Making Statements on a Clothesline
A Safe Place to display t-shirt decorations relating to domestic violence
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Swaying above the daffodils and tulips, passersby of the Atheneum garden will soon see a special kind of clothing hanging on the line - and it may disturb you, move you to action or hearten you for the forceful and supportive messages being sent.

The Independent file

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 26, the library garden will display the "Clothesline Project" launched originally on Cape Cod in 1990 and which spread nationwide to bring from secrecy and educate the public about the continuing devastation of domestic violence in its many forms. The local project is sponsored by A Safe Place, which in its initial display here in 1993 borrowed decorated t-shirts from the Cape, but now all of its shirts are created by islanders.

Shirts and art supplies are available through A Safe Place at 24 Amelia Drive. Entrants may be victims, or friends or family members of victims who have been harmed emotionally and/or physically by sexual or domestic violence, said Jennifer Gross, the Sexual Assault Program Coordinator for A Safe Place. If participants choose to decorate their shirts at home rather than at the agency office, they must provide their own fabric paints or waterproof color markers.

Gross said shirts come in different colors to specify particular codes. White shirts represent victims who were murdered as a result of domestic violence. Yellow and beige shirts represent victims of physical attacks. Red, pink and orange shirts represent those raped or sexually assaulted, while blue and green shirts stand for victims of incest or child sexual abuse. Purple and lavender shirts represent people attacked because they were perceived as or labeled as being lesbian or homosexual. Gross said there are no restrictions on the shirt art other than refraining from use of a perpetrator's full name.

"Our main purpose is to raise awareness of these issues and that they happen on Nantucket," said Gross. "Part of this is the healing process if people have been through these issues."

Gross added that the project is part of April's being designated Sexual Assault Awareness Month. She also took the project into the high school and said a shirt that stood out was red, decorated by a victim who had experienced rape and sexual assault several times in her life from childhood to early adulthood. That shirt was not created by a current student. All the shirts are saved from year to year and those displayed at the school were from prior exhibits, said Gross.

"Raising awareness that these issues happen on Nantucket and that this project raises awareness and helps people through their healing process is

what matters," she said. I