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To All My Students Over the Years in Various Teaching Venues,

I am continually inspired as an artist, an instructor and an individual being at what talents lie hidden in those who believe they have no artistic ability. Your willingness to believe, attempt, realize and share your beautiful ideas is truly inspiring and compels me to help you unveil more of your passion, ability and undiscovered potential…Thank you for keeping me lit and still in the game!!!

Artfully Yours,

Gerry 🙂

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One of my favorite groups are the ladies from Osher Life Long Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon Universality campus:

These are some savvy ladies with definite pizzazz and style!

Check out their beginner attempts at making jewelry in a short 1 and 1/2 hour session using sustainable, vintage, recycled and contemporary materials…favorite choices were bone & wood.

All Pretty Cool!

Phyllis

Ilana

Jennifer

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International Symposiums Workshop 2014

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Congratulations Jeffrey Smith Salon!

Talented Student and Designer

Whirl Magazine

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Congratulations Lindsey

North Allegheny Intermediater School

and!!!

Lindsey Has One Piece in the Contraband Exhibition!!!

and More!!!!!

Congressman Mike Doyle

Congressional “Art Discovery Contest”

Art Discovery Contest

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Talisman Workshop

Duquesne University Social Justice Department 2015

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LETTERS FROM DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY SOCIAL JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

With permission here are examples from three of over twenty Duquesne University Social Justice students who sent email letters as well as their Journal Reflections on the impact our program has made in their learning.

EXAMPLE B1

Ralonda Roberston

Reflective Journal / Duquesne University

GFDE 554

July 2, 2015-Not really the end, just the beginning

Today was one of the best presentations ever. I love Gerry!! Her personality, attitude, and way of thinking and viewing people and the world is something to admire. She is so passionate about what she does and the way that she presents it is dynamic. She reflects on her own experiences and has created a program for those youth that are often written off and discarded. Instead of joining the team, she decided to create a team by going the opposite direction and picking up those she found along the way and sharing with them a part of herself through the arts that ultimately lifts them up and drags them along a journey of self-reflection and building. I know and understand many of the challenges that these youth face that she works with and even walked in their shoes inside those walls, which for me, was a major eye opener of what I didn’t want to be. I know there stories and see their paths traveled every day when I step out of my door. I see the youth that are lost, alone, and trapped in a world that can be hard to exit but I consider myself to be a living witness of hope, determination, and the struggle to want and do more. We all need help and I am thankful that I had a strong family of females with me to keep me on the straight and narrow, not without many life lessons learned hard along the way, which is what Gerry is for many of her students. Her work is outstanding and her mission is dynamic. I am so glad that she was invited to speak to our class. I don’t know what my time on this Earth

is truly meant to consist of but I know that it includes working with youth. I want to help shape lives for the positive and maybe be that one person that provided something or a take away for others to be better, which I think Gerry does. I look forward to speaking with her again soon. Dr. Sheahan you have a great network of individuals that you know and are affiliated with. You have provided us with a great deal of tools and resources to truly expand our imaginary backpacks and I know that mine has been abundantly loaded!! Even though this is our last day of class it is only the beginning of a long lasting relationship that I hope to have for years to come. Thank you for an amazing course that was nothing of what I expected to be but more than I could ever have imaged. Thanks for being the outside of the box professor that brought learning to life making correlations between the social injustices, our youth and teaching all through the arts.

EXAMPLE B2

From: Ralonda Robertson
Sent: Friday, July 03, 2015 12:53 AM
To: Dr. Patricia Sheahan
Subject: Email to Gerry

Dear Gerry,

Thanks for a wonderful and innovative presentation. Your work with the youth at Shuman Center sounds so wonderful. You seem to create a space were individuals can come and be themselves and experience hands on activities, emotions, and positive interactions that many of them have never had or have been well removed from, which has to be so uplifting. Knowing first hand, what the walls of Shuman look like and how cold and lonely it can be, brings me joy to hear that there is someone that comes from the outside to give these youth a brief moment of peace and solitude away from their everyday routines and survival tactics that they often have to display inside and outside of those walls. Through the art that you have them to create these youth are given something tangible to call their own, provided insight about themselves that many have never considered, and away to forget for a minute all of the bad decisions that landed them in that facility but also consider how they can do better with the next chance. You don’t restrict their thinking and imaginations and allow them to be as creative as they can be while still residing in their known world through their language, choices, and artful expressions. Each child can remain an individual within a larger group sharing more about themselves with no words than most can imagine.

You allow yourself to be more than just a teacher and take a personal interest in each child fueling them with indirect inspiration by asking questions and assessing what they need to open up and expand their thinking. Even with a revolving door of youth coming in and out you provide equality, identity, and warmth for every child that enters into that space. No one is labeled, looked down upon, judged, are defined by their prior decisions, only living and existing in that moment putting different things into perspective as expressed through their simplistic or complex creations. You don’t push or mandate but constantly encourage participation which is a choice that they are able to make that makes them feel empowered and in control, what every child thinks is lifeJ. The whole experience is therapeutic, meaningful, creative, and well-structured without well-defined lesson plans, sessions, and direct teaching only. Through the arts your classified juvenile delinquents, bad apples, criminals and many other negative titles are transformed into more than what people see and perceive them to be and become free in their minds to dream, be their chronological age, and young artist. Thanks for giving them a voice and way out. Thanks for going above and beyond. Thanks for always having an open heart and mind that doesn’t have a bias opinion about the book before you ever get a chance to open up the pages. Thank you for being willing to enter into the trenches and look into the eyes of children that are lost and want to be found and willing to extend your helping hand in any way possible and be whatever they need you to be, within your power. Your reliability, dedication, love, care, compassion, and everything else that you bring to the table is what the children see and grab hold to, taking a piece of you around with them always. I love what you do and your attitude and interpretation is even dearer to love. I am glad to have formally met you and look forward to speaking and meeting with you again. Thank you for the materials to create a small piece of me, that was inspired through your vision, and that I can take with me for others!!

Continue to embrace what others have destroyed, something that I hope to walk in as well. Ralonda

EXAMPLE B3

Dear Ms. Florida,

Thank you for taking the time to come to our class to discuss your powerful social justice work at Shuman Center, and for engaging us in the process of constructing our own talismans.

I was struck by many things in your presentation, but there were three things that really stood out to me about your work – first, that you “sedate convicts with jewelry”, second, that you use art as a tool to promote social justice, and third, that you use recycled materials that are often thrown away to create beautiful jewelry.

Having worked at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic with a population of troubled youth, some of whom had visited Shuman in the past, some of whom probably would be shuffled out of the mental health institution and into the prison system at some point in their lives, I was very interested to hear about the ways in which you used art to get through to these youths. When you said, “I sedate convicts with jewelry”, I was thinking to myself, “wow, how can this be so”. At Western Psych patients were sedated often with large amounts of pharmaceuticals, but never with art, never with jewelry. I think this really demonstrated how powerful your program at Shuman is. You are able to get through to a ‘difficult’ population, simply by allowing them to express themselves through the art of jewelry making. A major goal of our course was to see how art can be used as a tool to promote social justice, and you are a living example of how this can be done and is being done.

From an artistic perspective, I really liked that you use recycled materials, things that are often thrown away, to create these beautiful pieces of jewelry. I do not know if you mean it as such, but I really saw this as a metaphor for the youths with whom you work. Often these children come from very difficult surroundings, and they are often thrown away by society, living out their lives meaninglessly in the clutches of the prison system. Much of society does not see these youth, they are not aware that they exist, or they choose to ignore them, much like the materials that are thrown away or unseen in the art that you make. I mean who really takes the time too gaze into a bottle cap to see its beauty or its worth? And who really takes the time to look at ‘juvenile delinquents’ or ‘convicts’ to see the light or the beauty that is within? But when you take some time and remold these materials , you end up with something beautiful. Just as when you take the time to work with the youth of Shuman, you are taking the time to uncover the light and beauty within each person, so that they too become beautiful and displayable to society like the jewelry, rather than thrown away like the bottle cap.

Thank you again for sharing your art and yourself with our class last Friday, and I look forward to opening the energy of my talisman one day when it is most needed!

Best Regards,

Katherine Symans

EXAMPLE B4

Social Justice in Educational Settings: Reflective Journal

Kathryn Blye

Duquesne University

July 2, 2015

Talisman—Challenging the Adversity in Our Lives

Tonight in class Gerry Florida shared her experiences with us about teaching jewelry art at Schuman Detention Center. It was inspiring to learn about the positive impact her art class has made on the students at Schuman. I enjoyed learning about the significance of the Talisman jewelry piece and how this form of art has been an outlet for many students to face challenges and express hardships in their lives. My favorite part about creating the Talisman piece was thinking about asking for forgiveness, offering forgiveness, and forgiving yourself for something. I think this is a healthy way for anyone to release any negative emotions and feel at peace with themselves and those who have hurt them. Personally, creating the Talisman piece was very therapeutic for me. I focused on creating a Talisman piece for my sister Jaclyn and I. She went through a lot of hard times growing up and when I was younger, I didn’t always understand. She was involved in a very mentally and physically abusive relationship, which caused a lot of distress for my family and myself. Although I never stopped loving her, there were times when I felt hatred towards her because I couldn’t understand why she was choosing to be with a sociopath when she had a family that truly loved her. Also, it was difficult because she put her own life and my entire family’s life in danger. Luckily, she got out of the relationship and moved across to country but it took me almost two years to let go of the anger and frustration I felt towards her. However, I am so proud of her for her strength and courage to be able to overcome such a difficult and scary time in her life and I am so grateful to have my sister back and healthy. Creating the Talisman piece allowed me to reflect on a difficult time in our lives and appreciate my sister for overcoming her struggle.

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