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Rootwork Gallery of Arts and Letters
645 W. 18th St., Chicago, Illinois  60616
(917) 821-3050

  Owner/Operator: Tracie Hall
Primary Medium: Mixed Media
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GALLERY MISSION

Artist Statement
When I was 16 my grandmother, Bessie, asked me to walk with her through her garden. There she began to reveal the medicinal qualities of each plant and herb. She was a rootworker, a practitioner of traditional medicine, and though I was used to the teas and tinctures she prepared when any one of us was ill as a teenager I could not appreciate or accept this mantle she seemed to be passing to me. I listened obediently but let the words fall away. Decades later Bessie would return to me in a series of dreams, revisiting that moment, picking up where she left off with remedies for healing.

Rootwork Gallery of Arts and Letters seeks to showcase artistic expression that has healing; reconciliation--personal and collective; reflective practice; and investigation of folk, street and indigenous cultures at its core. It is a multidisciplinary space for discovery and experimentation through the visual and performing arts, written and oral literature and seeks to foster an inclusive community united by the search for a deeper knowing. -Tracie Hall
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