September 14, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Slain student saved her life
Hill artist tired of losing students to violence
by MARIE FOWLER

“I wish we could put our children in cocoons,” says Chestnut Hill artist and educator Marsha Meketon Schamber, “and protect them from violence so they can all emerge as butterflies.”

Practically a one-woman Save the Children organization, Schamber has lost five students to gun violence. “I think people have the idea these kids who are getting shot are thugs,” Schamber laments. “Too many children wake up in the morning feeling they have no future. Until we bring rich and poor together, we won’t have a good world.”

Cells, Wombs, and Cocoons, Schamber’s lively, rainbow-hued mixed media textiles, drawing, paintings and collages on view at The Sedgwick Gallery through September 25, reflect the exuberance and passion of an artist who is highly attuned to the needs of our children and to issues of nurturing.

“I teach an incredible group of kids,” Schamber remarks, speaking of her students at Mt. Airy’s Martin Luther King High School. Having taught in the School District of Philadelphia for more than 35 years, Schamber mourns the lack of further opportunity and higher education for her students, acknowledging that current selection standards cannot measure creative ability.

This is the Cancer Survivors’ Chorus Line, now on exhibit at Mt. Airy’s Sedgwick Gallery. (Photos by Marie Fowler)

Schamber recalls Algie Dennis, whom she taught at Overbrook High School. “I adored him. I met his mother,” Schamber recounts. “One day, Algie came to me and said, ‘Mrs. Schamber, my mother has breast cancer. You better get a mammogram.’” Schamber had no risk factor, no family history. “I breast-fed five children forever!” she confides. But, to appease Algie, who wrote his senior project on breast cancer, Schamber complied. The mammogram probably saved her life, catching an early cancer just two years ago.

And Algie, studying sports medicine at Millersville University, was killed this May during a robbery while he was playing dice with boyhood friends outside a school in Wynnefield.

At King, Schamber taught Terrell Johnson, another victim of violence. “He shared my birthday, helped me clean my room,” she remembers.

Once a counselor at Allens Lane Art Center, Schamber had 10 children in her bunk. Of those 10, two are now dead.

When the Salvador Dali exhibition took the city by storm a couple of years ago, a contest for young artists was held. Six hundred students from across the spectrum entered, many from, as Schamber points out, “the best private schools with the best supplies.” But the winner was one of Schamber’s own, Aneisha Allen. Unfortunately, because of travel difficulties, Allen was not able to accept the prize trip to Spain, but the contest sponsors, AVANTA, awarded her money instead. Currently, Schamber is working with Allen to find a college program that will accept the talented young artist as a foreign student. “Her work brings tears to your eyes,” Schamber insists.

Schamber rightly sees art as a vehicle for students to break out of their often unpromising environments. When King artists traveled to Harrisburg to exhibit, it was for many, as Schamber notes, “their first time to get on a train, to go outside the city.”

Curriculum tracks at King are divided into different “pathways.” Ironically, in Schamber’s view, her program is a part of the “Service & Art” pathway

“Draw your paintbrush or draw your gun,” Schamber wryly observes. Both programs share a hallway and display cases and, as Schamber relates, the JROTC commander is quick to point out that the U. S. Army is the number one employer of artists and musicians in the country. “I deliberately wear peace images,” Schamber adds.

A youthful 57, Schamber understands how students learn. Schamber often reads at her desk, knowing curious minds will inquire about what she’s doing and want to emulate her. She encourages young artists not just to look at pictures, but to read about famous artists. Assigning tasks in steps assists students in organization. “We learn together,” she explains.

Schamber possesses the wisdom to look past the color of a child’s skin and accept, even celebrate, him for the individual he is.

Many of her mixed media pieces are constructed with felt, despite her disavowal of sewing or embroidery skills. Upon inspection, the viewer finds her bright colors and long, irregular stitches have much in common with African American quilting traditions. Schamber agrees, aware of quilting patterns that once were roadmaps to freedom via the Underground Railroad.

Indeed, Schamber’s vibrant work doesn’t look as though it was done by a Caucasian woman. She laughs. “Well, my students do sometimes ask: ‘Are you sure you’re white?’”

Schamber’s love of textiles and stitching is infectious. Her students insist on making the same sorts of constructions, some even volunteering: “My grandmother knows how to sew; can she come in?” Schamber envisions a project akin to Judy Chicago’s birth project some day, bringing together several generations of minority women and girls.

As a child growing up in Mt. Airy, Schamber was charted by her parents for a career in ballet. “I couldn’t stand it,” she confesses, “but they kept telling me to wait until I got my toe shoes.” In seventh grade, Schamber heard about the Cheltenham Art Center classes and happily exchanged her tutu for an artist’s smock.

After graduation from Germantown High School, Schamber went to Penn State. “But even as an art major, I had to take biology,” the artist moans, admitting to less than stellar grades on her tests. She talks with fondness of professor George Shofstall who “was really strict, gave no A’s.” When professor Shofstall told her she would have a C for the course without taking the final, Schamber was thrilled. But her boyfriend advised her to take the exam anyway.

Schamber carted her art portfolio to the final, and when she turned in her exam, the curious professor asked about her prints.

“When I explained they were about meiosis and mitosis, he wanted to see them. And when my grades came over Christmas, I got an A!” The incredulous boyfriend (whom she later married anyway!) insisted there had been an error, but a visit to the professor confirmed Schamber’s grade. “He told me anybody who could illustrate cell division like that deserved an A,” she beams.

Her work still has a strong scientific focus, despite her contention that “I have no understanding of biology.” Infused with riotous color, often focusing on the female form, Schamber’s composition are highly personal, but in many ways universal. Indicating her chorus line of cancer survivors, the artist, herself one of them, instructs: “Bald women are not ashamed to lose their hair. They are proud now.”

“My tapestries reflect my life,” Schamber explains. Before her children were born, cell-type forms dominated her picture planes. The arrival of the stork heralded a move toward womb-like images, reflecting the artist’s obsession with nourishing and nurturing. Now an empty-nester, Schamber is obsessed with the cocoon and its implications of transformation and metamorphosis.

“I’m married to a wonderful man who loves me,” Schamber attests. “I’ve been lucky with my daughters and lucky in life. I love my job. Who gets to play with kids and do art? I would go to work even I weren’t paid! My students are a blessing. I love them!”

Schamber is looking forward to an October exhibition of work by her multi-talented students at Sedgwick. “They are the most incredible artists!”

Located at 7137 Germantown Ave., the gallery is open by appointment (267-997-7408). Further information is available on the web at www.sedgwickcenter.org.