Title:  Peace by Piece


Site:  Beth-Anne Life Center
1140 N. Lamon Avenue, Chicago

Artists: Nina Smoot-Cain and John Pitman Weber


Assistant: Tracy Van Duinen


Community Participants: Yolanda Arnold, Matabias Biles, Dewayne Brown, Jason Hardin, Kevin Jones, Bianca Lemon, Marcus Murphy, Dennis Reynolds, Juanita Reynolds, and Asha Williams

Sponsors:  Chicago Public Art Group, Bethel New Life, and Gallery 37


Year:  1998


Scale:  120 square feet


Materials: Broken ceramic tile


Information:  Peace by Piece is installed in the courtyard at Bethel New Life’s Beth-Anne Campus. It celebrates the strengths and rituals of African American life through interpreting community photographs in cracked-ceramic mosaic. Discussions with youths about how their families came north provided images of the Big Dipper--the direction guide for runaway slaves, and a train engine representing the Great Migration. A set table and a frieze of collard greens recall shared family traditions. Family photographs contributed by the youths are rendered in ceramic mosaic.