Ordinary Roses

I'm just launching this site now, getting materials ready. Here is a description of my first forthcoming products.

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Ordinary Roses is a forthcoming work--I interviewed 8 religious leaders in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and we worked on a quote each on H {joy and sorrow} |O {good and bad} | L {love and hate} | Y {safety and danger}. Then we translated one vital word in each quote into Rose--and discuss the results.

In December 2013, I was in South Africa--and going into the Victorian Park High School to work with my artists. As I walked in on that Friday morning, there was a keening, a wailing from the courtyard. All of the staff--whte and black--were there mourning the passing of Nelson Mandela. And I knew then I had to write this. And dedicate this work, which shows how all of us, Muslim and Jew, Christian and Pagan, are alike in our tears, our fears, our hopes, our loves. This work aims to bring people together by asking them to share their beliefs, their experiences with others—to help us all realize that, as Nelson Mandela says “we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people,  with different tongues. “ (Long Walk to Freedom, page 78).

Llwando, a 16 year old self-taught boy from the Walmar Township, did the artwork:

Sample from Draft:
By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. Psalm 137:1
This verse carries all of the weight of the suffering of the past. The next few verses lament this suffering as we were carried off as slaves, and wondered how we could ever sing in a foreign land. In the midst of all of this suffering, we vow not to forget Jerusalem, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning (5) Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not, if I set not Jerusalem of my chiefest joy.” We read this on Hannukah, a celebration to remember the light burning in the temple for eight days—when there was oil only enough for one. We read this to remember what we once had, to recount our suffering, to keep Jerusalem within our hearts and souls. But more than this, we must never forget Jerusalem as we know that the Lord will save us and bring us back into Jerusalem.