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......