In Syria and Northern Iraq, Yezidi mens and boys are being massacred while Yezidi women and girls, some as young as 9 years old, are being sold, raped and enslaved by Islamic State terrorists who consider they are Devil worshippers.
Some of the Yezidi have been able to flee the horrors of the genocide, some are still in sexual slavery; some were killed; some committed suicide to escape their ordeal.
The idea of these women and girls suffering is very distressing. The victims could be our wives, our sisters or our daughters. But just lamenting the situation from my comfortable home in Alabama does not do much good. So I wondered if I could use my art to actually help.
2 month ago, I contacted a number of NGO involved in helping the refugees from Iraq and Syria. I proposed to realize mosaic portraits of Yezidi Children. These portraits would then be auctioned to raise money. I would give 50 % of the profit to the cause. We would need lots of publicity around the event to raise public awareness of the situation of the Yezidi people.
The Free Yezidi Foundation in an international organization hosted in the Netherlands. It was started by Ms Pari Ibrahim, a remarkable Iraqi woman, and they are doing an amazing work. I have been in regular contact with their contact in the USA.
I decided I had to do something special, something that had not been done before. I conceived a different way to build mosaics. I do not think anybody has ever worked like this before. The look of these mosaics will be unique.
However, like for any new process, it requires experimentations and adjustments, discussion with various people. A friend helped me greatly to drastically improve my initial design process...
I realized a First prototype early in October.
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| The first prototype. |
Because the colours of some of the tiles I received from my supplier were slightly different from what I had ordered, I was not satisfied by the result. However, I realized that my concept was valid - the Right eye is beautiful. I just needed to solve the problem of the tiles colours,
I am now presently working on a Second prototype, I have increased the definition of my design.
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| The second prototype under construction. |
I am building this mosaic following my regular reverse method. I decided to work in black and white at this time as it is a little easier to control the
actual colours of the tiles. Hopefully I should have this second mosaic mounted by the end of November.
I have learned a lot with these 2 first prototypes. This type of mosaic has to be laid differently from what I usually do with bigger tesserae.
If all goes well I will design several models in December and start working on them in January 2016.
My goal is to organize a sale by the end of Spring. I have no idea of the way we will be able to organize this, and all help will be welcome. If you like this project and would like to participate, please let me know at frederic.lecut@gmail.com, or call me at (334) 798 1639.
You can also visit the Free Yezidi Foundation site to lean more about their remarkable work, about the Yezidi themselves, their religion, their culture, the challenges ahead of them, and possibly make a small donation.
I
am a modern mosaic artist with a deep admiration for ancient Greek,
Roman and Byzantine Arts. You can see some of my own mosaics on my
site mosaicblues.
If you are interested by this project or by my work in general
or
if you would simply like to drop me a line, please
or by phone at (334) 798 1639.
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Yezidi Eyes Mosaic Project,
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