‘Seed of Life’ Memorial a labor of love for collaborators

Welker is an accomplished artist living and working in Kettering whose notable work “Fractal Rain” is featured inside the Dayton Metro Library downtown. He has also known his fellow “Seed of Life” collaborators for over a decade.

“We all brought very different and unique talents to the project, which made it work,” said Welker, team leader. “We have grown so much and have grown to love each other. I feel privileged to be connected with this project and to have built a bond with this team.”

The memorial was chosen from a pool of 39 proposals across the country. The team was selected based on feedback from the community, art jurors and the 8/4 Memorial Committee. Design duties were divided into five components: poem, mosaic, sculpture, bench and plantings.

“The first thing we did in order to make a place of healing was heal the place,” Welker said. “We transformed the wall into a much more beautiful, 40-foot-wide unity bench with really comfortable, dense, hardwood seating with a mosaic on the back. The sculpture will sit behind the memorial.”

Residing in a plaza next to the Trolley Stop in the Oregon District, the memorial will honor the following victims: Megan Betts, 22; Monika Brickhouse, 39; Nicholas Cumer, 25; Derrick Fudge, 57; Thomas McNichols, 25; Lois Oglesby, 27; Saeed Saleh, 38; Logan Turner, 30; and Beatrice Warren-Curtis, 36.

Welker said reimagining the site to allow for a variety of communal purposes whether as a call to action or a magnet for music will bolster reflections of remembrance.

“We have a genuine, beautiful, public place where people can gather and use for their own vigils or protests,” he said. “If somebody wants to talk about gun violence, this might be the place to do it. If somebody wants to have a cool performance, this might be the place to do it. This gathering spot is a memorial, and the spirit of the victims in a positive light moves us forward.”

‘Letting go of grief’

McMillan, founder and executive director of the Mosaic Institute, created the large mosaic, the memorial’s primary design element centered on the symbolic shape of a seed.

Created with light blue and green chips of treated porcelain and put in place by more than 10,000 volunteers from across the Dayton region, the mosaic beckoned the community to participate as a means of emotional release.

“We asked the community to please come and put a piece in this mosaic as a means of trauma release and letting go of grief,” McMillan said. “Positioning myself and my team to be receivers of that grief placed us at a different table, a different experience. Suffering and connection transcended everything at that table, and I think on this project, for the first time in my career, my calling transcended my humanity. This (project) was heavier and more guided toward a healing process rather than the fun artistic process we’re used to at the Mosaic Institute.”

More than 40 sessions across the region took place since January in the creation of the mosaic. McMillan describes the entire process as a “huge endeavor” but says it was her “greatest honor” to be a part of such a special collaboration.

“We each had our own roles in this project, but the blend and support we have been able to give to one another throughout the process has been wonderful,” she said. “We all learned a lot, there were lots of curveballs and moving pieces, but we all love each other and worked together. This collaboration gathered the energy of our collective grief and ultimately laid it to rest on sacred ground.”

‘A cohesive working unit’

Leone, co-founder of Oral Funk Poetry Productions and an Ohio Governor’s Award for the Arts winner, wrote a series of poems dedicated to the victims, first responders and survivors of the tragedy. She interviewed community members and created passages that grew from a combination of what she heard and her own experiences and impressions of the community.

In addition, phrases and words from the poems were embedded in the mosaic and bench designs including “we are all on a pilgrimage to be loved.”

A key framework for the poems and the memorial itself, highlighting empowering words such as belonging, courage, empathy and unity, is rooted in sankofa, an African word derived from the Akan tribe in Ghana. Represented by a mythical bird planted forward with its head turned backward, sankofa stresses the importance of the past serving as a guide for the future.

“In this regard, sankofa is placed in connection to justice and in connection to the victims,” Leone said. “The seed is the victim. How do we operationalize what happened to the victims? We give them justice. And the outcome the community can live with is sankofa — reach back and remember. Whenever you see sankofa, your assignment is to remember, to reach back to something beyond yourself.”

Leone admits being reticent to join the team due to the emotional demands of their task. Even so she is thankful to have been a part of such a purposeful, collective mission.

“Initially I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take this journey,” she said. “I knew it would be very hard and cause a lot of things to come up, but it has been wonderful. We were a cohesive working unit. We worked through a lot of iterations and, for the most part, we worked collectively. We also had moments of humanness, where we didn’t see things the same, but in that sacred space of understanding what it means to be artists, and the charge that is much bigger than who we are as individuals, we were aware of the greater call to bring closure to our community.”

In his self-described utilitarian role, Pate, an Ohio Governor’s Award for the Arts winner, notably assisted Welker in the sculpture component to create a grouping of nine, 7-to-9-foot-tall petal or leaf forms in stainless steel. The team described the nine forms, signifying the nine victims, as emerging from the “seeds” centered in the mosaic which form the backdrop of the geometry of the site.

“With my graphic design background, I assisted in the design aesthetic, particularly in the selection of fonts,” Pate said.

As the project evolved, he found it to be “emotionally taxing” but was relieved to see the outpouring of community support.

“This project was very sensitive,” Pate explained. “We had to make sure we thought through sensitive areas and honored those situations. And it was uplifting to have the city of Dayton and the region chime in and help with the fabrication and production. Seeing the volunteers come out in droves was very heartening.”

He also described the collaboration as a “perfect match” that produced a great learning experience that bolstered everyone’s expertise.

“We learned so much from each other,” Pate said. “We learned how to bounce ideas off each other, how to critique each other, and how to complement each other’s talents. It was almost like a rock band. We really formed a bond and are forever connected.”

‘Honored and acknowledged what happened’

As the memorial dedication approaches, 8/4 Memorial Committee Co-Chairs Sandy Gudorf and Sandy Hunt are proud of the “Seed of Life” team and their clear-eyed artistry which was receptive to the community’s desires.

“The premise for this memorial, which remains constant today, is that it honors those we lost and recognizes survivors while also recognizing how this community pulled together from the very beginning with our first responders, community partners and others,” said Gudorf, who served as president of the Downtown Dayton Partnership for 16 years.

“We constantly heard that the place we were creating should be a place of reflection and healing but also a celebration of the community’s resilience. And this beautiful ‘Seed of Life’ Memorial does all of those things. It’s been five years but we wanted to make sure we got it right.”

“We knew we wanted the memorial to be about a lot of things, especially resiliency,” echoed Hunt, former director of the Victim/Witness Division at the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office currently serving as senior director of operations for the National Organization for Victim Advocacy. “As awful as this tragedy was, we really came together as a community to provide support to one another, especially those who were directly impacted.”

Funding for the 8/4 Memorial is possible thanks to the support from the CareSource Foundation, city of Dayton, Connor Group Kids & Community Partners, Dayton Children’s Hospital, Kettering Health Network, Montgomery County, Premier Health, Sinclair Community College, University of Dayton, and donations from the Gem City Shine hosted by Dave Chappelle.

The “Seed of Life” team is confident the memorial will stand the test of time as a reflective space for grief and growth.

“For each of us, we have honored and acknowledged what happened to our city,” Leone said. “For each of us, it was an opportunity to connect in our own ways as artists with our personal truth, synthesizing that truth and putting it forth in a way that could heal others.”