St. Mary’s Academy artists’ plaintive pleas for peace

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The more jarring images – submitted by St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans – were centered on the theme “Stop the Violence.” That theme wasn’t an easy one to digest but was taken seriously by students in hopes that those viewing their personal works would stop and think about the serious subject.
 

Art teacher Elise Bellard Russell asked students to depict “Stop the Violence” first in three sketches and then combine the three into one in an acrylic painting to be featured in the mall.
 

“I gave all my students that theme due to the many things going on with teens today,” Russell said. “Everybody thinks of violence as something different. They see things. This is what they experience.”
 

Spotlight domestic violence 
 

“I wanted to bring awareness that it’s OK (to talk about domestic violence),” said senior Passion Shaffer, who completed an acrylic painting of a girl shedding a waterfall of tears with the words, “If It Brings Pain, Is It Really Love?” 
 

“It is not only physical abuse, it could be emotional and mental,” she said. “It’s something that should be heard. … It’s not something I should be ashamed of. As females, we should all express our feelings.” 
 

Other St. Mary’s students to display art were seniors Caitlyn Banks, who combined images of ignoring violence, stopping violence and keeping peace to “Shed Light on Violence”; and Dionne Atkins, who titled her work, “Stop the Violence Before It Stops You”; junior Maya Giles, who painted a positive New Orleans scene; sophomores Shelby Willis and Cydnie DeVold, who worked jointly; and sophomore Joy Swain, who noticed sadness when people viewed her depiction of an abused girl crying with her brother trying to stop the abuser; and sixth grader Heaven Polk, who drew a girl, tied to a pole, crying.
 

“The girl is getting kidnapped; the person who kidnapped her or somebody else used the gun,” Heaven said. She hoped people would react to the girl crying by stopping the violence “because there are a lot of things happening like this.”
 

“When I thought about ‘Stop the Violence,’ I thought about all the stuff going on in New Orleans on the news, and I thought about how people portray our city as a war zone,” Giles said of her “Warleans.” “I wanted people to see the good side of our city (of the Superdome and other sites). So, I did a pretty picture of our city, not the violence.”
 

“My thoughts on violence involved children seeing their young, black fathers involved in violence and repeating the cycle,” Atkins said. She hoped people would stop at her painting and reflect on what happens in our community and the kind of leadership in black communities.
 

“You never know what can happen,” Atkins said. “Your kids might follow your lead.”
 

Their voices were heard
 

Sophomore Shelby Willis – assisted by classmate Cydnie DeVold – painted the faces of two women – an abused girl and another next to her with a gag over her mouth, not speaking up.
 

“My idea was to stop the silence; speak up with what you are trying to say,” Willis said. “Don’t wait 20 or 40 years to speak up about the abuser. He could be long gone and you still didn’t get your justice – or he could have done this to a thousand other women,” Willis said. “If you would have spoken up, you could have helped bunches and bunches of women.”
 

DeVold mentioned a friend who was repeatedly raped by her father until her classmates alerted a teacher and got her help.
 

“Tell people about it,” she said. “I hope that if anybody sees someone getting abused, they speak up about it or help the person speak up about their problem.”
 

“I hope they think deep about it – that it really happens and we should help them,” Swain said about her painting of child abuse. “They should get help. Other people see they are going through this and don’t help, so victims feel like they are alone.”
 

Russell, who is relatively new to St. Mary’s, said her art students also worked on another project – a collage using different magazine pictures of historic black figures who made a difference in society. 
 

Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].