Neil Horsky is a close associate of us here @ Boston Hassle. We’ve been working together for years checking into This Month In Boston Counter Cultural History, and the like! Neil’s latest brainchild is the The Elma Lewis 2018 Women in Community Arts Collectors Edition Trading Cards set. We at Boston Hassle are so excited to bring this idea and project into the tangible realm of reality. Check out the digital version of the set below and please visit the Frugal Art Collective exhibit located @ Dorchester Art Project to grab a set IRL. Cards will be available @ other local shops soon as well. Get in touch with [email protected] to order sets online.

Find out about all the projects that Neil Horsky is working on @ horskyprojects.com.

Boston Hassle Presents:
The Elma Lewis 2018 Women in Community Arts Collectors Edition Trading Cards

In the form of Cheap Art, this project celebrates the oft-unheralded field of Community Art in Boston, and the essential and inspirational leadership role of women in the field.

The ten women honored in this set of trading cards are putting their remarkable and diverse creative talents to the profound task of meeting our city’s most pressing social and emotional needs. An eleventh card commemorates Boston Community Arts legend, Elma Lewis.

The printed trading cards format is a nostalgic, novel, and affordable way to hold and share this meaningful content. Complete trading card sets are available for $5 at Dorchester Art Project’s Frugal Art Collective Gallery, 1486 Dorchester Avenue in Fields Corner. Proceeds go to support the work of the artists.

A launch party and meet-and-greet with some of the honorees will be held at 40 South vintage store, 40 South Street in Jamaica Plain, on Saturday, April 27th from 1:30-6pm. Come buy a set or two, imbibe, chat, and get your favorite trading cards autographed by the celebrities themselves!

The Elma Lewis 2018 Honorees:

Dey Hernández

A radical puppeteer in the Puerto Rican Papel Machete collective and member of the international activists AgitArte, Dey’s cultural work has served immeasurably Boston’s Right to the City housing justice movement. With AgitArte Dey was Art Director and Curator for When We Fight, We Win!, a publication surveying the creative tactics of present-day social movements, and co-developed a free “art kit” for activists to enliven organizing and amplify resistance.

Emma Leavitt

A talented painter and songwriter under the moniker Solei, Emma’s work permeates with a palpable joie de vivre. Moreover, she has propelled herself into an organizing effort of significant and lasting benefit to Boston and the independent artists therein. As volunteer Creative Director of BRAIN Arts Organization, Designer-in-Chief of the free Boston Compass newspaper, and Gallery Manager at Dorchester Art Project, she is elevating “DIY” into the aesthetic stratosphere.

Elma Lewis

This 2018 trading card set commemorates Elma Lewis, who in 1950 founded the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in Roxbury “to support anything positive in black life and to destroy anything negative that touches it.” In the 1960s she started the Elma Lewis Playhouse in the Park summer concert series in Franklin Park and the National Center for Afro-American Artists, who in 1980 opened a museum at 300 Walnut Avenue to exhibit contemporary art of the African Diaspora.

Shaw Pong Liu

Of Shaw Pong‘s many projects harnessing music’s power to unify and heal, none could be as challenging or gut-wrenching as Code Listen: a workshop series pairing Boston police officers with teens to write and perform songs about gun violence, racism, and community-police relations. This ensemble has grown to include mothers of homicide victims and spawned Musical Memorials featuring live music at the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace honoring the fallen.

Hilken Mancini

Founder and Program Director of Boston’s Girls Rock Campaign and Ladies Rock Camp; guitar heroine in The Monsieurs and frontwoman for the all-female band Shepherdess; fashion guru at 40 South Street vintage store; Punk Rock Aerobics athlete and co-founder — there’s seemingly no end to Hilken’s creative energy and drive to educate, inspire, heal and empower women, girls, and Boston artists of all kinds. She’s the definition of cool, and she’s contagious.

Marsha Parrilla

Marsha is a whirling vessel churning out social progress. Her Dance for Social Justice workshops help marginalized communities organize and build solidarity; the annual We Create! festival in Roxbury celebrates the work of women artists across disciplines; and Danza Orgánica Contemporary Dance Theater company unfolds societal issues with throes of raw emotion, including the recent work Melaza dedicated to survivors of Hurricane Maria.

Veronica Robles

Throngs of fans hang on Veronica‘s every word as singer in Boston’s first all-female Mariachi band. Responding to fame by giving back, she co-founded the Veronica Robles Cultural Center offering cultural programs and youth jobs. Her commitment to East Boston has led to a Mayor’s leadership board appointment and the dedication of To Immigrants With Love, a mural featuring her portrait alongside Sicilian immigrant-entrepreneur Carmello Scire.

Femke Rosenbaum

“One woman changed JP.” Femke founded the community art center Spontaneous Celebrations and the iconic Wake Up The Earthfestival in 1979, followed by the Jamaica Pond Lantern Parade in 1984. Borne of the anti-highway and community gardening movementsof the 1970s, Spontaneous provides irreplaceable cultural programming for Bostonians young and old, serving as a steadfast reminder that art is for everyone.

Paloma Valenzuela

Bostonians, according to film and TV, are either tough guys from Southie or Cambridge-transplant academics. Paloma’s The Pineapple Diaries flies in the face of this fallacy. An entertaining sitcom offering slices of life from a group of 20-something Dominican-American women in Jamaica Plain, The Pineapple Diaries is funny, thoughtful, and a precious gift — a much-needed reflection and reinforcement of Boston’s vital multicultural identity.