I have been working on this artist statement for Mantra Project: York Street for what feels like forever. An attempt to share in words what I am trying to say in my images. Turns out it isn’t enough to just spit images out at people. It is polite to attempt to tell them what you are trying to say. Read about it here if you care to know about this torturous process of actually writing… reminds me of that Hemingway quote,”There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” The words below are my attempt to explain what is in my heart, an explanation to the work on the walls. The images of mothers and children from York Street Project are a small subset within a larger series that I will be working on for the next few years. I look forward to the journey and sharing it with you. Sharing more images that is…less writing I hope.
Mantra Project: York Street
In the York Street photograph series within the Mantra Project, I explore connection between single mothers and their children. This series grew out of a partnership between the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, a nonprofit arts education center in Summit with programming to connect people and art, and The York Street Project in Jersey City. The York Street Project is a ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, which aims to reduce the cycle of poverty in households headed by women through education, housing, and childcare services. In the York Street photographs, each mantra that I painted in white on the skin of the child and/or mother is an agreement between parent and child, a kind of mission statement to help maintain strong positive family connections in spite of life’s challenges.
In the entire Mantra Project, I seek to share the experience of feeling vulnerable, and the connectedness that comes from vulnerability, through both mantras and photography. I developed the concept for the project after creating my own personal mantra, “breathe into the uncertainty,” as part of a vulnerability workshop grounded in the research and teachings of Brené Brown. According to Brown, “vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness.” Portraits within the larger Mantra Project are of adults, teenagers, and children as young as six, painted with the words they will repeat to themselves for inner strength when the world is unkind.
Human connection has been the common theme throughout all of my drawings, paintings, and photographs since I left the commercial art world in 2009. After twenty-five years creating dreamlike photographs of models or objects for hundreds of book covers, I shifted my focus to fine art portrait photography in order to explore and encourage connection and understanding between individuals and across communities. Through these intimate portraits of women and children from the York Street Project, I hope to connect the communities in which we live.
To see more Mantra images visit my website www.joanieschwarzphoto.com Join us for the opening July 9th at 7:00 pm. 515 Millburn Ave. Millburn New Jersey at The Squirrel and the Bee if you are able. If you have suggestions on a group of inspiring people you would like me to meet, I’d love to hear from you.
