wfn.org | Artists support women's center in Ghana

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Note #6925 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

30-October-2001
01408

Artists support women's center in Ghana

Proceeds from sales of paintings, cards to help liberate African women

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - Although there were no white gloves in sight, there was plenty
of sterling and steaming tea - not on damask, as might be expected, but on
bold, bright African fabric.

That seemed appropriate, since the purpose of the party was to celebrate a
partnership between Presbyterian women half a world apart - some in the
United States, some in Ghana.

And there are pictures to prove it. Big ones. And little ones, too.

For example, there's Paris Ramseur-Brown's shot of a woman dancing
fancifully on a blue-green globe. And Mary Ellen Peacock's painting of a
woman refugee against a background of vibrant purples and pinks. And Sandra
Charles' batik-work of a woman cradling a baby.

There also are pieces from Jeanette Hardy, Terri Gilmore and Cynthia
Woolever - women who have met once a week at the Presbyterian Center (all
but one are employees) to support each other's artistic work. They call
themselves "Artists of Hope," and they've chosen to share their art with the
church and put the profits into a feminist women's center under construction
in Accra, Ghana.

While the canvases were for sale during the Oct. 30 exhibit, miniature
versions are reproduced on cards that may be purchased from Presbyterian
Distribution Services at $8 per pack, $15 for two. All proceeds go to Ghana.
To order, call 1-800-524-2612.

"Cynthia Woolever (a research associate in Presbyterian Research Services)
and I were talking one Sunday at church about how she was looking for a
place to donate money from her art," said Mary Elva Smith, director of the
Women's Ministries Program Area of the PC(USA). "And I just said, 'Have I
got a project for you!'"

Women's Ministries recently signed on to what it calls the Ghana Project,
whose purpose is to build a women's center on the grounds of Trinity
Theological Seminary in Accra to house the Institute of Women in Religion
and Culture.  The institute, envisioned first by women theologians - among
them Mercy Amba Oduyoye, who now directs the newly founded institute - is
designed to honor women's voices and experiences in theological curricula.

The center's name is "The Talitha Qumi Center," after the words the Gospel
of Mark says Jesus spoke upon healing Jarius' daughter: "Little girl, rise
up."

Oduyoye approached the PC(USA) in 1999 to seek its support for the institute
as a way of continuing the World Council of Churches' "Ecumenical Decade of
Churches in Solidarity with Women."

"We want to have a center because we want to have a chance to research the
cultural practices that really oppress us," said the Rev. Dinah
Abbey-Mensah, president of Ghana's Evangelical Presbyterian Church Pastors
Association, a mission partner-in-residence this year in the Worldwide
Ministries Division, and a member of the institute's board.

Specifically, the women want to oppose in an organized way such practices as
female genital mutilation, child labor and the trokosi, in which a girl
child may be given to a fetish priest to serve as a temple concubine to
atone for the sins of male members of her family.

"We want a place to come together," Abbey-Mensah told the Presbyterian News
Service, "to hold conferences, seminars, meetings. We want to have a library
with a collection of women's writings.  We want to research and write and
publish."

That all sounds fine to Woolever, who, before coming to the Presbyterian
Center, was a professor at a women's college, and who has a deep commitment
to women's education.

"I was immediately attracted to the idea," she said, "and I read the book
about the Ghana Project; I read some of Mercy's work. I heard about how
Mercy came here and invited American women to be partners with them. If this
is successful, we'll invite a whole bunch of artists to raise money for the
Talitha Qumi Center."

June Ramage Rogers, who coordinated the tea-and-art show, and who traveled
to Ghana at Oduyoye's invitation as the project's volunteer coordinator,
said the Justice for Women Committee of Louisville Presbytery is also
brainstorming for ways to raise funds for the institute. "It is exciting to
watch African women standing up and claiming their place and space," Rogers
said. "It is an inspiration to us. We can learn a lot from them."

Rogers said a "domino effect" may have already begun: The project already
has prompted at least six previously unknown Presbyterian artists to bring
their work out into the open.

"It kind of gives me goose bumps," she said.

Ramseur-Brown, who works with the Jinishian Memorial Program in the
Worldwide Ministries Division, shares Rogers' feelings. "It is important for
me to lend my assistance to this project in some small way," she said,
adding that collaborating with other women artists has been empowering in
itself. "This is a great group of women," she said, looking around the
temporary gallery in the Center's atrium. "Even though their artistic
abilities are amazing, they stay humble.

 "They remember where their gift came from."
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