A Common Thread by Loren Meyer

Artist StatementThis is my grandmother's story. Anne Schneps came to US from "the old country," Austria-Hungary, just prior to WWI. She escaped certain death to join her brother in America. All the family members who remained in Europe were murdered because they were Jews. My grandmother had a treacherous journey. She told me that she hid in sewers until she could get to the ship and journey to safety. Anne arrived at Ellis Island on a Friday night. Her brother, an Orthodox Jew, could not meet her because it was the Sabbath. My grandmother spent her first night in America alone, sleeping on a bench. Her brother picked her up after the Sabbath. She was just eleven years old. Married and widowed by the age of 40, she took over her husband's tailoring business, working another 45 years. She had to retire at age 85, when she lost her sight to macular degeneration. She lived with my mother and father until her death at the age of 102. Grandma lived 91 years after her arrival in the USA. She raised her two sons and was able to see all her grandchildren marry and have children of their own. She is my hero. My grandmothers story is every refugee's story. This is why I chose to my grandmother’s journey to encircle a collage of refugee stories around a common theme. I used thread, notions, and a needle from my grandmother's sewing kit, and weaved women travelers into the journey picture. This was her pathway to living, the fabric of survival. Our country’s compassion toward refugees is the fabric upon which the American way of life was tailored. — Loren Meyer