“The Ugly Duckling” by Brooke Alexander
ATHENS- Athens State University art majors Brooke Alexander and Monica Yother have won the honor of exhibition in a national juried show entitled “Unraveled: A Visual Response to the RavelUnravel Project”. The exhibition is sponsored by Project Interfaith.
Project Interfaith was born out of a desire to combat the growing tension and conflict between people of various spiritual and cultural identities; conflict that is perpetuated by cultural and religious unawareness, stereotyping, and marginalization. Project Interfaith’s community and online programming illuminates how people understand and express their spiritual and cultural identities while dispelling common myths and stereotypes that cause prejudice, violence, and hate. With the programming and educational resources, spaces are created in communities and online where people can share their personal experiences and connect with others of diverse beliefs and cultures.
One of the Project Interfaith campaigns is a website, RavelUnravel.com, that contains over 
960 short video interviews of people discussing their religious or spiritual identity, stereotypes that they have encountered, and how welcoming they have found their communities to be. The website explores the tapestry of religious and spiritual identities that make up our communities and the complexities of how we construct and deconstruct identity through stories, videos and art online and in the gallery.
Fifty-two artists submitted their work for Unraveled: A Visual Response to RavelUnravel.
Pamela Keller
18 of the artists who submitted works were students working with Professor Pamela Keller, Athens State instructor of the course Art Studio in Critique. Students completed artwork on the theme and submitted the pieces for jurying as part of their course assignment at the Alabama Center for the Arts in Decatur, Al. Alexander and Yother’s works were accepted to exhibit in the traveling show. All of the submissions may be on view via the website. Submitted pieces were juried by Brigitte McQueen Shew, Beth Katz, and Sierra Pirigyi.
The accepted pieces differ in size and medium, however the art is connected in that each piece is a visual response to RavelUnravel’s many themes; spirituality and all the ways it can be defined, practiced, questioned, ignored, and embraced; the ways the threads of one’s own spirituality have woven through their upbringing, their current lives, their communities, and; statements on prejudice, faith, misperceptions, community, isolation, celebration, ritual, tradition, connection, deities, grace, humanity, and identity.
This traveling exhibit will tour throughout 2014. The first sites of the tour have been announced. They will be shown at The Jewish Community Center and the Hospice House in Omaha, Nebraska, and a Pearl Blizek Religion and Art Lecture at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The other sites will be named at a later date.
Jewish Community Center
For questions or to become an exhibit site contact Program Coordinator, Sierra Pirigyi at sierra@projectinterfaith.org or by calling 402-933-4647.
