Annette John-Hall: A gruesome task in the midst of beauty

Two days after a massive earthquake all but leveled parts of Haiti, Florcy Morisset still didn't know the fate of her five aunts and dozens of cousins who live in St. Marc, just north of Port-au-Prince.

The American Red Cross estimates that as many as 50,000 people have already perished in the rubble. But Morisset has willed her anguish down to a simmer. See, bad news would shift her focus, and she can't afford that.

"I need to be as strong as possible to get things done," Morisset says.

Surely, Morisset, 29, didn't expect she'd be doing the unthinkable - helping to secure a private jet, medical staff, and supplies for transport to Haiti - when she agreed to serve as development chair for the Haitian Professionals of Philadelphia (HPP), an impressive group of mostly 20- and 30-somethings formed to promote and support Haitians and Haitian Americans.

Nor did she envision her Old City gallery, Vivant Art Collection, being transformed into a crucial repository for incoming and outgoing information about the disaster.

"It happened organically," Morisset says. "But I'm happy, in a sense, that it has. This way, we've all been able to work together."

Organizing for such a gruesome task takes place in the midst of beauty: A fresh and airy gallery space, which showcases the colorful, vibrant art that is Haiti's trademark. Rich oils and watercolors from renowned Haitians like Jene Rene Jerome and Bernard Sejourne, artists who often painted their subjects masked to symbolize the inequities of an impoverished country.

A country that was placed in the unfathomable position of paying crippling reparations for centuries to France, its colonial slave master - and has never recovered.

A country that has struggled for years from neglect, war, and corrupt regimes.

A country the whole world has historically turned its back on.

And now, this.

Haiti's tragic history almost seems too much to bear, says HPP chair Yve-Car Momperousse, 27, who helped Morisset field phone calls the other day.

"We just started rebuilding from four hurricanes and a collapsed school," she says. "We can't catch a break."

Helping their own