Provisions (installation view)
vinyl on aluminum
approx. 60 x 60"
sign fabrication by Shaun Slifer
yellow sign conceptualization by Cheryl Capezzuti, Laura V. Weis Fleischmann, Pamela Fraser, Paula W. Grossi, Shirle Powers Grossi, Nancy Klancher, Leah McDermott, Marya Schechtman, Katherine Talcott, and Cathy V.

About The Project

Provisions was commissioned by Pittsburgh's American Jewish Museum and the Jewish Community Center for a group exhibition called "Making Hope Happen."

"Making Hope Happen" is an exhibition in which artists were invited to react/respond to the JCC's various community outreach and social service programs. I chose to work with the food pantry program.

Provisions is a project that uses the language of street signs, the services of the Squirrel Hill Food Pantry, and the input of a variety of mothers to create a multivalent depiction of compassion. The piece was inspired by the fact that the food pantry's second-largest community of recipients of aid is families. I was inspired by this reorientation of traditional compassionate circles which encourages one person or family to assist another; in this way, food pantry volunteers are transcending the traditional cultural limitations of empathy. Taking my cue from a street sign which encourages mothers to "Hold Onto Their Children" when in subway stations, I asked a variety of mothers I know for sketches that depict the need to hold on to, or protect, their children in whatever way that this need manifests in their own families. I translated their sketches into crisp designs which I then fabricated as street signs. The variety of depictions is meant to supply a variety of perspectives on this common mothering responsibility to provide and nurture.

The cumulative installation of Provisions contrasts these yellow signs with green signs that are graphic reductions of products distributed to families by the food pantry. Through this formal association a loose connection is fostered across the notions of consumption (food and image) and nourishment (nutrient and culture).

Here's a photograph of some of the sketches submitted by mothers and used as the design basis for the signs:

And here is one of the many Chciago locations of the sign that started my train of thought: