Collaborate in the Community
Community Milagros
The Good Shepherd Center and artist Laura Jean McLaughlin
2008
After 20 years, Baltimore Clayworks remains passionately committed to providing access to hands-on art making activities year round for economically and sociallymarginalized citizens in the greater Baltimore community. The organization has extensive experience in uniting quality artists with emotionally troubled youth to create public works of art, which not only brings a public space to life but engages and empowers its creators and initiates a dialogue through its formation.
In summer 2008 with the support of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Communities Program, Baltimore Clayworks, the Good Shepherd Center and artist Laura Jean McLaughlin of Pittsburgh, PA, will embark on a collaborative project that will result in a permanent piece of artwork on the center’s campus. The Good Shepherd Center is a therapeutic residential treatment center with over 135 years of service for physically and emotionally abused adolescent girls whose admittance is often their last resort for rehabilitation. The Baltimore County center, located in Halethorpe, MD, is all encompassing, offering therapy, a school and a home to over 100 girls annually.
The girls will work with McLaughlin to create personal life-sized silhouettes which they will mosaic with tile and milagros. In Spanish tradition, a milagros is an object which symbolizes a miracle, a thank you offering or a healing charm. The mosaic mural will allow the girls to express their individual hopes and dreams, empower and enrich them as individuals, tell their stories and leave a personal legacy on the campus even after they are gone. The figures and milagros will be mounted permanently on a courtyard wall in a large mosaic mural. It will ultimately be a celebration of their beautiful, energetic life journeys.
McLaughlin’s educational background includes attending the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts and Penland School of Crafts. Her teaching and workshop experiences include: the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburgh and Clarion University to name a few. Her experience working on collaborative community projects is vast, having organized and engaged hundreds of inexperienced individuals from ages of 2 to 90 in public art projects throughout Pittsburgh. McLaughlin’s youthful, quirky, fanciful style and symbolically loaded imagery will appeal to the students and provide an exciting new way for the girls to communicate and express themselves creatively.
The Community Milagros project and residency begins in May 2008 and will continue through the summer. Once completed and installed, Baltimore Clayworks and the Good Shepherd Center will host a dedication ceremony in October 2008.
Back
