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Artists in the Haitian coastal town of Jacmel, hard hit by the earthquake, are creating rubble art to sell to foreigners for much-needed income and to remind people of the tragedy. The World’s Amy Bracken reports. Download MP3

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MARCO WERMAN: Eight months after the earthquake in Haiti, mountains of rubble still clog the streets. By one estimate, only about 2% of it has been cleared away. But a group of artists in Haiti’s south has found a way to make use of some of the debris. The World’s Amy Bracken reports.

AMY BRACKEN:  Two and a half hours away from Haiti’s capital is the historic and artistic town of Jacmel. It was hit hard by the January 12^th earthquake. And people there are still struggling to recover. On a narrow downtown street, the simple façade of the FOSAJ art center remains intact. But walk around the building and you see the back wall has been sheered off. Sheets of metal hanging off the roof bang in the wind. The artists now work in the courtyard. Among them is 24-year-old painter Joseph Sevenson.

SPEAKING CREOLE

JOSEPH SEVENSON: When the earthquake struck, within 15 minutes, the first place I ran to was FOSAJ because I knew a lot of my fellow artists were working here. When I got here, I found most of the building had fallen. I went around back and saw my paintings on the second floor were under the rubble, and I couldn’t get them out.

BRACKEN: Fortunately, no one was killed here. But the art center’s director, an American named Flo McGarrell, died when a nearby building collapsed.

SPEAKING CREOLE

SEVENSON: FOSAJ is a different place without Flo because there isn’t another director who can coordinate international activities for us the way Flo did. There’s no FOSAJ without Flo.

BRACKEN: Under Flo’s leadership, Sevenson and other FOSAJ artists successfully bid to design logos for Timberland t-shirts. They also found foreign buyers for their paintings and sculptures. Despondent over all they had lost, the Jacmel artists took a bus to Petion-Ville, a town on the edge of the capital, to visit a Haitian-American art seller. Her name is Ruth Goldman.

RUTH GOLDMAN: They came down to find out how I was, and they looked so bad, and some of them were very sick, and some of them actually camped here a few weeks.

BRACKEN: One had a high fever from an infection on his mouth where a brick had knocked out some teeth. Some had been sleeping in the streets.

GOLDMAN:  And so when I saw them and they looked so bad, I told them, “You guys, you just have to sketch, you have to draw, you have to paint.” And they told me, “But we lost everything, we have nothing to work with.”

BRACKEN: Goldman had been collecting markers for a class she was teaching.

GOLDMAN: So I told them, “Here, Sharpees!” and they told me, “Ruth, you know, we have nothing, didn’t you hear? We have no canvas, no papers. Everything’s under…” So, quick thinking, I just said, “Well, use the rubble, the same rubble that killed all these people. Use that.”

BRACKEN: She showed them images of pieces of the Berlin Wall that were going for hundreds of dollars on e-bay. Goldman says some of the young men were highly skeptical. But they took the markers, and came back with some decorated rubble. She says the work was a rush-job.

GOLDMAN: But while they were there, in my office right there, a customer walked in, saw the three rocks, picked them up, gave me her card, and told me, “I want these three rocks.” And I told her, “I don’t have a price yet.” She goes, “I don’t care. Just charge me.” So I looked at the guys and they were like, in disbelief, and so they each made a hundred bucks. So they went back happy, and the following week I had 40 rocks. And the week after that they told me, “You need a truck to come up to pick up the rocks.”

BRACKEN: These clearly weren’t rush jobs. Artists were pouring their hearts into the work. Now the upstairs of the Petion-Ville store, also Goldman’s home, is full of rubble art, and she’s planning to create and sell catalogs of the works. She’s also organizing an international exhibition. Jacmel painter Joseph Sevenson says the rubble art is helping in more than one way.

SPEAKING CREOLE

SEVENSON: Haitian artists all need help because we need material, in addition to everything else. So we make these souvenirs for people to buy, and with the sales, we can make a little money to survive.

BRACKEN:  He adds that the souvenirs also help ensure that people outside Haiti don’t forget what happened here on January 12^th. For The World, I’m Amy Bracken, Jacmel, Haiti.

WERMAN: I’ve seen photos of some of the rubble art and it is amazing, and moving, the images combined with the medium they’re painted on. You can find those photos at TheWorld.org.

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