pastel on paper 19.5 x 29″
Such breakfast programs were duplicated across the country. The Free Breakfast for School Children Program, or the People’s Free Food Program, was a community service program run by the Black Panther Party that focused on providing free breakfast for children before school. The program began in January 1969 at Father Earl A. Neil’s St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, located in West Oakland, California and spread throughout the nation. This program was an early manifestation of the social mission envisioned by Black Panther Party founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, along with their founding of the Oakland Community School, which provided high-level education to 150 children from impoverished urban neighborhoods. The breakfasts formed the core of what became known as the party’s Survival Programs. Inspired by contemporary research about the essential role of breakfast for optimal schooling and the belief that alleviating hunger and poverty was necessary for Black liberation, the Panthers cooked and served food to the poor inner city youth of the area. The service created community centers in various cities for children and parents to simultaneously eat and learn more about black liberation and the Black Panther Party’s efforts. (Wikipedia)
For the foreseeable future my drawings will depict Mutual Aid and Chosen Families. Generous support has been given through the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, Equity grant and the Minnesota State Arts Board, Creative Support for Individual Artists grant. I am very grateful.
Mutual aid is a voluntary, collaborative exchange of resources and services for common benefit that take place with community members working together to overcome social, economic, and political barriers in meeting common needs. This can include physical resources like food, clothing, or medicine, as well as services like breakfast programs or education.
Resources are shared unconditionally and is not charity. It is an ongoing service where groups often go beyond material or service exchange and are set up as a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions.
Mutual aid groups are distinct in their drive to flatten the hierarchy, searching for collective consensus decision-making across participating people rather than placing leadership within a closed executive team. With this joint decision-making, all participating members are empowered to enact change and take responsibility for the group.
I intend to draw attention to historical and modern day mutual aid/community service and its place in a thriving community.
Chosen Families are nonbiological kinship bonds, whether legally recognized or not, deliberately chosen for the purpose of mutual support and love. Basically, these are the people who understand you, support you, celebrate you, help you, and love you, even without biological ties.
As I continue to explore pastel on paper I intend to tell visual stories where I hope folks will recognize and see themselves thriving in the drawings. These two drawing series are intended to remind us of our history as well as what’s currently going on in our communities, reminding us that despite the racist exclusionary systems which continue to exist – we’re not having it. And, we are not alone.
Individual Artist Equity Grant is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
ARAC and MSAB receive generous funding from the taxpayer’s of Minnesota’s legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund
Carolyn Olson is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
