Ellen’s Work Blog
April 2022
April—come on spring! As I anticipate work ahead, I want to accomplish way more than is remotely possible between now and when we open the doors to visitors in June. I dream about getting all of our collaborative projects assembled and installed, and I’m confident they will all come together in the year ahead. Now, the flip side.
As I close in on a finish of the Illinois collaborative project, I slide right back to 2005. The project took place at Hope Meadows, a revolutionary foster-care community created by Brenda Eheart as a solution to the overwhelmed foster-care system in which she’d been working. After petitioning the Pentagon for five years, Brenda gained their permission to use the eighty homes on an abandoned Air Force base for the community that is now home to families who agreed to adopt kids who failed to make it in the regular foster-care system. Seniors also live in subsidized housing there, in exchange for six hours of weekly service in the community. The seniors have become like grandparents to the kids.
Our project honoring this work involved doing wax rubbings of anything and everything meaningful to each participant. As I move each piece around to find a suitable fit in the composition, I remember every kid, each teenager, their foster parents and all the “grandparents” in this idyllic community. I remember Ryan’s topsiders, how he struggled to create an acceptable facsimile, and Miss Irene’s birdbath, her broom, her handicapped license plate on the Buick, and her porch swing, all her students running around making rubbings of everything inside and outside her house. And, ta da, Crystal’s flip flop with multicolored ribbons on the toe thong.
Completing a work of art for any artist is the culmination of hours of thought about how to best present their gift to the viewer. In Hope Meadows, every brick, every fern and flower, every spatula, cross-stitch needle, and pair of scissors is art. I included every piece given and, together, they will be a great gift to behold for future visitors.
