Miami Herald - July 19, 2001
Allison C. Altmann

After holding office jobs in their native New York City for years, the Stewarts felt something was missing.

``We wanted to make an impact that would benefit the community and not just ourselves,'' Stewart said.

So they began expressing themselves through art in the mid-1980s. With no prior artistic training, they quit their day jobs, moved to Miami Beach and began painting. For publicity, they hung their work in the windows of banks and other high-traffic locations, and eventually found studio space at ArtCenter South Florida on Lincoln Road.

They settled in, made friends and acquired a small following. When most people were reading about HIV/AIDS for the first time, the Stewarts were experiencing the tragedy of the virus firsthand.

``I felt as though I was going to a memorial a month,'' Stewart said. ``I couldn't just sit back and watch this epidemic get worse, without attempting to educate the community on how to make it better.'' A decade later, they began doing just that. In 1997, with their Center for Folk and Community Art already in its fifth year, the Stewarts visited Miami-Dade schools such as Nautilus Middle School and North Miami Beach Senior High, and hospitals such as the Miami Children's Hospital, to conduct workshops for people living with HIV/AIDS.

With help from Home Depot -- which supplied wooden panels -- and other local contributors including Miami-Dade County, the What It Feels Like to Live With HIV/AIDS mural has grown to 96 feet long and more than six feet high.

They used the artwork created by participants at the workshops to build the mural in a unique way. ``Telling Stories Through Visuals'' was their two-step process, made by extracting pictorial testimonials from the community and running awareness events to display those testimonials. They went into schools and hospitals to teach AIDS patients to depict their experiences through art. Then, they patched the art together and displayed it at awareness ceremonies across the county and country, at venues such as the Dallas Public Library, San Diego Public Library and the Museum of Science in Miami.

Sema Coppersmith of the Children's Home Society in Miami, where the Stewarts held workshops, said she felt that attending the session changed the outlooks of the HIV-positive youths and the community.

`` Participating in your project allowed our children and parents to work together in putting the experience of living with the virus into words and pictures,'' she told the Stewarts.

The 500-plus contributors to the 4-year-old mural range in age from 5 to 85.

Sixty of the 96 feet are displayed at the North Miami Public Library, 835, NE 132nd St. in North Miami, until Aug. 31.

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