"Empty Chairs - Painful Windows", YWCA (2005), Cincinnati, Ohio

YWCA Women's Art Gallery Cincinnati, Ohio September 23 - November 4, 2005 A community-based art project conceived of and produced by the Gallery Committee, co-chaired by Ali Hansen and Mary Ann Meanwell "Empty Chairs - Painful Windows" is presented as an exhibition in observance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This tribute to 114 women murdered by their own partners in the past twenty years focused in on 13 women whose photo portraits are displayed on a formal dining table at place settings with silver plates engraved with each woman's name and the circumstances of her death. Short biographies were laid on top of folded napkins. On the walls around the table were twenty window shades covered with paintings derived from children's drawings. One dozen artists from the Gallery committee visited the YWCA Battered Women's Shelters in Cincinnati and Anderson Township. They worked with children residing at the shelters aged 5 - 17 to create drawings of their family life. The resulting visual stories were enlarged and designed to fit the dimensions of the window shades. Rounding out this memorial/art therapy/installation art project is the presence of the YWCA produced documentary film "Batterers Will Kill." Winner of the Silver World Medal in 2005 at the New York Festivals International Film and Video Awards, the film features three families who have lost daughters to domestic violence, and describes the warning signs leading to such homicides. Captions: A child's drawing My adaptation - "God in Mom" In the drawing session my child partner is 11, and a girl. We sit side by side on very small chairs at a low table. "Let's draw our families," I suggest. She begins tentatively, drawing herself in the lowest left hand corner of a soft yellow page. "That is a pretty dress you are wearing," I say. She smiles shyly and draws another girl, and another, and another, all with feet on the ground.

"How many sisters and brothers do you have?" "Eleven," she murmurs. I ask for their names, carefully noting them on my own sheet of yellow paper, correcting the spellings with her help as we go. For 90 minutes she concentrates on drawing in each and every family member, as though getting them all onto the page will help to settle things, to keep them connected. She is in the shelter with her mom and two brothers. As for the others, she cannot be sure where they are just now. All the time, we are surrounded by five other rambunctious little girls, busily drawing hearts, houses, sunshine and mothers. I ask one, "What is in your heart?" and she pipes back, "God is in my heart and it feels great!" My shy little friend quietly draws a large heart behind the conjoined figures of her mother and oldest sister, and writes in it "God in Mom." And I think, yes, the divine comes first to us through a parent's love.