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Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.242.9, Connecticut Historical S ...
Open Studios Marketplace & World Refugee Day Celebration
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.242.9, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

Open Studios Marketplace & World Refugee Day Celebration

Subject (Somali)
Subject
Subject
Date2007
Mediumborn digital images
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.242.1-.10
Description2015.196.242.1-.4 are images of the CCHAP Open Studios Marketplace at ICR in November 2007.

2015.196.242.5-.10 are images of the World Refugee Day Celebration at the Hartford Public Library on June 21, 2007.

2015.196.242.1: born digital image showing Lithuanian Easter wands made from dried flowers, by artist Asta Nenortas, at CCHAP Marketplace held at ICR during Hartford Open Studio Weekend, November 2007

2015.196.242.2: born digital image of Lithuanian artist Asta Nenortas with her Easter wands made from dried flowers, at CCHAP Marketplace held at ICR during Hartford Open Studio Weekend, November 2007

2015.196.242.3: born digital image showing Lithuanian straw picture of traditional dancers made by artist Aldona Saimininkas, at CCHAP Marketplace held at ICR during Hartford Open Studio Weekend, November 2007

2015.196.242.4: born digital image showing Aldona Saimininkas standing in front of her artwork, at CCHAP Marketplace held at ICR during Hartford Open Studio Weekend, November 2007

2015.196.242.5: born digital image showing Lynne Williamson standing with Burmese Karen family wearing traditional folk clothing at the Hartford Public Library World Refugee Day Celebration, June 21, 2007

2015.196.242.6: born digital image showing a Burmese Karen family wearing traditional folk clothing at the Hartford Public Library World Refugee Day Celebration, June 21, 2007

2015.196.242.7: born digital image showing Somali Bantu artists with jewelry, embroidery, and knitted decorations they have made at the Hartford Public Library World Refugee Day Celebration, June 21, 2007. The woman on the left is Sadiyo Aden, with her relatives.

2015.196.242.8: born digital image of Fatuma Ahmed with her daughter Felhada at at the Hartford Public Library World Refugee Day Celebration, June 21, 2007

2015.196.242.9-.10: born digital images of Fatuma Ahmed with a basket she has woven at the Hartford Public Library World Refugee Day Celebration, June 21, 2007
NotesSubject Note for 2015.196.242.1-.4: Lithuanians immigrated to Connecticut in the 1890s for jobs in factories and farms and to escape Russian domination, settling in urban centers such as Hartford and Waterbury where the state’s largest concentration of Lithuanians is located. Putnam in eastern Connecticut has a Lithuanian nunnery where an archive is kept and festivals take place. Many farms in western Connecticut are still operated by Lithuanian families. Lithuanian cultural practices abound in Connecticut. Beautiful tall carved crosses designed by artists Simas Augaitis and Joseph Ambrozaitis stand next to six Lithuanian churches in Connecticut cities; three of the parishes offer services in Lithuanian language. The long running radio program Tevynes Garsai /Sounds of the Homeland broadcasts every Sunday on WWUH/91.3 in Hartford. Artists including Aldona Saimininkas and Asta Nenortas play a central role in Connecticut’s Lithuanian community as tradition bearers and cultural ambassadors. Asta leads the Lithuanian folk dance group Berzelis that performs nationally. She also makes Easter wands of straw and flowers. Called Palms of Vilnius, these decorations symbolize the first growth of plants in the spring, represent health and healing, and also simulate the consecrated palms of Easter. Aldona creates Lithuanian pictures and traditional ornaments using straw. In a time-honored process learned as a girl in Lithuania, she hand-picks rye straw from farm fields and prepares it to form ribbons which she then cuts into pieces. These are assembled onto a dark background in abstract or floral folk art patterns that reflect Lithuanian weaving or embroidery, or to create a scene important in Lithuanian culture. Aldona also makes hanging ornaments from pressed straw or straw tubes fashioned into stars, snowflakes, and birdcages for Christmas trees; painted Easter eggs; and mobiles called sodas (garden). Although a humble plant material, the golden color of the straw shines, signifying light. For over three decades Aldona has given workshops to Scout groups, Lithuanian gatherings and cultural schools, and adult classes throughout the U.S. and in Canada. They help to organize the annual Lithuanian Scouts Food and Crafts Fair held at Holy Trinity Church at 53 Capitol Avenue in Hartford, the spiritual heart of the community. One of the carved crosses stands next to the church.
http://global.truelithuania.com/connecticut-789/ - excellent information on CT Lithuanians

Subject Note for 2015.196.242.1-.4: Open Studio Hartford is an annual free self-guided tour of artists’ studios throughout Hartford. The event has occurred for many years on the second weekend of November but changed to two weekends in 2018, and has expanded to include activities throughout November as well as an online event. CCHAP has held a traditional arts marketplace during Open Studio weekend since 2007, first at the Institute for Community Research, and later at the Connecticut Historical Society, to feature many folk artists from around Greater Hartford and support them in selling their artwork.


Subject Note for 2015.196.242.5-.10: Hartford Public Library (HPL) held an annual celebration of World Refugee Day on June 20 for many years in the early to late 2000s, honoring the immigrant and refugee communities who live in Greater Hartford and who participate in HPL’s ESOL and citizenship classes. Since 2000, HPL has offered a service-oriented, award-winning program called The American Place that provides training, certification, education, and social integration for immigrant groups. CCHAP worked with leaders of this program from 2007 to hold gatherings for the Sewing Circle Project at HPL and to participate in HPL events such as World Refugee Day and special exhibits with refugee artists.


Subject Note for 2015.196.242.5-.10: Subject Note: The Sewing Circle Project began in 2007 as an initiative to encourage production, marketing, and sustainability of traditional crafts among the many immigrant and refugee communities in the Greater Hartford area and across the state. Developed by the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program based at the Institute for Community Research (ICR) in Hartford and at the Connecticut Historical Society after 2015, the project supported the remarkable traditional arts of these newcomers. Members of the Sewing Circle met regularly at ICR and also at the Hartford Public Library to work on their art forms, learn new skills, and share coffee and conversation. This cooperative environment fostered social interaction among the artists and public audiences, respected and encouraged their cultural heritage and artistic traditions, stimulated literacy improvement, and helped to develop marketplaces for their artwork. CCHAP organized gatherings, exhibits, workshops, marketplace events, promotional materials, and educational activities for the group’s participants. While most of the artists experienced war, trauma, and dislocation, they continue to practice their cultural heritage and artistic traditions, blending these with current experiences and materials to create artwork that is both beautiful and functional. Even when immigrants and refugees embrace a move that takes them to a more stable and prosperous place, resettlement poses challenges of physical and psychological adaptation. Many new Americans have eased transition by continuing, recreating, or reinventing familiar art forms. For many members of refugee communities now living in New England, practicing their familiar arts of weaving, knitting, basket making, lace making, music, dance, and storytelling helps them to cope with the trauma of the genocide and displacement their families have suffered.
https://jfepublications.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Williamson-from-JFEv4-2017

Engaging with public audiences has given project participants a chance to improve their English-speaking skills and broaden their social networks and support systems. The project was a success because it brought some additional income to the artists and also because they became friends and co-workers sharing techniques, styles, and supplies as they created their unusual and exquisite textiles. Through a collaboration with Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services and the Hartford Public Library in its early days, the project expanded to offer small business training to the artists, thanks to grants from the Aurora Foundation, the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, the Aetna Foundation, and the Knox Foundation. CCHAP worked with the Sewing Circle Project artists to promote their work through marketplace and museum sales, exhibits, demonstrations, and apprenticeships for the experienced artists to teach younger members of their cultural group.


Subject Note for 2015.196.242.5-.10: Biographical Note: Somalia has experienced a complex and continuous civil war among rival clans since 1991, leading to violence, famine, and dislocation for hundreds of thousands of Somalis and Somali Bantus. Fatuma Ahmed, along with her farmer husband and their children, belonged to the Ashraf, a Somali minority group often targeted by larger armed clans. With thousands of others, the family fled across country on donkeys and camels to a large refugee camp in Kenya in 1992. After thirteen years in the camp, Fatuma and her eight children received asylum in the United States, arriving in Hartford in 2005. Although she had not gone to school in Somalia, Fatuma was skilled at handwork with intricate twined designs, making woven sisal mats and baskets that brought some income in the camps. In her new home in Connecticut she continued her basket-making with the Sewing Circle Project organized by CCHAP. Practicing her craft reminded Fatuma of Somali cultural practices, and provided a way to contribute her personal skills to American cultural life. Fatuma moved to Minneapolis in 2014 and went back to live in Somalia in 2018.

Farming families in Somalia, both Somali and Somali Bantu, make mats, baskets, and bags from woven and twined sisal strips or palm leaves. These essential domestic items carry crops and food, store household goods, and transport shopping. Called dambiil in both Somali and Somali Bantu languages, the soft-sided baskets can be plain or patterned. The mats have several uses, each with a different name; they serve as prayer rugs, floor or wall coverings, serving platters, and winnowing trays. In Connecticut Fatuma uses plastic baling twine as the warp to shape the circular basket, then she twists colored yarn around the twine to build up the sides and adds yarn handles. She experimented with colors and basket styles to meet the preferences of the American market. Fatuma would sell her work at the Hartford Farmers Market and other venues, and has taught her daughters the craft.


Biographical Note for 2015.196.242.5-.10: The Burmese Karen are a group of tribal people living in the hills of northern Burma and northern Thailand. Forced out of Burma by repressive military governments since 1975, Karen refugees relocated to camps in Thailand. Over 200 Karen have settled in Hartford in recent years, bringing with them excellent musical and textile skills. Many Karen can weave their own cloth, making traditional shirts, sarongs, and shoulder bags. Although the preferred materials for looms and cloth can be difficult to find, family members build looms for the weavers using PVC pipes instead of bamboo. CCHAP has worked with several Hartford-based Karen artists: Mu Wah learned all the techniques of weaving from her mother starting at the age of ten. She and weaver Hser Nay Paw came to Hartford in 2007, joining the Sewing Circle as a way to continue their cultural heritage. Myint Khin arrived in Connecticut in early September 2013, to reunite with her family. She learned to weave from teachers in the Thailand camp, and has now taught her four daughters.

Karen women and men weave their fine cotton cloth on backstrap looms that can be rolled up and transported from place to place. First the threads are stretched out in a continuous loop around an upright frame with wooden or bamboo posts that hold the yarn tight. Then this set of threads still on the posts is lifted off the frame and turned horizontally to form the warp that is now stretched out as the basis of the cloth. The weaver ties one of the posts to a stationary object such as a tree, with the other post in front of her and tied at either end to a strap around her back. Leaning back to create tension on the warp threads, she can weave back and forth between the threads to create cloth. Intricate patterns with dyed threads are woven into the base cloth, and weavers will sometimes embellish the cloth with embroidery and beads made of seeds. Specific patterns can tell stories or reflect inspirations and knowledge from nature, in a kind of visual narrative. Different colors and stripe patterns can denote marital status or occupations of the person wearing the cloth.


Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
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