Love Crosses Borders

Behind the Artwork

Babette's Hands, Paper collage panels, 9x4 feet, 2018

Babette’s Hands, Paper collage panels, 9×4 feet, 2018

Artist Statement

Babette’s Hands. A symbol of humanity. With her hands, she stitches her world. A physical touch given—not taken. With her hands, Babette stirs the soup. A labor of warmth shared. With her hands, Babette kneads the bread. A redemptive pressing. With her hands, she artfully sets the table with each spoon. A whispered prayer for each stranger. With her hands, Babette serves her family. A living testament of fellowship. With her hands, Babette sacrifices all. Lavishly. For her fractured family. Her fractured community. Her fractured world.

Like Babette’s, your hands offer endless possibilities to heal. You, too, can touch another. To celebrate Babette’s Feast a short story by Isak Dinesen, you are invited to trace your open hand on a piece of paper. Our severed world stitched—with your hand, your connections, your intersections. The spirit of inclusion expands. Citizen and refuge. How will you multiply Babette’s sacrifice? On your traced hand, jot a note, a sentence, a word. Then go. Place a spoon. Set a table. Throw a party. Offer hope. To your fractured family. Your fractured community. Your fractured world. Radical grace—embracing the “other.”

Babette’s Feast played at the Theatre at St. Clements located at 423 West 46th St, New York, NY 10036 (just west of 9th Avenue).

#BabettesFeast
@babetteonstage

Babette’s Story

Behind the Artwork2 Comments

Sketch of Babette's Hands paper collage

An artist is never poor.” Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen

Do you know the story Babette’s Feast? Babette, once a famous chef, is a refugee, who escapes the French civil war and resettles in Norway. For the next twelve years, she cooks for two deeply religious sisters—without pay. One day, Babette’s financial position changes, so she decides to prepare a lavish feast for the sisters and their neighbors. Overwhelmed by Babette’s generous hospitality, the meal helps heal the broken community.

#BabettesFeast
@babetteonstage

Top image: Babette’s Hands (sketch), Paper collage panels, 9×4 feet, 2018

The Scarlet Cord: Mentoring Students

Behind the Artwork

Students from Saugatuck High School created their own sex-trafficking installation

“I was raped,” a student revealed during a recent phone interview. Each year several students contact me requesting an interview or mentoring. Although the purpose of each interview is to discuss my work, the conversations often turn personal.

This past year, students from Colorado and southern California asked for coaching with their sex-trafficking projects. I also worked with students from Saugatuck High School via email, text messaging, Skype, and a visit to my garage studio. Because of generous donations from art supporters, I gave the Saugatuck students most of the supplies needed to develop their own sex-trafficking installation.

When the student shared during our phone interview that she was raped, I had the opportunity to talk about my healing art and how her school assignment about human trafficking could be therapeutic for her. Amazingly, at such a young age, this student already understands how her own wounds have the potential to help other victims find freedom’s path.

DONATE NOW and join The Scarlet Cord’s mission:
Freedom and healing for sex-trafficked children

Image (above): Students from Saugatuck High School created their own sex-trafficking installation

Instagram @ Pamela Alderman

#paint4healing
#artistcitizenwork

Sex Tourism Booms

From the Heart

The Scarlet Cord - Stripped (detail)

“Nine point four million men come to Thailand every year for sex.” My simple Internet journey to double check this statistic from Noel Yeatts led to the discovery of more shocking statistics about sex-trafficking. The number of pedophiles or sexually broken people demanding to satiate their sex drive with sickening perversions and barbaric acts forced upon another human—many of which are innocent children—is out of control.

To combat this evil and to rescue these innocent victims from the dark creepy crevices of our world, there are many successful non-profits, such as Women at Risk International, StreetLight USA, Manasseh Project, and Shared Hope International. I have had the privilege of working with these particular organizations through my art called The Scarlet Cord: Healing for Sex-trafficked Children. But, unfortunately, the numbers of trafficked victims aided by these hard-working, dedicated organizations is so small compared to the hundreds of thousands that are still held in bondage.

Because millions of tourist are soliciting elicit sex in just one country alone, it will take a united front of non-profits, law makers, law enforcers, community leaders, and even average citizens—like you and me—to eradicate this blight on our watch. Like the abolitionists of past centuries, it will also require great sacrifice and resolve to demand, and assure, freedom for all. Meanwhile, as these tireless organizations work to free one child at a time, and The Scarlet Cord continues to raise awareness and encourage healing, remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful words: “No one is free until we are all free.”

Resources and Help

RAINN
Men & Boys

DONATE NOW and join The Scarlet Cord’s mission:
Freedom and healing for sex-trafficked children

A New Kind of Interactive Healing Art

Behind the Artwork

Setting up The Scarlet Cord Popout Gallery

“Your art speaks of healing,” said New York artist Makoto Fujimura when Pamela Alderman showed him her humble portfolio in his book signing line. Following this powerful five-minute encounter, Pamela started creating a new kind of artist/citizen work that invites audience collaboration. Her work lets others speak and respond.

After ArtPrize 2014, her work, The Scarlet Cord: Healing for Sex-trafficked Children, traveled to Phoenix during the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl to raise awareness and inspire healing. For ArtPrize 2015, visitors voted Hometown Hero into the Top 20 and 3rd Place in the Time-Based category. Over the last nine years of ArtPrize, 270,000 visitors have personally responded—by hanging notes, signing names, or tying ribbons—at her interactive healing installations.

January: Sex Trafficking Awareness Month

General

The Scarlet Cord image collage

Targeted - part of The Scarlet Cord collectionResponding to The Scarlet Cord work, Judge Patricia Gardner said, “Today kids are producing their own pornography.” Unfortunately, it’s true. One of The Scarlet Cord works called Targeted—portraying a child, a bull’s eye, and a roll of film—pictures how childhood innocence is destroyed through erotic material.

“Sexting” is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs or images, primarily between mobile phones. In our high schools, students routinely text naked images of their bodies to other students. It happens. One West Michigan freshman girl confided that a group of male seniors texted her their naked selfies and then demanded that she pay back by returning nude images of herself.

But we can have a positive influence on our children when we talk to them about the link between pornography and sex-trafficking. During ArtPrize 2014 at The Scarlet Cord exhibit, one visitor said, “After learning about how pornography and trafficking, like destructive parasites, feed off each other, a group of male—and female—students threw their iPhones into the bonfire because their phones were full of pornographic images.”

Resources and Tools

Cyber Sextortion
Internet Safety
Demanding Justice