Brooklynites get crafty for Obama

Photo: Alan Haburchak
Sharon "Shaz" Williams markets Obama-inspired jewelry to her neighbors from a street-side table in Brooklyn.

By ALAN HABURCHAK
November 03, 2008

In Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights, residents enthusiastic about the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama have been inspired to support the campaign by channeling their creative talents.

In a one-block stretch centered at the intersection of Prospect Place and Washington Avenue, several neighbors have gotten crafty for Obama, either creating art themselves or providing a venue for Obama art to be shown.

Sharon “Shaz’’ Williams, 57, sells hand-made Obama-inspired jewelry such as pins and earrings from a folding table set up in front of her apartment building on Sterling Place, near the corner of Washington Avenue. Her line of jewelry, titled “Yes we can,” has photos of Obama, his family, and even one piece with photo of the candidate at an animal abuse event holding a three-legged dog.

At first Williams tried to organize support for Obama by asking local merchants if she could put up posters in their windows and talking to her neighbors about supporting the candidate. She said that it occurred to her that she could use her jewelry-crafting skills to make something people could wear to show their support, while also acting as a fundraiser for the campaign.

“I wanted to do something great to help donate to his campaign,” she said, adding that she has registered new voters at her jewelry table as well donated a portion of the profits from her sales.

Around the corner from Williams’ sidewalk business is Kitchen for Hire, a large commercial kitchen available for rent by local caterers and cooks. The owner, Priscilla Maddox, of Crown Heights, said she, too, was an early supporter of Obama, but was unsure how to actively support the campaign.

“I felt I should support him on the basis that this is history,’’ she said. “I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought, ‘Try the cookie.’”

She called her creation the Obama Cookie. “We put the chocolate, vanilla and caramel chips in there and that would represent everybody,” she said. 

“When Priscilla had the launch for her Obama Cookie, we all knew we had to do something,” said Monifa Edwards, who with her husband, Bashiri Johnson, runs the Motique Gallery, located in a brownstone down the block from Sharon Williams’s jewelry table on Sterling Place.

The couple decided to support the campaign by capitalizing on their experience organizing community gallery events, throwing two fundraising art parties on consecutive Friday nights in October at their gallery, with artworks created and donated by local artists specifically for the fundraisers, and the proceeds donated to the Obama campaign. 

The couple sensed that such a low-key affair could get their neighbors excited about Obama’s candidacy, without intimidating them.

“It was done in a way where they didn’t feel like they were getting preached to or proselytized to,” Johnson said, “I think it was very effective. People left here and they were really amped and they were buzzed.”

Edwards and Johnson suggested a donation of $10 from each person who attended and handed out information packets that contained voter registration materials, as well as information on volunteering for the campaign. Even though most of the art did not sell at the shows, they still raised about $1,150 for the Obama campaign, and there are plans to put the remaining pieces up for auction on eBay, Edwards said.

Edwards and Johnson said their parties gave people a chance to feel more engaged in Obama’s campaign than if they were to simply give donations to his presidential campaign directly.

One of the artists who created pieces for the shows at the Motique Gallery was Derrick Cross, a painter and hip-hop artist in his 30s who lives in Fort Greene. Like Williams, Cross said he felt he could have a stronger impact with his paintings than by volunteering for the campaign.