Creation for Change

YORK, Pa. - She sips a soda with one hand and shoves her cell phone into her pocket with the other. Sitting in her studio, you’re surrounded by paintings in various states of completion and jars of paint whose volumes range from barren to filled up to the top, threatening to spill over if one were to touch them too heavy-handedly. Her current piece features playful foxes, a commission she’s received meant to decorate the bedroom of a young child once its finished. Within the painting, she plans on writing the young boy’s name.This commission is a step away from the pieces she generally creates. The spacious studio is lined with paintings centered around York City, with one painting in particular larger enough to span the eastern wall. It’s a mock-up sketch of a mural, one of the many murals she’s created which can be seen throughout the city.

This is one of the many hats that Ophelia Chambers wears.

She described her work as that which “[addresses] the human condition with an emphasis on giving people of color a voice,” though she’s particularly interested in changing the narrative, both presently and historically, about African-Americans.

Chambers cites her childhood in the Chicago as the starting point of her interest in racial disparages.

“It had its difficulties. When you live in public housing, or in any particular Black community, it is community. You don’t know anything different.”

What you see on television, Chambers believes, is not what you get in real life.

“The media might portray it as ‘Oh my God, that’s horrible.’ We weren’t rich, but we didn’t know we were poor. We were Good Times and Cooley High.”

Chamber finished school with two degrees: a bachelor’s degree in communications with a focus in rhetoric and speech, and a master’s degree in media, media discourse and communication theory in particular.

Upon leaving for York, Chambers says she was introduced to a very different world. After being recruited for a graphic design position, Ophelia made the move from North-side Chicago to York City in 2000.

Comparing York to her hometown, Chambers describes the largest difference between the two cities as “progression” along with diversity and opportunities.

“In terms of being more progressive thinking, in terms of what people are allowed to do, in terms of what women are allowed to do… [York] feels 30 years behind. I’ve run into several instances where guys felt as if I was overstepping my boundaries.”

She recounts an time where she felt pressure when attempting to assimilate with men.

“The women go over here and bring a dish and the guys are getting ready to play golf. I’m here trying to hang with [the men], and I’m being told ‘No, no, no. You have to go over there and be with the women.’”

The reason for this lack of progression, Chambers believes, is due to the benefits and comforts that come from the current state of being.

“Too many people like it. It works for them.”

According to Chambers, in Chicago, the roles dictating the expectations of race and gender weren’t so well defined.

“Even travelling alone here would be considered weird.”

She’s currently contracted with the York History Center where she works to uncover the untold narratives within York’s own Black history. In some cases, this involves ‘changing the narrative,’ which Chambers describes as “putting it into the correct lense,” and conducting interviews with individuals in order to allow the residents of York to tell their stories rather than having their stories told for them.

“I’m a project person,” she says. “I’ll create projects and it’ll keep me going.”

The project that has made Chambers the most proud is a piece she constructed for Gettysburg to bring recognition to the colored troops and their role in the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. It’s since become a Gettysburg monument, listed on the Historic Marker Database. It is the only monument in Gettysburg dedicated to colored soldiers.

With so much of her work dedicated to the empowerment of her community, Chambers has high hopes for the future of York.

“Over time, people will realize ‘the thing I feared the most is the thing I needed to do the most.’ There will be this realization and coming together. People will start to mingle and break down barriers.”

In order for York to reach this point of transcendence, Chambers believes art as will have to play a large part.

“All of the arts. It’s getting there now. I think we’ll have this area of free and open thinkers. It’s starting to transition into that.”

What’s holding us back, Chambers believes, are the “poor-thinkers” and closed minds. And there are a number things we can do ensure the cycle of ignorance does not continue to repeat.

According to Chambers, the best thing we can do is “to continue conversations.”