Amaras Art Alliance

Children’s Art Exhibit
(while pandemic lasts)
Artworks Created by Children During different phases of COVID19

Phase 2
“the Feel of NEW NORMAL” dedicated to Armenia’s Day of Independence (September 21)

this exhibit is for the current phase of pandemic
see previous phases below History line

Phase 2 exhibit will run from 9/21/20 (Armenia’s Independence Day) to 11/3/20 (US Election Day)
We will add new artwork to the exhibit during this period as we receive them through 10/31/20

All children will receive Certificates acknowledging their participation

Parents please encourage your children to participate. Send your completed works (maximum 3 and Jpeg format) to this email

Please see the web version of the Phase 2 exhibit

Children, their age, city, state (country) in the order the artworks were submitted

Harry 10, Winchester, MA
Alec 3 (and grandpa) Watertown, MA
Arek 5, Pasadena, CA (3 works)
Grikor 8, Yerevan, Armenia (3 works)
Christina 3, Yerevan, Armenia (3 works)
Anahit 10, Yerevan, Armenia (3 works)

H I S T O R Y
In latter part of 2019, the word came from the East that a new virus had infected humans and it was traveling West. This new deadly virous, highly contagious and quite elusive is called COVID 19. In a matter of a few months the virous spread throughout the globe causing a major pandemic. In March 2020 America became one of the hot spots of the pandemic and many cities asked their citizens to self-quarantine by staying home.

Amaras Art Alliance asked children to create artwork during the difficult months of March, April, and May. We are thrilled with the results. 14 children participated in the project with a total of 30 artworks. We thank our children and their parents from Californian to Yerevan and are inspired to continue this project through various phases until the disease is under control. Below is the June exhibit.

see text in Armenian

Phase 1
“Stay Home or Shelter-in-Place” works from March, April, May 2020 exhibit ran from 6/1/20 to 6/14/20 for works received by May 31 and was Dedicated to the International Day of Children (June 1)

also see the web version of the exhibit

Children, their age, city, state (country) in the order the artworks were submitted

Gabriella, 12, Peabody MA
Kevin Aram, 12, Albany NY
Areena, 9, Glendale CA
Arek, 5, Pasadena CA
Allie, 10 Farmington CT
Sarine, 9, Yerevan Armenia
Alec, 2, Watertown MA
Anush, 12, Yerevan Armenia
Tatev, 14, Yerevan Armenia
Lilianna, 8, Watertown MA
Elina, 11, Yerevan Armenia
Stepania, 10, Yerevan Armenia
Margarita, 12, Yerevan Armenia
Declan, 6, San Francisco CA

Peter Najarian
Peter Najarian is an accomplished contemporary American writer and a painter/sculptor. His novels include Voyages, The Great American Loneliness, The Artist and His Mother, The Daughters of Memory, The Paintings of Art Pinajian and The Naked and The Nude.

The reading he offers here is from The Daughters of Memory. The novel is narrated by an artist who is telling the story of his mother. In real life Peter’s mother comes to America at age 16 following the Armenian Genocide in Turkey where she loses her own mother in the massacres. She tells Peter she can not recall her mother’s face which then moves Peter to become a painter by attempting to create his grandmother’s image. This reading is an excerpt from a youtube video of reading by Marek Breiger and Peter Najarian at Albany YMCA/Albany Library Brown Bag Speaker’s Forum. The entire Najarian reading of 35 minutes is also downloaded on our website by his permission and can be viewed at the bottom of this presentation.

Here are two short excerpts from the main video: the first is an introduction to the book

and the second is a reading from the book. Peter has chosen to read parts of the book which are “conversational” dialogues among older women: as Peter calls it "in a Chorus" form which includes her mother and friends.

Here is the full reading of 35 min (posted 8/18/20)

Nare Garibyan

My name is Nare Garibyan. My contribution for the Amaras Art Alliance initiative is a poem from my poetry collection, When Ruins Speak: A Journey of Poems, which I self-published in 2016. The poetry collection is inspired by a life-changing journey, my friends and I experienced in 2005. We traveled for 11 days within the boarders of Western Armenia (Eastern Turkey) where we explored the ruins of Armenian villages, churches, and landscapes, lingering like ghost towns with so much to express. We discovered how much we have lost and what we can still be thankful for, as we work to protect and preserve current day Armenia.

The poem I recite here is called, The Coffee Cup, the Lion, and the Lioness. This poem depicts my reflections after unexpectedly meeting an Armenian family, in the region of Arapkir. The fascinating aspect of the meeting was that we were able to converse and spend time with an Armenian family, of three generations, in the heart of Western Armenia, speaking Armenian and living in their birthplace, in their family home. It was a profound moment.

I am a poet and a writer. When Ruins Speak is my first poetry collection. I am currently working on a children’s book, which is in the illustration stage. When I am not writing, I enjoy my role as an academic counselor at Glendale Community College, in Glendale, CA.

When Ruins Speak: A Journey of Poems is available for purchase on amazon (posted 5/22/20)

Vatché Demirdjian

Vatché Demirdjian writes, paints, teaches, and enjoys life in Paris. Originally from Lebanon, he migrated to Paris in 1976. He says, “at a young age I was fortunate to be a student of painter M. Vasken Tutunjian who opened the doors of the creative world to me.” (posted 5/19/20)
text to the poems in Armenian

Michael Minassian

The Taste of Lavash
I Know You Are Not a Scientist
Postcard from Russia

Michael Minassian is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online magazine. His short stories and poems have appeared in such journals as Comstock Review, Evening Street Review, Fifth Wednesday, and Poet Lore. His chapbooks include poetry: The Arboriculturist (2010); Chuncheon Journal (2019); and photography: Around the Bend (2017). His poems have also been included in The Armenian Poetry Project, An Anthology of Armenian Poets, and Licht: A Museum of Poetry published by Amnesty International (Netherlands). His full-length poetry collection Time is Not a River was released in 2020. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com (posted 5/9/20)

Sharisse Zeroonian

Born and raised in the Boston area, Sharisse Zeroonian is a filmmaker and writer by night and works at the Belmont Media Center by day. She has written and directed three films so far, including “The Mouse in The Bread” (2018), and has written several plays, short stories and poems. She is currently working on an original television series. Her work has been featured in The Armenian Weekly, Angie's Diary, NYU’s Minetta Review and on NPR. (posted 5/5/20)

Celeste Nazeli Snowber

This has been previously published in Hyebred Magazine, Fall 2019, Issue 06 and will be part of a bigger collection where I integrate poetry as a way of excavating and exploring the fragments connected to Armenian identity. I am fascinated by the memories hidden with our own cellular knowing from our ancestors that would have died in the genocide.

Celeste Nazeli Snowber, PhD is a dancer, writer and award-winning educator who is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University outside Vancouver, B.C., Canada. She has published widely in the area of arts-based research and her books include Embodied Prayer and Embodied Inquiry: Writing, living and being through the body, as well as two collections of poetry. Celeste continues to create site-specific performances in the natural world as well as full-length performances. She is presently finishing a collection of poetry connected to her Armenian identity, which will be integrated in her next one-woman show. Celeste’s mother was born in Historic Armenia in 1912 and survived the Armenian genocide before immigrating to Boston. Integral to Celeste’s own healing process is excavating fragments of ancestral memory, which find their way in poems and dances. They become a path to excavate trauma as well as the beauty imbued in the terroir of Armenian culture. (posted 5/5/20)

Gift Ideas

Arpi’s Orors is a collection of 15 Armenian lullabies featuring singer Arpi Shahnubaryan. Amaras is responsible for the production and funding of the CD project. A few of these songs are Orors used throughout the centuries in the historic Armenian provinces. They have been lovingly arranged and sang by Arpi who says “My wish was to capture and present the essence of songs which our ancestors sang in their villages. I wanted to keep them simple with a soft melody so every young mother, in Armenia and Diaspora can learn and sing them to their children easily.”
Winner of “Album of the Year 2019” award from AAD.am
watch as Arpi sings Tsitiki Ororu
Photo by: René Photography

Pricing: CD and song booklet $20 plus $5 shipping and handling for US orders and $15 outside of US

Art and Poetry book
By: Varteni and her daughter Zepure Arman

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