Sculptor Erik Blome called the Reader a couple of weeks ago wondering if someone could do a story about a project he’s trying to get off the ground. Blome, who has an international practice but lives and works in the Chicago area, is putting together an exhibit of art by Ethiopian orphans that he plans to tour–along with a video and photos of the orphans and information on how Americans can support or adopt them. The artwork was done in a workshop conducted by Blome’s wife, Charlotte (also an artist), when she went to Addis Ababa to pick up their son Noah a year and a half ago. Adopting Noah has been an “incredible journey” for all of them, Erik says, and the need for more adoptive parents–Angelina Jolie notwithstanding–is urgent. According to conservative estimates, there are more than a million orphans in Ethiopia, and the number is climbing. Most have lost their parents to AIDS and other diseases, famine, or war, and many are living on the streets. Just 289 were adopted by Americans last year.
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When the Blomes, who have a biological son, Max (now seven), first decided to adopt, they were looking at China, Russia, Guatemala–“all those places you look when you decide to adopt internationally,” Erik says. Then they saw a 2002 article in the New York Times Magazine. The story, by Melissa Fay Greene, who adopted an Ethiopian child herself, cited a couple of agencies that work in the country, including Adoption Advocates International; the Blomes requested information, and the agency sent them a video. One viewing, Erik says, and “we were instantly in love with these kids.” They traveled to Addis Ababa to meet Noah in February 2004 and were directed to Kidane Mehret orphanage, where, Erik says, the nuns are devoted but overwhelmed and five babies lie to a crib, many with the bloated stomachs and orange hair that result from parasites and malnutrition. Conditions in Addis Ababa were so bad, he says, “I felt guilty walking down the street in a T-shirt with a layer of fat on my body.” As a condition of adopting through AAI, parents pledge to remain actively involved with the orphanages. “We were thinking, what could we do to help?” Erik says. When Charlotte returned to take Noah home, she brought along art supplies and a camera. That was in April 2004.
What he didn’t realize, he says now, was that the statue–commissioned by a majority-white city council and long-standing white mayor, under the supervision of white city employees–would become a lightning rod for the problems of a town deeply divided along racial lines. Soon after he installed the piece in June 2003, complaints began to surface; the local paper reported that some people didn’t think it looked like King. By December the New York Times was reporting that “For some, the statue’s pose seemed ‘arrogant’ and the face did not look like Dr. King’s. And worse, some said, the sculptor who made it is white.” Soon some of the same politicians and officials who’d approved the statue were talking about cutting its head off and putting on a new one–or taking it down altogether.
