Monday, August 30, 2010

"Beyond the mountains, more mountains..." // In Haiti, "The Art of Resilience"

View the extended article and video slide-show from Smithsonian Magazine here // Excerpt Below

By Bill Brubaker

Six weeks had passed since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, killing 230,000 people and leaving more than 1.5 million others homeless. But the ground was still shaking in the nation’s rubble-strewn capital, Port-au-Prince, and 87-year-old Préfète Duffaut wasn’t taking any chances. One of the most prominent Haitian artists of the past 50 years was sleeping in a crude tent made of plastic sheeting and salvaged wood, fearful his earthquake-damaged house would collapse at any moment. "My future paintings will be inspired by this terrible tragedy,” he told me. “What I have seen on the streets has given me a lot of ideas and added a lot to my imagination.”

There was an unmistakable look of hope in the old master’s eyes. “Deye mon, gen mon,” a Haitian proverb, is Creole for “beyond the mountains, more mountains.”

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