Meet A Stranger by Laura Parker, Now Art Grantee

[damali ayo]

Now Art Supporters and Fans:

Announcing the newest Now Art Grant recipient: Laura Parker

I chose Laura's "Meet a Stranger" project for the latest Now Art Grant because it is already up and running and brilliant. You can participate today! Laura's Blog "Meet a Stranger" http://www.meet-a-stranger.blogspot.com/ is a wonderful collection of people that Laura gets to know and delivers their stories right to your computer screen through her blog and direct emails of the "stranger bios." Laura has a gift for plain-language story telling and describing people as they describe themselves. Her project exemplifies the essence of Now Art, engaging real people with each other and with our world through art. Samples from the Meet a Stranger Project are excerpted below.

If you find yourself entranced by this project as I did, donate to the program: http://damaliayo.com/pages/grants.htm Consider a donation of $20 to $100. Every $500 means a new artist gets funded. If you're feeling excited about the program, why not donate $500? Your donation will launch a new Now Art project!

THANK YOU to the following people for their most recent Now Art Grant donations:

Annin Barrett

Al Bradbury

Allison Handler

Sarah LaVon Rice

Jamila White and Associates, Inc.

Nancy Yuill

Coming soon....your chance to "shop drop" artist-made greeting cards into a store near you! Angela Mobley's "Truth Cards" will be ready to go by the holiday shopping season!

If it seems like I'm involving you a lot these days (participating, performing, donating), you're right! I switched to a participatory form of art making because I wanted (and you wanted) more ways to reach you and involve you in my art. Now Art doesn't sit in a gallery in one city where very few people can see it, it comes directly to you, you help create it, and you help deliver it to more and more people. This is Now Art. In that spirit, please pass this email on to anyone and everyone you can think of. They will learn more about Now Art, and meet a few strangers!

damali

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Now Art Grantee: Meet A Stranger by Laura Parker

Excerpts from the Meet a Stranger Blog

Read the full stories, view pictures, and meet more strangers at: http://www.meet-a-stranger.blogspot.com/

Meet Marco

Marco Lopez Polo works as a crewmember on an old 1944 tugboat that is docked on the island of North Bimini, Bahamas. Everyday since December, Marco has spent hours diving under the rusty tugboat in search of a small hole. He cannot leave North Bimini and return home to his wife and three children in Honduras until he finds this hole. But even if he found the hole, he still would need a welder, and on a small island of 1600 people that's hard to find. To make things worse, the owner of the tugboat, Marco's boss, ran himself into the ground financially and went bankrupt. Originally the crew was promised to make money off the barge full of goods it was carrying. But the barge sank outside Bimini and the tugboat sprung the leak. As a result Marco does not have enough money to return home from the Bahamas. Read more.

Meet Wayne

On a rainy December evening at a strip mall, Wayne stands outside a Toys 'R' Us playing Christmas carols with a tenor saxophone. Wayne makes his living as a street performer and has been playing at this location during the holiday season for the past seven years. He enjoys playing his sax outside the toy store, although quite often he is harassed by the police and property owners who think he is sleazy. He says, "Like everything else, when you have something good going, something bad always steps in."  Wayne has found that the store management and customers who shop there don't mind because he helps bring about the season. "When I started playing on the street, I looked for areas with a lot of foot traffic, and as it got colder, I had to find somewhere people often went, so I thought it's Christmas time, toys, you know and put the two together."  Wayne says that Louisville is a pretty bad place for street performers.  He planned on moving to San Francisco, where his profession is more welcomed, but says he is stuck here because he takes care of his mother, who is ill and has no legs.  "On the one hand, I am glad to be with her, but on the other hand I miss out on a lot of opportunities." Wayne has met street performers from all over including New Orleans, New York, Europe, and says that they make a lot more money and are better received than in Louisville. Read more.

Meet Sarah

Sarah, a 27 year-old artist, photographer and motorcycle mechanic in Louisville, Kentucky, is about to leave town on a month and a half cross-country motorcycle adventure where she will meet and photograph the lives of other female mechanics. Mentally she is in preparation mode, mapping routes, deciding what cameras to bring and making sure her bike, a 1978 Yamaha, runs well. Sarah plans to make stops in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, and potentially South Carolina, Ohio and Florida. Staying in hostels, hotels, on friend's couches and occasionally camping along the way she will pack the bare essentials in a saddlebag including a few pairs of socks and underwear, a couple t-shirts, maps, a notebook, cameras and all of the tools needed to fix her bike, just in case.

Sarah has not met many women who are interested in mechanics and by taking this trip she hopes to connect with a few. With the purpose of creating a 12-month calendar she will document these women in their natural work environments. The Female Mechanics Calendar Project began a few years ago when Sarah noticed that typical shop calendars mostly depict barely clothed women spread out on a cars and motorcycles, sometimes holding a tool. Her calendar will be offered to shops as an authentic alternative to the typical 'tool-girl' calendar. Through word of mouth and the help of a grant she received through The Kentucky Foundation for Women, who published a 'call for female mechanics' in their newsletter, Sarah was able to locate other female mechanics across the country. She was also featured in a local woman's magazine and had a well-received art exhibition with photos from a preliminary 2003 cross-country trip documenting the lives of friends who had moved to other states. Read more.

Meet Aleyda

Aleyda is a seventeen-year-old recent high school graduate who works at a Mexico Lindo, a restaurant/grocery store in historic downtown Carrollton, Kentucky. Although she works six days a week she admits the job is pretty easy. This week there have been few customers but she expects to be busy tomorrow for the soccer game. Mexico is playing in the World Cup and they have a television.

Aleyda is from Veracruz, Mexico and moved to Kentucky with her mother and younger brother five years ago. Her father had been living in the United States since she was six and when they came to visit for summer vacation, they stayed. Aleyda says it is great to have her whole family together again. As typical for siblings, she says her younger brother can be a big pain in the butt, but she still loves him. America has been an adjustment, but one that she has done gracefully. She recently received a scholarship to attend the local two-year community college and plans to become a Chemical Engineer, finishing her studies at Northern State University in Covington, Kentucky. Aleyda took a strong interest in chemistry and science her freshman year of high school but would not consider herself a chemistry geek.  "Everybody says it's pretty hard but I think when you like something it's not hard to do." Read more.

If you love this project, please donate to the program: http://damaliayo.com/pages/grants.htm Consider a donation of $20 to $100. Every $500 means a new artist gets funded. If you're feeling excited about the program, why not donate $500? Your donation will launch a new Now Art project!

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