Earth Month 2021 Virtual Art Gallery
Welcome. This year, Good Shepherd Services observed Earth Day for the entire month of April in honor of our new Living Land Acknowledgement.
From April 1st to April 30th, the Mission and Culture department invited all staff and program participants to submit their artwork to GSS’ Earth Month 2021 Virtual Art Gallery. This year’s theme is: “Where We Are: A community commitment to and celebration of our Earth.” The Mission and Culture department calls for artists to reflect on the sentiments in the gallery description combined with attention to your local surroundings, to New York City, to the country as a whole, and/or our entire planet. We invite all artists to use the theme, the description, and the GSS Land Acknowledgement as inspiration to create something original for GSS’ Earth Month 2021 Virtual Art Gallery.
Good Shepherd Services NYC Living Land Acknowledgment
We live on the original homeland of the Lenape, Lenapehoking. Lenapehoking includes today the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Due to colonization, the Lenape people continue today as a diaspora including two Federally recognized nations in Oklahoma, one in Wisconsin, and two in Ontario, Canada.
We recognize that honoring and respecting Mother Earth (Haki) is central to Lenape culture.
Indigenous peoples continue to protect and honor all wisdom past, present, and future – and will always do so. Indigenous peoples have and continue to experience genocide, theft of their ancestral lands, and other atrocities connected to colonization. It is necessary to honor these beginnings, history, and realities. It is essential to honor the ongoing legacies Indigenous cultures nurture within our communities and the lands that we gather, live, learn and work on. It is necessary to acknowledge that Indigenous communities are still here and continue to act against harm and work for the collective healing and sustainability of humanity and the Earth.
Artists / Poets
Shari Bailey
Dani DeLade
John-Pierre DoO’Santos
Erin (Ashanti) Martinez
Marissa Medley
Jamil Thomas
Vetha Valentine
Poetry
Dear Mother Earth by Jamil Thomas
A moment of silence, or a moment of praise
Heavenly earth,
Nursing the people, and their foolish ways
Peacefully hearing your waves,
On sea shores,
Your bodies an adventure,
So, detour, to see more
To land’s that man has ravished
Your Sun gives me strength
Sun rays for days
Fuel to man’s savage
The carrots to a rabbit
Captain Planet told you to manage her pain
Lost words of a fanatic in vain
Mother earth told you humans to be more
Traveling continents,
Building a larger repour
With those that came before me
The War Stories,
Were gory
Destruction of you
Feuds fueled by corruption
You lashed out in reluctance
Human’s destroying your substance
But Mother Gaia’s a rider
A provider to all
United we stand
Divided we fall…….LETS PROTECT MOTHER AT ALL COST!
The Gallery
“Mother Earth” by Shari Bailey
“Putting the Pieces Together” by Dani DeLade
[Untitled] by John-Pierre DoO’Santos
[Untitled] by Erin (Ashanti) Martinez
[Untitled] by Marissa Medley
[Untitled] by Vetha Valentine