FAIRMONT — Artist Alisha Monroe has a burning desire to discover the truth about her family’s history.
“I’m still digging, not satisfied. I have this fire that burns in me,” Monroe said.
Because of that fire, she sought an Artist Support Grant to help fuel that quest and was awarded for her efforts.
The museum educator recently was awarded $1,000 from the grant program, which is supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The grant program support artists in varying disciplines who wish to enhance their skills and/or business operations, while ultimately allowing their work to be discovered by new audiences.
Monroe has always been a curious person, which is how her quest began for the truth of her family’s history.
“I ask a million questions,” Monroe said. “I’ve always been right beside my grandparents, and I’ve just soaked up everything they’ve said like a sponge. When I started working at the museum it just took off.”
Monroe began working as a museum educator at the Museum of the Southeast American Indian, located on The University of North Carolina at Pembroke campus, 10 years ago. Before joining the museum, Monroe was a visual arts teacher at Fairgrove Elementary School, where she also worked for 10 years.
“Art has always been apart of my life,” she said.
It was through visitors at the museum that she accumulated bits and pieces that filled the puzzle of her history.
“Our people (the Lumbees) just have a strong since of who they are and who they come from, so the first thing they ask is ‘Who’s your people?’” Monroe said.
Over time she also has had the opportunity to sit in on various “academic and natural people-to-people” conversations, which led to her opening an Ancestry account.
“It’s important to me to understand who I come from. I want to be able to tell my son that when he gets older,” she said.
Monroe will use her grant money to research her family history and tell their story through a 10-piece, mixed-media art collection exhibition set to premiere next summer.
“That’s pretty ambitious for December to June, but I’m going to try,” Monroe said.
The collection will include photo collages situated on harvested old windows for a play on the “windows into the soul” phrase.
“It’s me merging my genealogy research with family and our histories and things that are important to our native people and culture,” Monroe said.
Monroe plans to sand down the windows’ wooden frames and clean the glass. She will then paste the lyrics of old church hymns, like “Meet Me at the Cross” and “Blessed as I Am,” from her grandmother’s hymn book to represent the importance of religion in her family and their love of singing.
“Being in the church, my family was very religious. My dad was a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher,” she said. “It’s all about finding the hymns that really mean something to me or that are personal to me.”
The photos in the collage will pay homage to her family, representing them coming together after being separated by death and disputes.
“My grandmother, her father died when she was very young,” she said. “Then my grandmother’s mother died when she was 2 years old, so I’ve sort of being inspired by these tragic stories and I want to use the art to bring them together.”
“For me its a way to kind of create this alternate world where they can still be together and also celebrate the things that make us who we are,” she added.
She will also touch on an old story of family dispute between her great-grandfather and his neighbor that left the neighbor dead.
“I’m itching to find out why he was so angry,” she said.
Because she was just awarded the funds, Monroe is in the beginning phases. She plans to use the holiday break as a time to target each task.
Vibrina Coronado, Joy McGugan, Kendreek Mitchell are the other Robeson County recipients of the Artist Support Grant.
For more information about grants and subsidy programs provided by the Arts Council visit https://ift.tt/2KQx9zh.
Tomeka Sinclair can be reached at [email protected] or 910-416-5865.
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