How can artists help change the world? The simple question that changed my life

Wendy Black-Nasta

Abstract

This article traces the journey of one artist's personal efforts on behalf of world peace. It lays the groundwork for promot- ing grassroots peace activism, which ultimately leads to the establishment of the peace organization, Artists for World Peace. Creating artistic designs such as the International Peace Belt, and establishing numerous other projects to raise funds on behalf of social justice and humanitarian en- deavors, Artists for World Peace remains one of the more distinguished, non-governmental organizations for peace and justice; its impact has been felt far and wide. Devoid of political intrigues, it tells the story of how creative peace- making can be effective in changing many peoples’ lives.

When the phone rang in the year 2000, it was a newspaper reporter from the Hartford Courant asking me what I, as an artist, could create with the European currency being taken out of cir- culation. I had spent the previous 10years designing and creating sacred objects— baptismal bowls, kiddish cups, and offering bowls for a Buddhist Monastery. The result of the phone call was the making of “The International Peace Belt” (TIPB). I spent the next two-and-a-half years accumulating coins from around the world through my customers, friends, and family. I spent the summer of 2003 in my studio, along with two apprentices and several of my college students, and created TIPB. My vision was to create a “sacred object” that would go out into the world to be worn by dancers and performers—acting as a living link between all cultures. I wanted this to become an actual symbol of WORLD PEACE.

To date, TIPB has been worn by several thousand people in 35 countries across 4 continents. TIPB leaves home with a “caretaker” who is responsible for documenting the story as TIPB arrives in a new city or country. The first country it traveled to was India, where it led a peace procession of 150,000 people from all 191 (at the time) countries. When attendees saw and heard about TIPB, people wanted a way to contact me to request bringing the belt to their country. I quickly had a friend design a website, and I called it “Artists for World Peace.” The only two requirements for wearing TIPB are to meditate on world peace while wearing the belt and to agree to be part of the documentation of its world travel. Within 1 week we had over 1,000 hits on our site.

An artist, not historian, I sought to enrich my understanding of world cultures and appreciation for the past using currency not as a demonstration of wealth but as a measure of how different societies highlight their existence through the symbols represented on the coins themselves. In some respects, I tried to place myself at the desk of historians examining how the coins' symbols designate various aspects of a society's past (i.e., leaders, nature's inhabitants, heritage, political designations and landmarks, religious artifacts, and geographical landscapes) and the message to be conveyed. To me the coins represented how different we all are, and yet how beautiful we all are. The way the coins are arranged attempts to highlight the need for nations to appreciate the importance of being connected to one another. And the circular pattern of the belt symbolizes the globe.

I envisioned the coins as a form of currency not for purchase or exchange but for awareness and unity. The coins being woven together symbolized nations' interconnectedness, the same way trade between countries benefits their well-being. One can interpret the Belt as an example of free peace currency instead of economic dependency. All the coins would be considered as having equal value, and the Belt would travel the world as a reminder of nations and societies place on earth. And even though these coins were being taken out of circulation, the richness and diversity of the various personages and figures found on these coins were designed to cut across all political, religious, and cultural boundaries. Hence, coins emblazoned with recognizable figureheads such as Elizabeth II, Carl Gustaf XVI, and Pope John II, or the ones with a Cathedral, a centurion on horseback, or an inhabitant's dwelling in East Africa, all carry the same weight and are of equal importance to the world community.

Another example of how peace works that emerged from the travel of the TIPB is our “Children of Peace” Project. For instance, in Cambodia we were very drawn to a project created by a politician, Mu Sochua, who was working to keep women and their children safe from abuse by building safe houses within her county. When we heard about the safe houses, a filmmaker we were working with at the time asked if Artists for World Peace would be willing to raise the necessary funds to build a house. Why not create hats to keep people warm as a way of raising funds to protect women and children as part of this new project?

I sent out an email to 15 artists I knew living in Connecticut. I told everyone to come to our home with a sewing machine, fleece, thread, ribbons, an open heart, and lots of ideas, and we will design and create hats. Twenty-five artists showed up in my living room. The first attempts were absolutely imperfect, but within 2weeks our hats were incredible. We had flying dragons, chickens, frogs, penguins, and all sorts of critters sitting atop our heads. We had one woman who made reversible velvet berets, and my assistant, Michele, became a creator of hats that told a story. Scrambled eggs, complete with a fork and plate, a sequined tulip garden, as well as very fine lace-trimmed hats for stepping out to the theater. We held a hat parade on our Main Street, auctioned the hats at a local ice cream parlor, and made enough money to have a safe house built in Cambodia. The following year, this group of artists reunited to repeat our success as a way of raising funds to purchase a truck full of food for our local CT food banks. Our work was creating “Peace in Action.” Our “Hats for a Cause” quickly became a way to raise the necessary funds to not only keep people safe, but also keep people well fed.

Next, we turned our focus on shoes. We learned through a friend working in Brazil that if a child didn't own a pair of shoes they couldn't attend school. In other words, if we could collect 500 pairs of new shoes, 500 children can attend school? This time we created an art show for local children in a nearby community. We had children create a piece of artwork. That day we had a jazz band perform, a local children's circus, and my husband set up a traveling recording booth to record children, and some adults, speaking about “What Peace Means To Me.” Instead of an admission fee, we asked people to bring a new pair of children's shoes. I was working with two girl scout troops at the time, talking to them about peace. After the event we had the girl scouts box up the shoes. We collected well over 500 pairs. I literally flew the shoes to an orphanage in Rio de Janeiro where they were quickly distributed to children in and around a wonderful orphanage there. Within days, children were registered in schools and also were able to join local soccer teams. We learned so much from one simple little project. For one thing, preventing children from attending school because of a lack of shoes is such a simple problem to solve. A pair of shoes can change the trajectory of a child's life, and with that first success, our “500 Shoes” Project was launched.

By this time, our circle of artists was growing, as were our humanitarian projects. In the year 2008, TIPB was brought to Tanzania with a woman who traveled there to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro with the Susan G. Komen Cancer Climb. The journey of TIPB also led to the discovery of a small village in the foothills of the mountain, which was “littered with orphans.” That year Artists for World Peace began fundraising for the orphanage, and the following year I went to meet the children in person. This was the journey that changed my life, as well as the direction of my organization. The poverty in the village was so extreme that it was no wonder villagers couldn't feed the children. I knew that we first had to lift up the entire village in order to fulfill the needs of the orphans. Very often, people get trapped into thinking that peace can only be understood in the relationship to war. But that is not true. To build peace you have to eradicate poverty and wealth inequality.

In this particular instance, the orphans symbolized a forgotten aspect of peace as justice. My organization quickly realized that these children could become instruments for peace if we provided them with the proper food and shelter. If we could accomplish that we could then bring the other villagers along and all might become future ambassadors for peace. We needed to raise money in order to give them, not only a better life, but also a fighting chance. What Artists for World Peace has sought to convey to all those interested in combatting violence and oppression is that the spirit to make change and to recognize injustice must come from within the people themselves.

It is so very true that organizations for peace, like ours, can only do so much. What distinguishes our group from many other established peace organizations is that we do not have a political arm. We do not attempt to influence how governments should treat their citizens or even build coalitions for political purposes. We interact directly with the local leaders and their communities. We provide them with examples of what we have created in the name of peace; we share our treasures of peace with them. We also show them how they can help themselves while coaching them with the various programs we established to financially assist them in their time of need. But the most important thing we have learned in our global journey is that when we show people how it can be done and allow them to take the lead in their own communities, then change will happen. It is best not to tell people from other lands that they must follow our lead but rather to provide them with the necessary tools and instruments for empowering them to do so. And when we return home we share our stories with other interested peace-builders, not only to garner their support, but also to share the word. It's all about making progress for peace—one step at a time.

Artists for World Peace then started designing projects to provide food. We created the Cluck Cluck Club and the Peace Pig Club. We sold membership into the clubs in America. The membership fee was $100. In exchange, you got to name your pig, and you received a wonderful t- shirt with our first Peace Pig's portrait on the front. With the money raised, we built pig bantas, hired local people to assist with the projects, built a huge chicken “condominium,” and gave out interest-free micro-loans so that villagers can also build mini “Peace Pigs” and “Cluck Cluck Clubs” of their own. Within a year, everyone was eating better. We also began selling pig manure as fertilizer to the local farmers. From there we came home to raise money to build a grinding center. While I was working in Tanzania, I realized so many of the people we were working with literally had trouble seeing. We raised the funds to build the Artists for World Peace Free Health Center, and in June 2012 we brought our first medical team from America to provide free eye care to over 1200 villagers. We also were able to financially support the 11 original children living at the orphanage. In time, that number grew to 24 children we were supporting. All 24 of these children are now part of our “Children of Peace” family. Due to circumstances too involved to write about here, our children are currently attending wonderful private academies, with four of our older children out of school, four currently in college, and the rest will be college bound over the course of the next several years.

Much of my life has been devoted to Peace-Keeping/Building. It is a gift to be able to do this work. Through the talents we have, as an artist and musician, my husband and I are able to use those talents to raise funds to help make permanent changes in people's lives. As our Children of Peace family grew, my husband designed a monthly concert series, “One Concert/One Child.” Musicians perform at a house concert once a month. The money raised from each concert is designated to help pay tuition and living expenses for one of “our” children. Musicians share their talents by performing. The gifts keep coming and going.

Life is a circle, and each of our projects is circular. We rely on the generosity of dancers, musicians, storytellers, poets, rock bands, artists, and Broadway stars to share their gifts with us at each of our performances and art shows. With each passing year, the scale of our projects has grown, and the end goal is always sustainability. When we perfect an idea, we then replicate it in other communities. Our Free Eye Center in Tanzania was brought back to America and became our NATIVE EYES Project. Since 2018, we have been opening free eye clinics for Native American communities in need of our services. We have grown our circle of doctors to include optometrists, ophthalmologists, and opticians. We now travel with a 40-member medical team and just celebrated taking care of our 8,000th patient.

We are guided by the original question I started with, “How can artists help change the world?” The answer I produced is very simple: We change the world of one child, one family, one village, and one clinic at a time. Whether we speak the same language or look the same doesn't matter. What does matter is that we are guided by love and believe that peace is possible. From there, we begin to define what peace looks like to each of us. For me, peace is something we create, share, and pass on. Hopefully, from these actions scholars will also appreciate how we have attempted to make history with peace.

To learn more about Artists for World Peace you can visit.

FB: Artists for World Peace. IG: @artistsforworldpeace.

YouTube: Artists for World Peace/Tanzania/NATIVE EYES/ The International Peace Belt.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Wendy Black-Nasta is a PEACE-KEEPER, a mother, a wife, an artist, and a lifelong jewelry designer. She is the Founding Director of Artists for World Peace, Middletown, Connecticut. Her work has been sold through department stores across America, through galleries, museum shops, and to private collectors. Her sacred objects have been commissioned by churches and monasteries in the US and Asia.