Anne Trauben

Prayers for the Pandemic; Prayers for Progress; Prayers for the Planet; Prayers for the Presidency Anne Trauben

Volume 3 of Drawing Rooms' Nationwide Public Arts Project. The third wave of artists from New Jersey and locations across the country have put out their prayers flags at their homes, apartment buildings and college campuses, in woods and public parks. While many are isolated, and travel is limited by coronavirus, these artists have found a way to reach out to their local community and also create an interconnected community with each other through the prayer flag project. The collected images of their works on-site, and their thoughts and responses to life during the pandemic, are brought together in Drawing Rooms' presentation in this volume available as both an online and a print book. This third part of the project includes a Jersey City display at the Topps Building, outside Drawing Rooms gallery, which spans over 70 feet down Newark Ave. Collaborations and shared concepts and materials between the group of ten women, which includes two sets of sisters and three collaborations, make for a unified front, full of brightness, movement and sound. Prayers for the Pandemic; Prayers for Progress, which began 5/15/20, curated by Anne Trauben, is an ongoing nation-wide public art project by Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ. The exhibition asks artists to create prayer flags, drawing inspiration from Tibetan prayer flags which bless the surrounding area in which they are placed. This project responds to the world we find currently ourselves in. In March, 2020, coronavirus began to shut down the country. Frontline healthcare workers have been doing amazing heroic work and essential workers are keeping our society going. On Memorial Day, George Floyd's murder brought issues of racial inequality and injustice to the forefront. Then came the fires in California, Oregon and Washington State. And finally, the long awaited election. While we are all living through such stressful times, we could all use blessings. Drawing Rooms intention is to flood the world with artist's prayer flags.