Life Pieces to Masterpieces

From the front of the meeting room at the Anacostia Museum of African American Culture, Mary Brown explained the shoes this way: When a male is shot, the killer strips the victim’s feet and tosses his shoes around the electricity wires hanging overhead. Those who walk through the neighborhood understand the symbolism. A friend, brother, son, uncle, or no one of any consequence to anyone at all, has died. The shoes are a constant reminder of the death. There are some wires that resemble to closets of a family of boys, shoes of all shapes and sizes dangling and decaying.

Within a few moments of her short talk, two lines of boys step solemnly into the room of expectant supporters. They are the highlight of the evening, the reason we have gathered. They held bold colored canvases with halved shoes mounted prominently in the center. Approximately twenty-five in number, they chanted solemnly “a mile in my shoes” and begged the obvious question: Could you, old man, young woman, mother, uncle, neighbor, stranger… walk in my shoes? Through my neighborhood? Could you be me?

The boys, some whom are actually young men, are members of the DC-based arts organization Life Pieces to Masterpieces that provides structured classes and apprenticeships in the visual arts. They, with their families and teachers, gathered last Thursday evening to show appreciation for the many people who supported their organization over its ten-plus year history.

The boys are from the blocks of DC who have seen too much of the usual, as they convey in the poetry they read while presenting their art: violence, poverty, and institutional neglect. Yet, in the spirit of Gordon Parks, their life inspires beautiful art.

As I’m listening and looking, I think of how we often hear about young DC dudes. Do I need to articulate the venues? They—and my use of the personal pronoun emphasizes my point—are the subjects of discussion rather than the guides of the conversation. What’s life like when the public dictates the parameters of your life’s meaning? Obviously everyone endures stereotypes—politicians, nerds, gangstas—but as the guys asked, would you trade your struggle for theirs?

In the silence we’ve created, what are we missing? What are the truths behind the reductive, pejorative assumptions: Poet E. Ethelbert Miller reminds us in "In the Shadows There Are Men":

“We were never absent
or invisible
we were always here

Our lives interrupted
By what others
Wanted to see

Sometimes what
We want is the
Taste of the kiss
And the touch of
A hand

Even our women
Stare at us
Disgusted with how
We live

Never knowing
How we struggle
To love”