By Karen Law

Ngozi Omeje has gone through a lot of shoes.

For weeks she has picked up castoff flip flops and rubber sandals and cut them into small pieces to suspend in the air over her pottery scraps. The dangling pieces form a whale in an ocean of string, casting its shadow in circles of clay. Emerging from inside the whale is one pair of sandals, whole and unbroken.

The 31-year-old University of Nigeria Nsukka art student titles her creation, “Imagine Jonah,” as in the biblical story of Jonah and the whale.

Omeje and her fellow artists, Dr. Godwin Uka, the printmaking chair at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and his wife, Ola, know they have a destination to reach—they have been invited to create artwork and conduct workshops for “Nigeria Month” at the Sev Shoon Arts Center in Ballard this June—but like the famous biblical character, their journey to practice their craft and bring a glimpse of it to Seattle has been like being in the belly of a beast.

Omeje, who will create a permanent installation for the center as artist-in-residence, has been waiting for months to get her travel visa approved. She was supposed to be here in mid-May but was not cleared until May 18. The Ukas are still waiting. It is only the latest chapter in a story that started a year ago.

Their invitation came about when Seattle artist and Sev Shoon director Dionne Haroutunian met Omeje and the Ukas last May. Haroutunian was at University of Nigeria Nsukka as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy to Nigeria.

Besides teaching printmaking and giving lectures there, Haroutunian also visited campuses in Lagos and Enugu. The experience inspired her.

"Nobody knows much about Nigeria except for the horror stories and the violence we read about in the paper,” said Haroutunian. “It makes us not see the people, and yet the human connection is so fabulous. I was embraced like a long lost sister. As an artist, no matter where you are, you bond with other artists. It's like being home, totally comfortable.”

Now she is on a mission to share Nigeria's human story to the world by bringing Nigerian artwork and artists like Omeje and the Ukas here.

Pointing to a picture she has of Omeje sitting on the ground in Nigeria, almost entirely enclosed by ceramic works, Haroutunian asks, “Do you know why she has produced so many pieces as a student? Their school system is based on the British format where you can't be graded for graduation by teachers who know you, so she had to wait because they couldn't get an outside teacher to come and grade her.”

A year passed, then another.

“She never quit or took a break,” said Haroutunian. “She just kept working.”

The university's printmaking studio had likewise suffered a similar fate. For lack of resources, it had been shut down for seven years. It was reopened just for Haroutunian's visit.

“Everyone came,” said Haroutunian. “We had current students, graduates and the faculty come. There were 40 students in this one small room to do printmaking. I had no idea how it was going to work.”

She had personally brought 70 pounds of art supplies, donated by Clear Cut Plastics in Fremont and by several generous friends, but still found herself lacking basic necessities.

It was the resourcefulness of her Nigerian art students that came to the rescue.

“A lot of things had to be invented,” Haroutunian said. “We did drypoint, but there was no soaking tray, so we used buckets. We took newspaper from the floor as blotters. It became a magical feeling of, 'What do we have and how do we make it work?'”

Over the course of four days, her students dedicated themselves to her instruction and created 165 finished prints.

“They really cherish the opportunity to learn,” Haroutunian said. “One night I'll never forget—I was walking back from a dinner and I was passing the studio. It was pitch dark because the electricity was out, which happens a lot in Nigeria for no particular reason except the whim of the government, and I found several students still working in the studio, just by the light of small flashlights and their cell phones.”

“They were so dedicated,” she said. “When I see that kind of work and all the roadblocks they face, I think about what they could accomplish if they didn't have these roadblocks.”

“And, Nigerians know they get a bad rap," she said. "But, it's all because of this frustrating inability to access the world.”

For instance, just think about how not having enough dependable electricity makes it easy for them to look like “flakes,” as she puts it, to North Americans.

“Here you are thinking they're blowing you off because they haven't responded to your emails or returned your calls, but it's simply because the power's out and they can't recharge their computer or cell phone,” said Haroutunian.

Along with the visits of Omeje and the Ukas, the prints completed by the students Haroutunian worked with on her trip will be showcased at the Sev Shoon Arts Center, located at 2862 N.W. Market St. Like those unbroken sandals in Ngozi Omeje's creation, they come bearing news of the real Nigeria, struggling to be seen.

There will be an opening reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on June 12 at Shev Shoon to kick off the month-long celebration of Nigerian Art. For further details, visit www.sevshoon.com.