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Storms inspire 'touching' art
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| By: MATTHEW COLEMAN, DAILY LEADER News Editor |
September 28, 2005 |
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An American Red Cross shelter volunteer's encounter with an evacuee was the creative spark for a drawing that has touched other volunteers helping in Brookhaven.
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Deborah Valentine, a 50-year-old tattoo artist from Chico, Calif., said she was inspired to draw "Katrina, Rita and the Cedar Tree" after visiting with a shelter resident named Laura, whom volunteers referred to as "Mom."
The drawing, which was given to the evacuee as a present before she left earlier this week, depicts two female faces to represent the recent hurricanes and the tree outside the Red Cross staff shelter. Red Cross staff members described the drawing as "touching" and "heart-wreching."
"It's absolutely amazing," volunteer Rhonda Grove said.
Valentine said "Mom" gave her a shamanistic healing, a Native American practice, to help with a sore shoulder and respiratory infection.
"I was really stressed out," said Valentine.
Valentine added that she had a vision during the healing.
"They weren't really cohesive. They were shapes and symbols," Valentine said in describing the images.
Valentine said the drawing was intended to address her whole experience of coming to help with the Red Cross and news coverage of the hurricanes.
The central image in the drawing represents Katrina as a woman's face that seems to be blown away.
Valentine said Katrina is beautiful name but one that now is associated with destruction and death. Some viewers of the artwork suggest a third eye on the woman's face represents the eye of the hurricane.
Valentine said the image of Rita, which appears to be sitting atop a tornado, was drawn later. That image is much more calm to reflect what happened locally, the artist said.
"I just wanted to express for myself how I felt about the hurricanes," Valentine said.
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©The Daily Leader 2009
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