Participants of Roanoke's Creative Communities Leadership Program together with various civic and interfaith members are hosting a BridgeWalk at 3 pm on Sunday, April 17th in efforts to promote 'tolerance, diversity, and understanding in our ever-evolving community'. This article offers a reflective overview and calls for a collective response in support of the occasion.
"Exploring the Shame" - Salvation in Forgiveness |
Columbine Students Holliday and Perez |
Jane Vance - Bridging East and West
Subsequently then, I suppose, it's all the more astounding that a role in community involvement has drawn me into the collaborative company of such an illustrious group of soulful others. I'd already had the pleasure of meeting one of these exceptional individuals named Jane Vance, at a recent opening of her downtown gallery in February. As "an adjunct professor of the Creative Process through the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech" and aide to "special needs children" with a Floyd County middle school, the art she induces is an eloquent testament of her imbued passion for Tibetan Buddhism.
Amchi |
In the months surrounding the September 11 attacks however, and having instructed a course on Himalayan culture at Virginia Tech that same year, Tsampa nonetheless returned to Nepal's villagers to share the legacy of his experience after only an initial semester on campus. While led to chronicle the amchi's story artistically, yet concerned it would be construed as 'disrespectful', Vance in turn "wrote a personal letter to His Holiness the Dalai Lama explaining her intentions" and entreating the leader's approval. Upon receipt of his blessing however, Jane began work on her project in 2002, becoming "the first westerner and the first female in history to be granted permission to do a lineage painting of a prominent Tibetan amchi".
Although the portraiture itself would take only ten months to paint initially, the task group congregated to document its delivery to the lama's village of Jomsom wouldn't make its trek to the Himalayas until June of 2007. On their arrival though, and because he'd learned by phone of Seung-Hui Cho's slaying of fellow Tech students less than three months earlier, Tsampa resolved that "the first order of business" should entail holding a candle-light vigil in honor of the campus' dead and wounded (see video above).
"It was so important to me to honor the people lost, but also to honor this strong bridge that now exists between two very unlikely places" - Jane Vance
A Student Memorializes Morgan |
Kurt Steger - Bridging Worlds through Art
In addition to Jane, we'll also be joined for BridgeWalk by two remarkable individuals who, each in their unique way, is gifted with a genius for touching or otherwise shaping human hearts.
"To get into the exhibit at Roanoke College's Olin Gallery you start by walking through a piece called "The Pearl Gate" . . . As the piece came together we started realizing it had a bridge like quality, and then we saw the metaphor of the bridge from this world into the other world -- the sculptural world." - from a public radio interview
Steger's 'Burden Boat'
Originated initially in 'response to the regional trauma' of the the Virginia Tech tragedy, the Burden Boat Project was envisaged as an interactive experience to 'symbolically' release the weight of a participant's spiritual or psychological affliction. First showcased in 2009 on the Tech campus with his display of Primal States and Portals, the burdens of community members are ceremoniously cremated and then, returned to the earth in burial.
Carl Tinsley - Bridging Community Relations
Rev. Carl Tinsley - 'Facing the Future' |
"Four times a year, branch leaders meet with the school superintendent to review discipline issues, and Tinsley said he often meets with law enforcement officials to bridge the gap between police and the black community." quote from, "Facing the Future" (Rucker 5)
Although long recognized as one of the community's foremost advocates of 'social justice' and 'human rights', especially in relation to Cabell Brand and TAP, the Reverend Tinsley is most recently identified with a crusade on behalf of area youth. Consequently, it's with considerable zeal I look forward to joining not only with those whom I've already mentioned, but local denizens at large, in a gathering that will undoubtedly afford us the opportunity to meet, interrelate, and in the process, grow in our learning and understanding of each other.
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1. Hamilton, Marilyn. "Colony Collapse for Human Hive or Cracks Where Light Gets In?." (2011): Integral City: The Blog. Jan. 2011. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. http://marilyn.integralcity.com/2011/01/14/colony-collapse-for-human-hive-or-cracks-where-light-gets-in/
2. Deacon, Darlene. "A Gift For More Than One Village." (2010): Planet Blacksburg. Jun. 2010. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. http://www.planetblacksburg.com/2010/06/a-gift-for-more-than-one-villa.php
3. "Acclaimed Artist Jane Lillian Vance To Premier New Works at Gallery Opening in Downtown Roanoke." (2011): The Roanoke Star Sentinel. NewsRoanoke.com. Jan. 2011. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. http://newsroanoke.com/?p=9696
4. "Silent Nature - 2.15.11." (2011): WVTF Public Radio. www.wvtf.org/. Feb. 2011. Radio. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. http://www.wvtf.org/news_and_notes/news.php?audio_id=2222.
5. Rucker, Janelle. "Facing the future." (2010): The Roanoke Times. roanoke.com. Oct. 2010. Web. 11 Apr. 2011. http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/264965.
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