Rachel Dickerson, an artist and a public art consultant for the Washington, DC-based DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, believes the arts have the power to transform individuals and communities. "Daily study and creative effort can help us to overcome suffering. The pain may linger, but it doesn't hurt so much," Dickerson says. A native Washingtonian, she's the founder and former program manager of Artspace, part of a community advocacy program in the city's Shaw neighborhood. In 2002 she founded the Center for Community-Based Art, also in Shaw. The center helps local artists obtain, in exchange for teaching art workshops, the necessary resources for making art.
About God, There Is Something in the Heavens, Let It Reach Me, Dickerson says, "This woodcut represents the pain of, and the need for healing from, rape. The central figure is modeled on an Inca sculpture of a woman giving birth. In my woodcut the woman is embraced by the moon, which contains several Adinkra symbols from Ghana, West Africa. Sometimes it's hard to express what I'm feeling in words; the symbols offer another way to communicate. At the top is the symbol for the title."