This has been a pivotal year for us in terms of our decision to find new ways to market the artists’ products and expand our reach. Our little RaRa storefront in Wellfleet, MA had kept us afloat for years but now we needed to be more than “afloat”... we needed wings. Not being of natural entrepreneurial blood, I asked our board to approve my enrollment in an intensive 5-day “Market Readiness” program in Manhattan given by Aid to Artisans, an established source for artisans world-wide. I emerged from that extraordinary experience grasping what we need to do to grow, and with the fire to do it. Fortunately for us I learned there that people are more and more interested in buying...
Since our return from Haiti this summer I’ve gotten many concerned questions about whether we got the mosquito-borne Chikungunya virus that’s infected so many thousands of people in Haiti. Thanks to the intrepid Arielle Berrick we were so swathed in Deet products that the mosquitos sent out an S.O.S whenever we breezed by. Thus we remained virus-free. Which almost didn’t seem fair. Nearly all of the artists, nearly all of Matenwa, had gone through it. People would laugh a rueful JUST- you-WAIT laugh when we said we’d ducked it so far. The artists were still lethargic and feverish, with ongoing arthritis-like pain in their joints, so we didn’t press them hard, but still we managed to make some fun prototypes...
Defy the last of winter doldrums! Bring a friend or two to the 14TH annual MERCI D’AVANCE DANCE (THANKS IN ADVANCE DANCE) dedicated to the advancement of economic stability through art in the village of Matènwa, Haiti. The MERCI D'AVANCE DANCESaturday, March 29 7-11:30 pmWellfleet Preservation Hall For almost 17 years, ART/MATENWA, a grassroots group of Cape artists, teachers, community volunteers and Nauset High School students, supported only by local donations, have made the challenging trip to this remote part of Haiti. ART/MATENWA joins forces with women in the Matènwa community to lift their families away from the worst of rural poverty by honing their artisan skills and selling their unique work. The MERCI D’AVANCE DANCE has become a much-loved winter...
I've been trying to explain the point of Valentine's Day to the 2 11-year-old girls from Matènwa, Haiti who've come to live with us on Cape Cod. This year was their introduction to all these "firsts". Their first bike ride, first Hallowe'en, first class filled with white kids, first snow, and now, first love holiday. They are completely baffled by the idea, wracked with guffaws. You mean you give love letters and presents to folks who are not even your boyfriends!? I reminded them that there are many kinds of real love: love for mothers, best friends, animals, home towns, love of oceans, of learning, of all that's good in the world...so much love to send out. They're still puzzled...
Edens Cathyl, one of two men in the mostly women Sant Atizana, just sent us some new drawings. They’re different from his past pictures and, to me, represent his long-time struggle between evangelical Christianity and the Vodou that surrounded him since birth. Edens, bone thin, 6’5,’’ high, with long eyelashes, long limbs and a languid gait, has an arresting, unschooled talent. He combines bold compositions and dynamic gestures with minute, fastidious detail. He also has a poet’s propensity to brood over big, unsolvable issues like heaven and hell. Now 26, he began working with us as an abused 13-year-old when Wellfleet designer Deidre Oringer taught several Matènwa students to make jewelry. He also learned to print and paint but soon...
