With all the current news about SNAP benefits being halted and food banks and food donation sites cropping up, “Hungry,” Leila Dorne‘s current exhibit at Greenburgh Town Hall about food insecurity is quite timely. Sarah Bracey White, head of our arts and culture committee, interviews artist Leila Dorne. Click onto the link below:
Leila Dorne’s ongoing series, Painted Words, is a group of reverent and irreverent views presented as literary art and executed in mixed media. Each picture includes quotes from the Bible, secular literature or original prose or poetry. Pictures extend onto all sides of the stretchers. Life continues beyond the canvas edge.
Food insecurity is a societal condition hiding in plain sight. Residents of affluent and financially challenged communities alike may be affected by hunger, and many families need to decide whether to pay rent or medical bills or to feed their families. Communities address hunger in various ways, In Port Chester, New York, for example, an organization called Meals on Main Street has taken on the task of building community through food. One venue is their blue food distribution truck, which is found daily at various sites in the Village.
In the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, an upscale community, the Ballard Food Bank provides nutritional and many other services for those in need. They are “A Hub for Hope” for anyone in need of assistance. Hungry is an artist’s attempt to bring attention to addressing food insecurity. It’s a major challenge of our time.
The Hungry show is dedicated to Dorne’s son, Jon Lasser (1975 – 2025). Jon was a brave man, a gifted writer and a major inspiration to the social justice painting series.
