The Scarves of Matènwa

 artmatenwa.org

     Buying, that most ordinary of everyday activities, is mostly an impersonal act whereby we see something we like, or need, and purchase it from a store that we may revisit, or not. Sometimes, however, buying turns more personal as when consumers become genuinely interested in the success of a small business, because its product is special and all those connected with the endeavor are working so very hard to grow their fledgling  enterprise.

     Here is one such young enterprise that merits attention and support, not merely because it is located in Haiti, still struggling from the devastating effects of last year's earthquake which killed 230,000 people and left 1.3 million homeless, but because its products are creative and beautiful. Atis Fanm is a cooperative of women artists that produces silk scarves decorated with colorful and vivid imagery ranging from abstract motifs to animals and flora. The group works out of Matènwa, a small village in the mountains of Lagonav, an island off the coast of Haiti. Here, poverty is a way of life:  daily life is spare and hard, with most residents relying on farming to eek out a meager existence.

     Atis Fanm, creole for women artists, was started several years ago with assist from outside supporters who wanted to help the small community get on its feet and find a way to generate income. "The goal was to encourage self-respect and independence using new methods of self-sufficiency, without rocking a fragile balance by using limited natural resources like firewood and water," explains the group's website.  "The idea to hand-paint their brilliant imagery on silk scarves seemed a viable solution. It is low-tech, unbreakable, and an excellence vehicle for artistic expression."

     The beautiful graphic work emblazoned on the silk scarves has all the vitality, exuberance, and glorious sense of color that distinguishes Haitian art. The images are drawn on square or oblong panels of white, 100% silk fabric and then painted by hand; no two scarves are alike. Real and imagined subjects seem to dance across the silk expanse: Hummingbirds, trees, fruits, fish and animals, women, angels and sirens, all vie to win our hearts.

                     

 artmatenwa.org 

     "The Atis Fanm Matènwa collective is unique because it is foremost a women's community (though there are now two young men who are members in a group of 48) and because they work in solidarity," says Haitian-Canadian writer Myriam Chancy, whose latest book, "The Loneliness of Angels," features artwork from the cooperative on its cover. "Having met them in person, what strikes me most are the ways in which they negotiate the limits of their isolation, their optimism despite those limits, their willingness to acquire more knowledge in order to better their situation as a collective, and their unanimous confirmation that working in collectivity has more benefits than liabilities," added Chancy, who is working on a funding proposal on the group's behalf. 

     THE WOMEN of Atis Fanm have much to teach us about community, perseverance in the face of adversity, and the power of personal expression to improve the world, connect people, and bring joy through art. Supporting this cooperative not only helps its members provide a decent livelihood for their families but may even help shape a better future for Matènwa.

     SCARVES are $55 each, plus shipping. To order, or to learn more about Matènwa and its artists, log on to: ARTMATENWA.ORG 

 ☛Editor's Note:  "The Loneliness of Angels," published by Peepal Tree Press in 2010 and available through Amazon, earned Chancy the Inaugural Guyana Prize in Literature Caribbean Award 2010. She is a professor of English at the University of Cincinnati.

Photograph by Erica Fae

"The ordinary is the miracle. / Ordinary love and ordinary death, / ordinary suffering, ordinary birth, / the ordinary couplets of our breath, /
ordinary heaven, ordinary earth."
-- Derek Walcott    

                

Copyright 2011© Lorraine Blasor All Rights Reserved