"Art can impact the social context of family dislocations and can serve as a powerful tool in encouraging an open national dialogue about Zero Tolerance in our country"

So (sew) America Cares is a participatory social art project with a commitment to raise awareness about the lives of the children separated from their parents at the border. All the faces stitched together strengthen the very fabric of our own society.
In 2018 a Zero Tolerance immigration policy was announced, requiring that all families who cross the border shall not only be separated but also charged in federal court with the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry.

This Project’s mission is to advocate for these children and to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to participate. Thread by thread, fiber by fiber, a participating community will increase its understanding of the circumstances of these children who never asked to be illegal aliens. The project consists of 10 different faces that will be repeated 100 times each to add 1000 faces. The faces had been laser etched on raw canvas to allow the participant to use any kind of thread, yarn, wool, fabric, paint etc. So (sew) America Cares has a plan: to "sew" them back, to never allow these children to be lost again, to create a quilt of 1000 faces representing a portion of these children.
We cannot allow these traumatized children to disappear and in time, be forgotten.People are encouraged to stitch, sew, knit, knot, crochet, embroider, or braid these drawings so as to symbolically recover these children’s faces and lives again.

So (sew) America Cares is an international call for people to participate and raise awareness as to the consequences of this immigration policy and its devastating effect on children. As citizen, artist, mother and a child that suffered being separated from my family for eight years, I am concerned about the hundreds of separated children across our country.

PLUSH at The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood Curated by Laura Marsh

April 28-June 4, 2017

As Pleasurable, Lush, Utilitarian, Subjects of Humanity, PLUSH is a tactile mindscape. Textiles are inherently connected to the domestic environment. In the U.S., fiber art has often been mislabeled as craft or “women’s work.” However, in many countries, textile is considered men’s labor. Some of the works in this exhibition explore traditional sewing and hand techniques, while others explore non-conventional sculptural methods. The artists included in this conversation explore anthropomorphism, body politics, class, morphing landscapes, multigenerational lineage, and popular culture. This installation encourages viewers to take a seat on artist chairs and view the textiles on the wall as a carnivalesque Pokemon looms from above.

Participating Artists:

Alissa Alfonso, Mora Barber, Tanja Boukal, Jen Clay, John O’Donnell, Aurora Molina, Norma Minkowitz, Valerie Molnar & Matt Spahr, Sophia Narrett, and David Rohn