Published: May 21, 2008 12:10 pm            

Painting for Peace

While in his 40s, funeral director Matt Lamb was told he would be dead within the next three to five years.

At the time, he smoked several packs of cigarettes a day and was a recovering alcoholic. He also was a successful businessman, having built up the funeral parlor he took over from his father on the south side of Chicago.

But it was that death sentence that made him decide to make a change.

Thus, he walked out of the funeral business and went into art.

Lamb, 77, happy in his slower-paced lifestyle, is now intent on bringing peace to the world through art.

“There is no silver bullet that is going to change the world,” said Lamb, adding change has to come individually. “Everyone has a position and a purpose. Our purpose is to make our surroundings a little better. We all have to do a little something, and then, there’s a huge change in the world.”

He does this by putting the idea of peace into form.

Lamb’s Umbrellas for Peace, which began “as a U.S. Congressional mandate to aid orphans of 9/11” and has since grown to at least 16 countries worldwide, is aimed at spreading the message of peace, tolerance, understanding, hope and love.

“Its goal is to protect against aggression and war by generating peaceful intercultural and multilateral communications,” according to Lamb’s Web site.

With the Umbrellas for Peace project, Lamb gets different people in an area to paint umbrellas with peaceful messages on them. At the end of the process, Lamb puts on a parade.

According to Lamb, art is the perfect vehicle for peace.

“I think art is the voice of the spirit. It was a perfect way for me to communicate,” he said.

An ancient tradition, Lamb tries to bring art to the modern world as a healer and an alternative to unpeaceful ways.

Through his travels, he has found the meaning of peace is a complicated process. In trying to implement peace, Lamb has found the meaning is different for each person and culture.

He is hopeful, however, people will reach a point where they can disagree without going to war and accept other people’s views even when they disagree with their own.

During his visit to Effingham Thursday and Friday, Lamb had a slightly different focus in mind. He worked with drug court participants on their individual collages, as well as working with students from Tri-Star school to paint a mural on a wall of the Luttrell meeting at Helen Matthes Library. He also helped paint at Kluthe Memorial Pool in Evergreen Hollow Park.

Lamb has been talking with Karen Luchtefeld about coming to Effingham for the past six years. Lamb knows Luchtefeld through her parents, who are friends of his.

When working with the Tri-Star children, he started off drawing what looked like buildings in the center of the wall and obscure lines near the ends of the wall. He then had the children pick up where he left off by drawing whatever they wanted. He said they could draw over what he had drawn or extend it. They also could do the same to what each other had drawn. Groups of children switched from one part of the wall to another from time to time.

In the end, the conglomeration would speak to all the children.

“It might mean nothing to someone else. That’s immaterial. What’s material is what it means to us right now,” he told the children.

Jackie Gorski can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 136 or at jackie.gorski@effinghamdailynews.com.