My Sister's Closet to celebrate new home, suffragettes, and 16-foot Lady Liberty sculpture in capital campaign launch

On Tuesday, June 24, My Sister's Closet of Monroe County will host an event that's equal parts fundraiser, ribbon-cutting, art reveal—and a big nod to the 19th Amendment and the bicycling women who fought for it. 

Featuring Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson and other speakers, a community sculpture unveiling, and facility tours, the event will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at West Second Street and Patterson Drive—the future new home of My Sister's Closet.

For more than 25 years, the nonprofit has helped vulnerable women to become better positioned to find economic success. In addition to operating its resale clothing shop, My Sister's Closet provides women in need with mentoring, resume assistance, job interview skills training, and more.

“We couldn't be more proud of the fact that this is all happening at a building that we didn't think we were going to be able to find,” My Sister's Closet founder and executive director Sandy Keller says. My Sister's Closet is now located on College Avenue north of Seminary Park; however, the group's 10-year lease expires next June and won't be renewed.

To support necessary renovations at the West Second Street spot, My Sister's Closet hopes to raise $300,000. “That would allow us to move in partially while we're still in the space that we're in right now,” she says. A second phase of the capital campaign includes raising $700,000 for a later building expansion. Including the cost of the building itself, the total amount to raise is $2.1 million. “It's all hands on deck,” Keller continues. “We need our community, and if they could come out and support us at the sculpture unveiling, we'd be grateful.” 

In an online statement, event organizers draw similarities between the women who fought for the right to vote and the “courageous, determined women of today who are raising children and beating the odds of successfully moving out of multi-generational poverty.”

Funded in part by the Bloomington Rotary Club, the suffragette-inspired sculpture is a reimagined Lady Liberty weighing in at more than 800 pounds and standing about 16 feet tall. “Since the concept had to do with the suffragette, we thought it was just perfect to link both of them together,” local artist Joe LaMantia says. “Lady Liberty had to do with freedom—it is an icon that everybody recognizes.”

LaMantia collaborated with several other artists, technicians, and tradespeople to complete the work. For Lady Liberty's solar-powered torch alone, LaMantia worked with TruFab Stainless, Bloomington Creative Glass Center, and Kokomo Opalescent Glass, among others. “In lighting the torch, I'm having these marine LED lights that are underneath of three slabs of one-inch amber glass,” he notes.

As for the rest of the piece? It's largely an assemblage of up-cycled materials. “The framework is all square posts that are for street signs or road signs,” LaMantia says. “Those were given to me by the County Highway and the City Highway Departments and also JB's Salvage and Bloomington Iron & Metal.”

Students from the Hoosier Hills Career Center metal shop assisted with cutting some of the sculptural elements, and Jake Glasgow from Bruce's Welding produced the structural framework. “I've done a number of projects with [Bruce's Welding], like the Flying V Guitar, the Fairview Cat, the Angel on the B-line, and the Animal Island,” LaMantia says. 

The suffragette sculpture will also feature a couple of surprises. For instance, at the back of Lady Liberty near the base, shackles will be embedded into the concrete. The chains reference the original intent of the Statue of Liberty's French designers. “It had to do with the freeing of the slaves,” LaMantia says.

He continues, “The [Americans] who did the negotiations and handling everything didn't really want to have that up front. They wanted to have that in the background, if at all.”

About the chains on his piece, LaMantia says, “People will probably ask, 'Why are they there? What is this?' I want people to ask questions.” In addition to the suffragette piece, two new, artistic bike racks—featuring the words “equality” and “freedom”—will be unveiled on Tuesday. “In order for the [suffragettes] to mobilize, they used bicycles,” LaMantia explains. He adds, “And it all started with the bicycle, in terms of bicycles for women who were coming to My Sister's Closet.... [Keller] wrote a grant to try to get a bicycle rack for women who would come there and didn't have a car and wouldn't be able to safeguard their bicycles.”

“We're here to improve their circumstances and, hopefully, to move them to a better place, so they can be sustainable on their own two feet,” Keller concludes.

For more event details, visit the My Sister’s Closet website.