After viewing The Scarlet Cord at ArtPrize, a young teen fell into my arms. I held her and drew her head close as she cried. A couple of minutes later, she pulled away and, then, she quickly embraced me again. Her words tumbled out so quickly that a couple of different times I had to…
A young woman quietly approached the volunteer tent at The Scarlet Cord installation. When our eyes met, she asked, “What inspired you to create The Scarlet Cord?” I recounted to her how at nineteen I traveled to Europe. One of the stops on our tour was the Red Light Windows of Amsterdam. This was my…
Saturday night a woman returned to The Scarlet Cord asking for another red string bracelet because she lost the first one. As I tied another string around her wrist, she asked for a hug. I had a nanosecond to decide if I was going to extend kindness to the intoxicated woman. Although the toxic effects…
Video by Chad Kremer of Zuiderkruis Productions Lisa McManus writes: Watercolor artist Pamela Alderman was so moved by the stories of Congolese refugees resettling in Michigan that she couldn’t walk away. When she tried to talk about it with her friends, she learned that nobody knew that six million had died and over two million…
Jessica Rowland of Women at Risk International and Pamela were interviewed on WOOD TV 8’s eight West this morning about ArtPrize and child trafficking in West Michigan. Upcoming events and opportunities for people to make a difference were discussed and that information is also available on the WOOD TV 8 page.
Thirty volunteers helped assemble almost 4,000 paper birds for my ArtPrize 2013 Wing and a Prayer installation. After the nineteen-day exhibit in Grand Rapids, Michigan, several organizations or individuals contacted me, expressing an interest in the birds. The birds continue to give hope flight. Most of the birds traveled to an inner city tutoring organization,…