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 © Open Society Institute |
Baltimore, Maryland
2008
An accomplished, award-winning artist, Ivy Parsons drew inspiration for her fellowship from a simple photograph. The image was of small children from Dr. Raynor Browne Elementary School playing chess at a huge table. "It really touched me—these little kids at the big table," says Parsons, 53, whose studio is several blocks away from the East Baltimore school. "I couldn't believe how small they were." And yet, the team of seven young children had whipped 60 other teams to become the first city school ever to win a state chess championship.
And so, Parsons plans to use her fellowship to create an Interfaith Community Garden Art Project, an oasis that members of the community long have wanted. The garden will be located in the grassy, vacant lot at Chase Street and Montford Avenue, where abandoned houses once stood. Located across from the school, the garden will honor the chess champions and will serve as a beautiful, even spiritual, gathering place for people from the community. There will be a place where kids can hold chess tournaments as well as a gazebo meeting place.
A faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Parsons plans to incorporate artwork created by her and students from the elementary school, MICA, Morgan State, and community residents. She hopes it will reflect a mix of faiths, including Muslim, Jewish, and Christian groups, representing the diversity and strength of the struggling neighborhood.
When Parsons learned that the school couldn't afford 12 chess tables at a cost of $2,500 each, she proposed making the tables and involving the children. Members of the community helped install big red oak tree trunks as the table bases and logs as seats. The chess board table tops are made out of stone and will be positioned on top of the logs. With Parsons' guidance, the children will create mosaic artwork to display near the tables.
She already has had the kids personalize 90 panels of old slate roof tiles by tracing their faces and hands; the panels will form a mural on a nearby concrete wall and may decorate the area near the chess tables. She has talked to the children about adding a memorial aspect to the wall to honor the lives of someone living (most children picked their grandmothers) and someone dead (most suggested a friend or relative).
Parsons believes the Interfaith Community Garden will serve more than 1,000 people. "This project will help unify numerous groups of people in an effort to preserve the neighborhood and provide hope for the next generation," she says.
