gilbert has a Paypal page set up to accept donations to help fund his herculean effort. Check out his facebook page to learn more.

Gilbert's efforts with Muncheez has inspired the second of the two paintings, "Heros of Haiti." The color palette Susan uses here is more of what I think of when I think of Susan's work. I laughed to myself when she responded to an email I wrote to her by saying that much of her earlier work was more representational. Not surprising given her other work.

Happily, Susan had an anonymous donor put in an opening bid of $3,007 for the "Women of Haiti." The estimated retail value of these two pieces is $1,000 each, and so Susan put the opening bid at $500 each. "Heros of Haiti" is awaiting its first bid.

Haiti is also the focus of a larger scale piece entitled "The Garden of Haiti" and also two smaller works (16" x 20") on fabric as well.

I can't wait to see the other pieces as well as the amount of money that her donations ultimately bring at the auction on Friday.

Please consider bidding, or at least following. Consider donating to Muncheez, or one of the other organizations which is funneling money to Haiti. There is a link at the bottom of this blog which lists a few.

I think that I will be donating to Habitat for Humanity, Doctors without Borders and more to UMCOR. If you want to bid on Susan's work but can't make it to the auction, email me or leave a comment and I'll put you in touch with her....or you can go to her website or blog and reach her as well. Check out the Wayne Center for the Arts as well.

It's a pity that we weren't moved to help at this magnitude before the earthquake....but at least we can try to make a difference now.

Perspective

For the last couple of days, I have been feeling what I term "psychically bruised." I was concerned about my daughter's car accident as the fellow she hit said some very peculiar things which set off all sorts of alarms. I found myself feeling drained.

If you read my previous post and looked at the damage inflicted by this accident, you will probably think that I am over blowing things. How could anything come of such minor damage? Indeed, the back bumper on our van has deeper scratches caused by when my husband forgot the 626 was parked behind the van (something I had warned him about as the van was the mom-mobile before it became the rolling wardrobe for my daughter) and he backed into it from a dead stop.

My reading of such things is rarely off however and on Monday I got a call from the insurance company saying that the guy was putting in a personal injury claim. I told the insurance company the entire story, including how he didn't go to the hospital right afterward, but took his van in for it's lube appointment after the police left. They are doing an investigation.

How could this possibly go wrong? Well, here's the story I keep on thinking about. A friend of mine who was in her 70s at the time was indicating a turn into her driveway, but swung a little to the left in order to negotiate the entrance. The guy behind her wasn't happy that she was slowing down and decided to pass her on the right (this was in Connecticut ). He went up over the curb and my friend actually hit him in her driveway. The fellow was cited for failure to control his vehicle.

However, he took her to court for damages. Since it was in Civil court, they didn't allow the ticket to be brought up, nor what he had been charged with. The Insurance Company appeared on my friend's side because she was in the right. They lost. The man was awarded damages. We decided that my friend was convicted of driving with white hair.


So, things can go terribly wrong and my daughter can be convicted of driving while being a teenager. My insurance rates are obviously going to go up and I am concerned that he will come after more.

This caused me to wonder why there was such a black cloud over my family. I had knocked my teeth out as a 12 year old and have had to deal with that, and the cancer and.. and.... Yes. I was having a pity party all for me.

I indulged myself in this only for a bit as I realized that I wasn't trapped under concrete in Haiti, I had food and water and none of my family or friends had died or were injured. I was angry though that people such as the guy my daughter hit could be so nasty and dishonest. I try to live my life in a way that I can be proud of, to think of others and to always be honest. I can often be frustrated that the world doesn't spin in the way I think it should.

Haiti is also on my mind. I am going to go down and make a donation to the Methodist Relief fund as 100% of the donations go to the aid. Nothing is siphoned off for administrative costs. My niece is going to go down as a volunteer at some later date. I must admit that it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut when my daughter made plans to get a spray tan before she went to the formal on Saturday night. I almost said "why don't you give the money for Haiti's relief instead? You don't really need to spend that $25 in that way."

But she is a teenager. One who cried when my mother-in-law told her the story of my husband asking for some soda in the airport in Boston in 1967 because he was thirsty. She couldn't give it to him as they had next to no money. Everything had been left behind in Cuba and life for their family was precarious until if and/or when my husband's father would be released from the Cuban government to join them. She is still too self-centered to understand the silliness of having her skin artificially darkened when so much else could be done with that money. It's not my money. She worked for it and she can spend it how she wishes no matter how frivolous I might think it is.

At one of my quilting groups the other day one of the quilters mentioned that she couldn't figure out why the buildings weren't built to sustain earthquake damage. I answered that making rules and regulations for building structures to be earthquake resistant is dependent upon having someone write the codes and enforcing them. This requires a strong government and one which isn't corrupted in such a way that one can bribe their way out of compliance, something which Haiti hasn't had. Building structures to be earthquake reisistant is also expensive. You need the re-inforcing materials as well as concrete factories to make the materials to put in deep footings, something I understand the country was lacking. The degree of poverty that these people have suffered for years is beyond the understanding of most Americans.

I also watched the Today Show today where the parents of the missing Lynn University students were on. One of them was blaming the U.S. government for not going in and digging their students out.

While I understand this was his grief and mental anguish talking, I also felt it was a case where we cannot really grasp the difficulties involved in this project. We cannot go in and overrun a country with our military in the name of helping. We have to work with the government of Haiti no matter what we might think is the "correct" way of doing things.

The infrastructure, i.e. good roads, ports, and accessibility, was lacking before the earthquake. Now, it is non-existent. I would imagine that back-hoes and bulldozers are in short supply as well. Surely there weren't a lot of them in Haiti before (as again, they are expensive), and I would imagine that some of the ones which were there were damaged.

While we look in frustration as the airplanes carrying support are turned away, we must remember that the airport, even when it hadn't been damaged, was only built for 2 - 3 flights coming in and out per day.

I'm not saying that more can't be done. I'm not saying that more shouldn't be done. Even though time is running out, we must be somewhat patient in our wishes to see things accomplished yet impatient in our financial response. After all, Haiti was one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the Americas for many years before this happened and we as a country weren't doing much. I applaud all of the religious groups who have done relief. I must say that I am more than a little proud of the amount of aid which Ohio has given over the years. I hope that this aid can be strengthened and will continue for months afterward. While we have made a large contribution now, more will be needed later.

For ideas on where to donate or how to make a difference:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/haitiearthquake_embed.

http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/