More Hearts

Yesterday (Saturday), I took a batch of about 100 hearts down to the Visionary Art Museum in Federal Hill (Baltimore, MD). There were a lot of people all over the museum. It looked like something special was going on--a free tour, some other promotional things....
The gift store was busy as ever. I handed over the hearts and into the little bucket they went, right by the register. One of the brochures about the Art Creation Foundation for Children is set up right in the little bucket along with a sign that reads:
"Hope Hearts for Haiti-$1.00".

Literally 10 seconds after they were put out on the counter, a woman asked what they were. Shawn, store papa and local artist himself, explained that they go to support the children in Haiti. The customer bought five right away! That is almost one week's wages for someone living under the Universal Poverty Line, as so many people in Haiti do.

I bought all kinds of fun goodies---it truly is the best gift store anywhere, hands down---and left feeling pretty hopeful myself :-)

(photo: Avam banner, photo credit: travelandleisure.com/Timothy Gardner)

Gearing up for school!

This past week has been the first back-to-school-week for staff where I teach. Today I met with the director for Student Service Learning at my school to finalize details for the Hearts for Haiti Student Service Learning Project. I initially thought it could be an after-school experience for the children. However, one of the stipulations of student service learning is that it take place during the school day. We ironed out all the details and agreed that this would be best suited to take place during my 6th grade classes each quarter. I was really happy about this for many reasons:

1. I get to repeat the experience for a new group of kids every nine weeks when the class lists change.

2. Having it during the school day ensures that the children receive credit for student service learning hours.

3. The 6th grade social studies classes study the history of many different regions of Africa. Haiti was the very first independent black nation when slaves revolted from their French masters in about 1804.

4. The age for children who get accepted into Art Creation Foundation for Children in Jacmel must be between 6 to 11 years of age. My 6th graders are about 11 years old and just starting in a new school. They can relate to the age of the children in Jacmel who may just be starting their new school.

5. Since I teach every 6th grader in the school over the course of a year, about 240 children will have participated in Hearts for Haiti by June!!!!

Studies do show that if children of the middle school age are exposed to opportunities to volunteer and give selflessly to others, they are statistically far more likely to become philanthropic adults! Giving never really stops. The ripples of good it creates can continue on and on, from one person to the next.

Here's to making great waves!!
(photo: blue heart in hand c) nancyleemitchell 2009)

When Clay Dries Out

My students and I molded a huge batch of hearts at the end of this past school year. We were able to stamp most of them with the word HOPE, but some dried out before we got to them. Actually, I didn't even know they were in the bin. We had layered damp paper towels and plastic over them to keep them fresh. I discovered them in the bin about 2 weeks ago. Thing is, we never got around to stamping them.

After staining the bottom of the hearts with a red-brown engobe, I thought about it for a few minutes, then decided to paint the word Haiti in a brilliant turquoise blue on top. A bright color seemed appropriate. When Ted Frankel, proprieter of The Sideshow (the Visionary Art Museum's gift shop where the hearts are sold) returned from Jacmel recently, he described the houses on the coast, which were painted in a tremendous array of bright colors. "Paint companies send all their leftover colors down there. So all the houses are painted bright yellows, blues, reds...you name it". At least pre-fire, the turquoise is such a strong contrast to the red-brown that the letters seem to shimmer.

I will be firing a huge batch of hearts tomorrow. I can't wait to see how they turn out!!

Generosity

Working with the hearts is teaching me that people really want to give. People want opportunities to "do good" and effect positive change in the world. Recently, I have received a number of emails from kind-hearted people asking to purchase the hearts directly from me. Although I don't yet have an official way to do this en masse, I have been addressing each request on a one-on-one basis. Without fail so far, each person has been comfortable trusting the honor system: I request that they make a donation of their choice directly to the secure donation link on the Art Foundation Creation for Children site (there is a link on this blog to the right), and then I send them the hearts. So far, each person has wanted to and been willing to donate above and beyond the $1.00 each price of the hearts. For example, one person donated 20 dollars but wanted only 12 hearts. This has seemed to be the norm for people who contact me directly. I am so cheered and encouraged by everyone's generosity!

If you haven't visited the link to the art foundation on this page, please do yourself a favor and click on it now. When you read what the impact of what we would consider to be a small amount of money is to the lives and futures of these children, you can't help but be moved. Jacmel, Haiti is the cultural arts center of the country. It is very fitting that this foundation is located there. The children there are learning the traditional art skills of their hometown. There is the very real opportunity for them to put these art skills to real use in their adult life. Jacmel is the host to the very important Carnival festival. Every Carnival participant wears a mask made from the traditional papier mache of the region. The fact that the students are learning these marketable skills from local masters means they may have a much better quality of life as adults.

Education is highly respected in Haiti, and school is compulsory. The problem is that many of the parents who want desperately to send their children to school can not because of annual fees. Art Creation Foundation for Children is providing arts and academic training to 60 of the most needy children in Jacmel. It is heartbreakingly true that they have to turn people away every day. 60 pupils is currently their capacity. But as children graduate, spaces open up for others. I feel grateful to be able to help support this worthy foundation, and honored that I can facilitate that same experience for my students. The only way things are going to get better for the world's most vulnerable children is if we are all willing to help each other, one day at a time.
(photo: Jim Dine, "Hearts and Hammers", 1982, etching with hand coloring 48" x 65.5", credit: The Joseloff Gallery)

Busy Making Hearts

Today I was busy underglazing more hearts, which I always enjoy doing. I thought I could wait till the school year started to get my students on board to make more, but they are selling so well, I have to fill the gap for the next few weeks, which is my absolute pleasure to do. The photos here are just hearts in progress on my dining room table. They still need the 'clear transparent' glaze, which , as my students know, makes it look like
you're painting over all your hard work with pink pepto bismol. Magically at 1500 degrees F, it all turns clear, and the colors get really rich and shiny. For now, they look a little chalky, but I am enjoying inventing designs!

Each time I paint a heart I think, "This is one dollar. This is one day's wage. This is one more chance for one more child to have a better life." And for however that "sounds", it is absolutely true. 100% of the funds generated from this project go directly to the students in Haiti, with nothing taken away. Sixty dollars? That's emergency health care for ALL of the students at the Art Creation Foundation for Children in Jacmel, Haiti for a full month. How can we not help? Love all, serve all, and this world will be a better place :-) (photos: underglazed hearts c) nancy lee mitchell 2009)

"We Sell a Lot of these Hearts!"

("Battling Dragons" at Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti)
Today I visited the Visionary Arts Museum to take in some mixed media collages for the gift shop and to check on the ceramic hearts for Haiti. I was happy that they purchased my collages, but happier still to see that there were only about 10 or 12 hearts left out of the hundred or more that I had recently brought in! Wow! It made me so happy and grateful to know that 1) people are continuing to buy them and 2) 100% of the money raised will go to the Arts Foundation for Children in Jacmel, Haiti!

One of the many things I adore about this foundation and the way Judy Hoffman runs it is that 100% of all money received by the foundation goes to help the kids. All of the people working to support the children pay their own expenses if they have to travel or eat while they are there. None of the money going to ACFFC is diverted for those kinds of related but personal expenses. $100 isn't a whole lot to a lot of people, but consider these facts from their website:

$60 = one month average cost for emergency health care for all 60 children
$250 = one month of art supplies for all 60 children
$250 = one child eats every day for a full year
$950 = approximate total expenses, full year, for one child (art, food, school, medical care)
$4,750 = cost for all 60 children, full program participation, for one whole month
$8,500 = cost to send all 60 children to school for a full school year

With the steady stream of tourists from all over the world who make it a point to visit this amazing and unique museum, I'm confident that the hearts will continue to steadily raise one dollar at a time for the wonderful and very deserving children in Jacmel, Haiti. I am so excited to start school just to get my students involved in this again.

Children helping children--what could be better?

Art in the Mail

photo credit: accfc artforhaitianchildren.org


This past Friday, I received a carepackage from Judy Hoffman, the founder of Art Creation Foundation for Children in Jacmel, Haiti. It was full of different kinds of papier mache sculptures created by the ACFFC children themselves! I was not only overwhelmed by her generosity in sending the art to me, but quite simply stunned at the quality of the craftsmanship of the children. Such beautiful bright colors and excellent additive sculptural skills. Although I am in no rush to end my summer vacation, opening up this big box of beautiful art made me really excited to see my own students again and share what was so generously given to me. I know that the work of these children will inspire my students too.

YES!

I am very excited to report that the administration at my school is interested in my making this art club a reality for my students and me. I envision a 1/2 hour after school club where the children get to learn about Haitian art, music and culture and of course get to make the hearts that will sell to support the young artists at ACFFC in Jacmel. This past June, one of my 8th graders had some time on his hands and asked if he could make some hearts. He brought me his work when he was finished and said, "Hey...I made almost 30 hearts." I said, "You're holding one month's wages for 1/3 of the developing world." His mouth just fell open. "Really? One whole month? I made one whole month? That's amazing." Like all the other "kids" I've talked to about this, he just inherently GOT it.
(Photo: Market in Jacmel, Haiti)

The Hearts Find a Home

photo: the American Visionary Arts Museum, photo credit: Business Week www.avam.org

Now that I had the idea, process and the students' interest, I had to find a way to get the ceramic hearts OUT there and into people's hands. I knew that being able to offer something tangible in exchange for one dollar, especially when I could tell people that they just funded one full day's wage with that dollar, would be of interest to many people. I thought about starting a website and trying to sell them online. I did sell 50 to a very kind woman in the UK for her children's birthday parties. For as nice as that exchange was, it made me realize that I didn't want to be a middle man with the money.



One of my favorite places in the whole wide world is the American Visionary Arts Museum AND The Sideshow--their amazing, huge, unique museum gift store. Ted Frankel, proprietor of The Sideshow, and an artist himself, had just returned from a buying trip to Jacmel, Haiti. Lucky me, he happened to have photos of his adventures with him, and I eagerly listened as he described his experiences there: leading an art workshop with children then purchasing their art from them, dancing in the streets at night in a local celebration and working with established, resourceful Haitian artists. I immediately purchased two art works created by the children from Jacmel.

It was his experience with the children that piqued my interest the most. He went on to tell me about his very dear friend Judy Hoffman who resides in Florida but started a special non-profit organization called Art Creation Foundation for Children. This foundation serves 60 children from Jacmel who had never before been to school and who were not getting even one meal on a daily basis. At the ACFFC, children not only receive a meal, schooling, love and encouragement, they also receive training from local Haitian visual artists in the traditional art forms of their region, mainly papier mache. The foundation is actually creating the next generation of traditional Haitian artists. When I heard it was a non-governmental project not affiliated with any particular religion, I wondered if I could somehow connect my students with the children in Jacmel.

I mentioned the hearts to Ted and offered to bring them in if he thought he could sell them. I wanted all profits to go to ACFFC if he and Judy were all right with that. He said, "Sure! Hearts for Haiti! It'll be great!"

Soon thereafter, I brought in about 50 hearts. Ted and I got to talking again. What a wonderful thing this could be: My students could make the hearts, learn about Jacmel and the overwhelming struggle Haitian children face on a daily basis, have the opportunity to say their work is being sold in a very respected museum gift shop and feel good about the fact that all the profits would help support Art Creation Foundation for Children. I knew there was a good chance that my school would support the project and even allow my students to log the time spent making hearts as Student Service Learning Hours. There was potential for there to be art exchanges among the students, and reciprocal cultural discoveries to be made!

The Hearts had found a Home!!

Welcome!

(Photo: HOPE-stamped hearts in greenware stage c)nancyleemitchell)

Welcome to my new blog, "Children Helping Children Through the Visual Arts". On this site I will record the development and progress of the relationship between my students at Patapsco Middle and the students who attend the Art Creation Foundation for Children in Jacmel, Haiti. The idea is a simple one: Children helping children through the visual arts.

The genesis for this idea was a statistic I read in the spring of '09 on the World Health Organization's website:

1. Poverty is a multidimensional and cross-sectoral phenomenon. To facilitate a comparative analysis of the different poverty profiles across the world, a standard definition of poverty, based on daily consumption, has been adopted. This definition considers as “poor” anyone who cannot afford a daily consumption of US$1.

2. Using this US $1 as the universal poverty-line definition, more than two billion people worldwide can be counted as poor.

I am not a wealthy person by America's standards, but to 1/3 of the world's population, I literally live in luxury. The rate of material consumption and waste in my country is appaling when one stops to consider that billions of our brothers and sisters on this planet do without the basic necessities each and every day. Millions of those suffering are children.

I asked myself, "what can I do to help?" I wanted to make something tangible that could sell for one dollar: the daily wage of someone on the Universal Poverty Line. After playing with the clay, I made a little heart that could fit easily in the palm of my hand or a pocket. It seemed ideal. A heart, with the word HOPE stamped underneath, hand formed and beautifully glazed, its lovliness brought out by the intense fire of the kiln. The layers of symbolism fit nicely.

After some experimentation and brainstorming, I came up with this:
1. Press-mold clay hearts into handmade latex molds
2. Stamp the word HOPE on the bottom
3. Smooth, glaze and fire


Some of my students noticed what I was doing during my free time in the art room. Without fail, every student who asked "got it" when I explained that ONE dollar was the average daily wage for 1/3 of the world's population. They immediately wanted to help. Students started visiting me at lunch and before school to make hearts. When they were finished with their assignments, they requested to make even more hearts. Word got around, and even students I didn't teach were popping in!

I knew we were onto something......