A message from the creator - Wendy Clarke
Welcome to The American Tapestry, a place for those of us who live in the United States to share, learn, and reflect about how we got here.
There are no exclusions: we hope to hear from everybody. Were your ancestors American Indian? Enslaved Africans? Voluntary immigrants? Are you yourself a naturalized citizen? Undocumented person? Please share your story. Every experience and perspective, painful and glorious, is part of our national tapestry.
The seed of this site was planted in 2004, when I set up a photo booth just outside the huge naturalization ceremony that takes place every month in Los Angeles, where 8,000 people at a time become citizens of the United States.
I offered to take free photos of the new citizens, for them to keep. The portraits caught that very special moment in the new citizen’s life. I also asked these new citizens to write about their journey to American citizenship. I collected photos and stories from Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Spain, France, England, Yugoslavia, Malta, Italy, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Togo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, India, Romania, Ghana, Jamaica, Germany, Jordan, Philippines, Guatemala, Peru, Canada, Egypt, Eritrea and many other countries.
Those photographs and stories are now the core of this online exhibition, The American Tapestry. We invite you to please upload your own family’s story and photo, and to spend some time visiting and learning about your national neighbors. Together we will create a tapestry that reflects the astounding diversity and amazing hope that makes America the inspiring and innovative country that it is.
Wendy’s Bio
I want to tell you a little about myself.
I am a video artist who has created many projects that have been exhibited internationally on TV, and in museums, galleries and public places. I am also an art therapist, with a PhD. Using art as a transformational process, I have worked for many years with people in prison, members of the AIDS community, and women and children recovering from traumatic abuse.
I have been working on an ongoing interactive art piece called “The Love Tapes.” It is a series of 3-minute videotapes where a person sits alone in a room and talks about love, while looking at himself or herself on the video monitor. Over 2,500 people have made a tape so far, and my ambition is for every person in the whole world to make their own tape to add to the collection. “The Love Tapes” have been seen on PBS and exhibited at amazing places including the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT; Anthology Film Archives, NYC; the World Trade Center, NYC; the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN; the Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA; the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC; Festival Mondial du Theatre, Nancy, France; Rio/Fest, Brazil; and Ambulante International Documentary Film Festival in Mexico.
“One on One” (dialogues between inmates and strangers on the outside) was broadcast on KCET and exhibited in Los Angeles. My video installations have been seen at the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid; Artpark in Lewiston, NY; and other galleries, museums, and festivals.
In 2001 I had retrospectives at Anthology Film Archives in NYC and at the UCLA Hammer Museum’s Filmforum in LA. Some of the funders who have supported my work include: the National Endowment for the Arts; New York Council on the Arts; California Council on the Arts; Annenberg Center; California Youth Authority; and foundations including Rockefeller, Irvine, Citibank, AT&T, and Lucent Technologies. I am especially grateful to the recent Kickstarter donors that made this site possible.
I live in Northern New Mexico, where I raise 4 miniature donkeys, 2 llamas, 1 alpaca, 6 goats, 4 sheep, 6 dogs, 1 cat, and 10 chickens. I spin the wool from my animals and create wearable art. My muses are my donkeys, who have inspired a series of "Dancing Donkey" iPad drawings.
You can email me at: theamericantapestry@gmail.com