Color Me Orange: Words Matter

Behind the Artwork

Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind shines a spotlight on bullying. The installation is specifically tailored for middle school students–often the most vulnerable. Sadly, some of these students suffer so intensely from bullying that they believe that suicide is the way to end it all.

By choosing to be deliberately kind, our actions have the potential to brighten someone’s world. Maybe kindness, love, and understanding could have helped those who had struggled with bullying and then committed suicide. Life-affirming creativity that invites reflection and flourishing can heal.

How can you help stop bullying? Tell us your story #ColorMeKind

To learn more, visit watercolorbypamela.com…

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

Color Me Orange: The Power of Kindness

Behind the Artwork

Like past ArtPrize installations, Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind surfaced more stories about the power of kindness. Take Tracy’s story.

Tracy suffered through grade school bullying and shunning because of having a physical defect. Do you know what she did with her pain? She let it make her more sensitive to others. So, when she noticed Rick, another loner, she decided to take a risk. But the story doesn’t end the way Tracy expected. See what happens.

How has demonstrating kindness to someone brought a different result than what you expected? Share your story #ColorMeKind

To learn more, visit watercolorbypamela.com…

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

World Hunger at Grand Rapids Museum School

General

Students painting a paper mache globe

This past spring I had the privilege to teach a group of middle school students at the Grand Rapids Museum School. The goal was to help students walk through the steps of art making for an ArtPrize mock up exhibit. Students selected world hunger as their topic and collected donations for Kid’s Food Basket to learn how art can be a tool to serve others. Here’s an inside look at our creative process.

The Scarlet Cord Collection: A New Interactive Healing Installation

Behind the Artwork

The Scarlet WebThe Scarlet Web, Pamela Alderman, Multi media, 78 x 78 x 85 inches, 2017

Many of us are familiar with the phrase “hidden in plain sight” to describe the children tethered as modern day sex slaves. Some of these children roam our malls or airports during the day and may be even be standing next to us, unknowingly, at the checkout counter. But as we tenderly tuck our children into bed, the young sex worker is just being forced into the night to perform bizarre acts for the insatiable—the buyers of sex, more correctly termed, pedophiles or the sexually broken—who seek to entangle innocent prey.

The Scarlet Web, a five-sided structure resembling a 3D abstract spider web, is made up of a collage of empty frames and six photographic images connected with zip-ties to portray bondage. The work is designed to raise awareness and to provide a safe space for the victims of sex crimes to heal. Alderman and her team create a new kind of artist/citizen work that invites audience collaboration through relational aesthetics. The work lets others speak and respond.

The Scarlet Web invites viewers to go beyond the passive art walk. The work challenges the audience to become co-creators—through spontaneous art making. By winding and weaving the scarlet cord around and within the empty frames, we collectively create a work that speaks for those silenced within a web of lies. Through awareness and positive action, we can be a catalyst for change to help free the young sex worker enslaved within the lucrative underworld of sex trafficking.

The Scarlet Cord: Healing for Sex-trafficked Children

The Scarlet Web showcases images by photographer Zoe Fortuna. Be sure to check out Zoe Fortuna’s creative work.

For more information on how to book The Scarlet Cord for your next event, contact ally@watercolorbypamela.com.

The NEW Scarlet Cord Collection at GVSU

Behind the Artwork

Night Cries, Pamela Alderman, Multi media, 10 x 20 inches, 2017

The Scarlet Cord Collection with Night Cries and The Scarlet Web will be unveiled at Grand Valley State University. The evening will include a presentation by artist and facilitator Pamela Alderman and an opportunity for the visitors to co-create with the interactive healing installation.

GVSU EXHIBIT AND PRESENTATION
The Scarlet Cord: Healing for Sex-trafficked Children
Grand Valley State University – Frederick Meijer Honors College
Exhibit: April 3 to 7, 2017
Presentation: Wednesday, April 5, 2017 from 6:00-8:00pm
Frederik Meijer Honors College (multi-purpose room)
120 Niemeyer
4046 Calder Dr.
Allendale, Michigan 49401
Sponsored by Frederick Meijer Honors College, GVSU Women’s Center and Eyes Wide Open.

The Scarlet Cord Collection: Night Cries

It is difficult to ignore a baby’s cry that pierces the nighttime. Every new parent desperately needs sleep, but the baby’s cry, in the dead of night, tugs at hearts and demands a response.

Like the baby’s cry, the tears and groans of the victims of sex crimes at The Scarlet Cord exhibits tugged at my heart and forced me to respond. The new painting series, Night Cries, is my creative reaction to the history of pain and devastation experienced by many who visited The Scarlet Cord.

For Night Cries, voice actors recorded actual sentences from the victims I encountered. Then a videographer turned the recordings into audio sound waves. A collection of abstract paintings have been interpreted from audio sound waves.

Though it may take a lifetime to heal from the physical, mental, and emotional wounds of the victims of sex crimes, healing is possible. Like loving parents responding to a baby’s needs, a compassionate community can tenderly help these victims begin or continue their journey to wholeness and wellbeing. We can no longer ignore the cries of those enslaved in the sex industry. A collective response is needed to help end to trafficking.

For more information on how to book The Scarlet Cord for your next event, contact ally@watercolorbypamela.com