This is the third year I’ve participated in the Souls Shot Portrait Project as an artist and as a liaison with my synagogue, Congregation Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, where the Philadelphia SSPP exhibition will be on view starting next week (see flyer below). I joined Souls Shot Portrait Project thinking it was a way to use my artistic skills to serve and connect with my larger community. I had no idea how much of an impact it would have on me and my more immediate community.
On the personal level, meeting each of the mothers of the victims (all sons) was an honor and a heartbreak. The horrible gun violence statistics sprung to life for me and felt very close to home. I have a teenage son and could easily see myself within these mothers’ grief with just a few twists of circumstance and fate.
My friends at Beth Am and I were so touched by the opening exhibition the first year I was involved that we asked to host it at Beth Am during its yearlong tour of the region. A few months later we hung the show in our most sacred space, the sanctuary, where the portraits met with an outpouring of support from my fellow congregants and became the focus of an unexpectedly moving Friday night service whose impact still lingers.
Since that first year, Beth Am has become increasingly involved with gun violence prevention. We’ve partnered with CeaseFire PA, organized educational programs for ourselves and other faith based organizations in our area, and are seeking ways to support community based programs. When asked at our first meeting with CeaseFire PA about what motivated people to participate, most of our congregants said it was seeing the Souls Shot Portrait Project exhibition.
Written by Elisa Abeloff, artist for Souls Shot Portrait Project.
Image description: Artist Elisa Abeloff (left) with Lisa Harmon (right), and the portrait of Alan Christopher Gray, Harmon’s son, by Abeloff.
