Artwork Collage Provided by Helen Murdock-Prep
October 7th will mark seven years since #MeToo moved women the world over to share all too common, each uniquely painful stories of sexual abuse. Now, finally, local artist Helen Murdock-Prep is able to share hers, too.
“Don’t Tell: The #MeToo Art of Helen Murdock-Prep,” has transformed the Huntington Arts Council’s 213 Main Street, Huntington Gallery. This multimedia exhibition illustrates experiences the artist has been both compelled to relive and unable to share for most of her life. Throughout, her art has persisted. As such, the show weaves old works and new; revealing deep, personal meaning long hidden in plain sight, as well as more enduring trauma and ongoing healing revelations.
An Immersive, Interactive Mixed-Media Experience
There’s a floor-ceiling web that manages to evoke both the sense of being lost in a forest and trapped in a web, filled with diary entries and photos. Framed pieces relate both directly to the experience, and the artist’s sweet endeavors ever since to offer healing to all who may require it. Copies of Murdock-Prep’s comic strip, “Shrinking Violet”, touch on issues of depression, anxiety, panic attacks and agoraphobia.
Helen’s original diary is enclosed in a case. There are videos made by the artist, as well as interactive aspects inviting the audience to join in. On the healing side, rocks hand painted by the artist are for the taking. On the cathartic side, visitors are leaving their own hashtags. Some say nothing. Others enough to bring tears. “They just keep coming,” said HAC Asst Director Maureen Starr, “it’s really incredible.”
An Artist Out of Necessity; A Lifelong Endeavor to Heal
“The truth is, I became an artist out of necessity,“ said Murdock-Prep at the 9/20 reception, “I would much rather have been on Broadway, singing and dancing and acting for you, but that didn’t happen. My life was derailed another way because of a predator. And so, I had no choice but to stand up not only for myself but for EVERYONE else who has been harmed this way and HOLY COW! IT’S LIKE EVERYONE!”
It’s incredibly moving. In the middle, toward the back, there’s a mirror and a healing chair where folks are invited to confront their own demons and sit with them.
“We cleared out office space in the back for those who need some privacy,” said HAC Director Keiran Johnson. “It hasn’t gone unused.”
It's EVERYONE: A Community Responds, "#Metoo"
Women get most of the attention. The natural general size and upper body strength difference makes it so easy for us to understand the power dynamic when it’s a man violating a woman. Through this community catharsis that Helen and the HAC have orchestrated, it’s becoming more and more clear: It’s not just women who are the victims. #Mentoo.
It’s been an extraordinary experience for the artist to have so many now share their own stories with her. “The one thing I want you to know, that has been so eye-opening,” said Helen, “is that it is also almost every man, too. Some walk in and flat out say, ‘Good thing this never happened to me!’…and then they take a walk around the web…They emerge, and approach me. And then they tell me. My heart breaks.”
A #MeToo Panel Discussion on educator sex abuse occurred September 21st with Helen Murdock-Prep, S.E.S.A.M.E. President Terri L. Miler, Dr. Charol Shakeshaft, and Dr. Billie-Jo Grant. On October 5, there will be a Candlelight Vigil at 6:30PM at the Arts Council where folks are invited to join in speakers, singers and story tellers in an endeavor “to tell, to expose, to voice, to shed light, to heal.”
#MeToo Candlelight Vigil: Saturday, October 5, 2024 @6:30pm
Come gather with us at the Huntington Arts Council, 213 Main Street, Huntington to tell, to expose, to voice, to shed light, to heal. Speakers, singers, storytellers.
Rise, Sweet Child. Rise.
The objective is collective catharsis. The goal is healing. Show materials quote Judge Aquilina’s encouragement to the victims of the serial abuser Dr. Nassar in court: “Leave your pain here and go out and do your magnificent things.”
Every day, millions of women and so many others, got out there and give it their best. Their magnificence may simply be to make their way out of the dark valleys of trauma. Grateful to those who so endeavor, and even more to those who lift as they climb.
