Fresh Artists Blog 

“Your best yet”

“This gets more fun each year!”

“We wouldn’t miss it!”

“Having the kids with their art was a real treat!”

“Watching the kids watching the sculptor replicate the 2nd grader’s artwork in  ice was magic.”

“The Memory Games are brilliant! I bought 4 of them!”

“We had loads of fun with the arty Photo Booth. The pictures were great. We’re hiring Seth for our next corporate retreat!”

And the best comment of the evening came from one of our youngest artist-philanthropists, who looked up at me and said,

“You mean these guys came all the way here to meet US and see OUR art?”

We had a blast. There were about 300 people who stopped by throughout the evening to meet the kids, see the new children’s art  installed at the World Cafe, have some refreshments provided by Hal Real, Founder of World Cafe Live, and schmooze with influential people from the legal, pharma, design and education communities. We were honored to have national product managers from HP’s large-format printing sectors visiting both our studio during the day and attending the evening event, Eric Grae, Tom Yungen, and Kerry Ignatovitch.

For the first time, we invited youngsters whose art was installed in WCL and their families.  We were delighted with the strong turnout. Our guests enjoyed meeting the kids and hearing about what inspired each piece.  The kids were such a hit, that we will invite them each year from now on.

Our guest speaker was Farah Jimenez, the CEO of the People’s Emergency Center in West Philadelphia. A core value of Fresh Artists is to also give a great deal of our signature artwork away to people who are serving children and families in need.  This year we chose the People’s Emergency Center to be the permanent home for 14 large works of art that have been enjoyed by staff and visitors to the World Cafe since last February. We will install the artwork in PEC within the next month. Farah’s remarks were exceptionally moving to everyone in the cafe. She talked about how much inspiration artwork is to people living in chaos and displacement.

Our youth-run entertainment was terrific!  The CAPA alumni jazz combo entertained before the program, and the famous Masterman School’s “Sweet 16″ a cappella group had us all singing along afterwards. We love to showcase musical youngsters at Salon and thank them for their enormous contribution to the evening.

Our “Merch” table offered 5 editions of our new venture into children’s educational games, The Memory Game. People were snapping them up for gifts as well as the new 2013 Fresh Artists calendar, published each year as a gift to Fresh Artists by our friends at Pearl Pressman Liberty Communications Group. The games are in all Anthropologie stores throughout the world, in Whole Foods, the AIA Bookstores, and in many other high quality children’s bookstores, boutiques and gift shops.

The gifts from our business partners were astonishing this year!  The Fresh Artists Business Advisory Council set a lofty goal of $30,000 in event sponsorships…a jump from last year. Not only did the group hit the target, they exceeded it!  These funds are dedicated to a fresh, new website…ours is heading into it’s 6th year. It was built on old (non-CMS) architecture…and is pretty hard to use. We are thrilled that we will be starting over from scratch to make a user (and owner!) friendly site with three dedicated portals for children, teachers and corporate clients.  Thank you to the BAC for yet again astonishing us with your generosity and dedication.

Here is the list of the 2013 Salon on the Schuylkill Sponsors – Angels every one!

PLATINUM   $5,000

Fabric Images

HP

Martin Banks

Pearl Pressman Liberty Communications Group

SAP Americas

 

GOLD  $2,500

Anonymous (W.L. Gore & Associates)

Independence Blue Cross

Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, LLP

 

SILVER    $1,500

Goodwin College of Professional Studies, Drexel University

Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott

FIrstrust Financial Resources

Hangley, Aronchick, Segal, Pudlin & Schiller

Health Partners

 

BRONZE     $1,000

The Addis Group

Elliott-Lewis Corporation

Steelcase

The Lighting Practice / In Posse

 

Friends of Salon    $500

Bookminders

Patriot Construction, Inc.

Shaw Carpet

Sherman Mills

 

 

This is a great time to also acknowledge the extraordinary generosity of our new category of donors, Print Studio Partners.  Starting last year with the buildout and furnishing of our new teaching workshop for large-format digital printing, this group has expanded exponentially to donate more specific studio equipment, furnishings, and now consumables for the printers such as paper, ink, adhesives, cutting tools, a fine-art quality scanner, framing, scanning services (for “lumpy children’s art!) and even coffee to keep us all awake!

 

We are delighted to announce that One Village Coffee, a local artisan coffee roaster in Souderton, PA, has partnered with Fresh Artists to place 24 works of art from our collection on bags of their best selling variety, Artist Blend. This means our images (and URL!) are now all over the country, in Whole Foods, co-ops, and gourmet shops from Boston down the Virginia. Steve Hackman, the CEO, has fallen in love with our mission.  Please go to the One Village Coffee website and read all about the work they are doing in Africa, and in the States to deliver the finest, most sustainable coffee possible.

 

After you read all about our fabulous donors, check out the wacky Silly Salon (JIHM BOOTH) photos at the end!

Seth Shimkonis, owner of JIHM Booth (Join In Hilarious Moments), is a loyal supporter of Fresh Artists. Seth donates a JIHM Booth for every Sprout Fest (annual celebration for the children) and Salon. Thank you, Seth! You are not only a talented photographer, you are a talented photographer with a huge heart.  That’s a winning combination in our book!  Your gifts make a lot, alot of people happy, connected and spreading silliness, a powerful and precious commodity in these days.

 

 

In Kind Gifts – Print Studio Partners

3A Composites, Statesville, SC

Alpha Imaging Technologies, Bayport, NY

Art Guild, W. Deptford, NJ

Centrum, Inc., Sharon Hill, PA

Epson, Long Beach, CA

Ergosoft Rip Solutions, Nashua, NH

Foster Keen Cut, Montgomeryville, PA

G & H Service Company, Norristown, PA

Graphic Art Supply, NYC

Image One Impact, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

Lithotone, Inc., Elkhart IN

Markely Enterprises, Elkhart, IN

Merion Art & Repro, Ardmore, PA

One Village Coffee Roasters, Souderton, PA

Parthenon Framing, Bohemia, NY

Profiles, Chestnut Hill

Service Point USA, Woburn, MA

Shades of Paper, Mt. Laurel, NJ

Specialty Graphic Imaging Associate, Washington DC

Sun-light Corporation, Philadelphia, PA

Reed Photo, Denver

Silicon Gallery Fine Art Printing

Susan Beard Photography

Welch Packaging, Elkhart, IN

World Café Live, Philadelphia, PA

 Any omissions are simply mistakes on our part. Please forgive us, and send us a gentle note asking us to rectify the situation! We’re on it!

 

Fresh Artists Staff & Volunteers

Barbara Chandler Allen, President & CEO

Roger Allen, Creative and Operations Director

Antoinette Maciolek, Executive Assistant

Christine Kochevar, Advisor, Large-format digital printing

Marilyn Leuszler, Fresh Artists Western State Coordinator (Colorado)

Andrea Vizcarrando, Fresh Artists New York Area Coordinator

Robyn Miller, Evelyn Bock, Sonya Smith & Eileen Rudnick, Program Art teachers

Steve Trueman, Author, “Pablo, the Philly Philanthropist” and “Clothesline” storybooks

Meredith and Samantha Wiggins, Editing and photography

Nishiana Velazguez, Student Intern

Joshua James, Video, Studio and event assistance

Janine James, interviewing and Story Meister

Alpha Kanu, Alexis Bloom & Juania Velazguez, Artist-Philanthropists

 

Thanks to our Special Friends

Susan Beard, Photography

CAPA Jazz Trio

Ice Bars Luges and Logos – Rob Capone, Ice sculpture on the spot

JIHM Booth -Seth Shimkonis

Masterman School Sweet 16 A Cappella Group

One Village Coffee – Steve Hackman

 

Fresh Artists Board of Trustees

Heather Gibson, Sentry Art Advisory Services

Pastor Christine James, Careview Community Church

Valerie Lagauskas, Event Navigators

Jim Pinheiro, Pearl Pressman Liberty Communications Group

Nancy K. Wolff, School District of Philadelphia, Art educator, retired

John Pauciulo, Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, pro bono counsel

 

 

Business Advisory Council (BAC)

Sara Anderson, First Niagara Bank

Scott Binder, Health Partners

Alex Brame, Service Point USA

Nicole Carville, Haworth

April Colby, Martin Banks

Rick DeCoyte, Silicon Valley Fine Art Prints

Helen Diemer, The Lighting Practice

Rob Diemer, In Posse

Rosemarie Fabien, Fabien Communications

Lauren Fantini, Caroselli, Beachler McTierney & Conboy

Peter Hahn, Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania

Jennifer Heller, Comcast

Ken Johnson, Glaxo Smith Kline

Kristine Lamley, The Addis Group

Susan Mock, Academy of Vocal Arts

Lori Morrissey, SAP Americas

Robert Reid, AIA, Elevate Architects & Collaborators

Janine Sesso, Independence Blue Cross

Seth Shimkonis, JIHM Booth

John Siemiarowski, Electrical Wizardry

Jeffrey Totaro, Jeffrey Totaro Photography

Suzanne Turk, Goodwin College of Professional Studies, Drexel University

Amanda Weko, AGW Communications

Jerria Williams, SEPTA

Susan Yeager, ReSourcePro Insurance Services

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                    THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED MAKE THIS YEAR’S                               SALON ON THE SCHUYLKILL SUCH A ROUSING SUCCESS!

See you all next year!

Overheard in the audience minutes before the 5th Annual Sprout Fest was to begin, a mother hushed her impatient youngster, “Please sit still, philanthropists don’t squirm!”

Well, there were a lot of very excited youngsters present for the 5th running of the Sprouts…AKA Sprout Fest, the annual celebration where we honor the children who have donated the use of a digital image of their artwork to help thousands of kids in schools suffering from massive cutbacks in arts funding. This year Fresh Artists inducted 181 K-12 young people in the collection. This year was a giant leap forward: 126 pieces of art were donated by Philadelphia children, 11 from Norristown kids and……DRUMROLL…..8 pieces from Denver schools and 36 from New York City kids. We invited 6 youngsters from the HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy, to donated their outrageously beautiful and exhuberant artwork. Here is young Xzaria with a large reproduction of her artwork.

Second grader Rovic Merginio was pretty excited about his second visit to Sprout Fest. Last year, Rovic’s abstract study of dots and dashes took him to Sprout Fest, and this year’s musical theme caught the attention of the curators. Well done, Rovic and your art teacher,

Fresh Artist Teens were well represented like Esther, Fresh Artists ’07, now a junior at Girl’s High, came back to visit and support the new kids. She is joined here by Elaine ’14 of NE High.

Fresh Artists student interns, Quinn (Masterman ’12, Fresh Artists ’07 and ’11) and Carly (Springside ’12)  provided invaluable help for the curation process and the preparation of all the Sprout Fest gifts to children.

 As soon as the program began, the squirmy young philanthropist settled down, and listened with rapt attention to all the stories of how children are making a big difference in the world, raising money to fill empty art room shelves and bring fun art programs to his school.

He heard Ludy Soderman, head of the Philadelphia Multi-Cultural Family Support Center talk about how she has committed to translating and publishing Fresh Artists little storybook, Pablo, the Philly Philanthropist, into Arabic, Nepalese, Chinese and French this year and dispursing thousands of copies into ESL Schools throughout the District, like she did with the Spanish/English version she made possible this last year.

“I like helping other people”, said this adorable, generous kindergartner from a Norristown elementary school. “Its the best thing to do!” she said with conviction well beyond her 5 years.

The kids get it.

We are thrilled.

Happy 5th Birthday, Fresh Artists. 

Marcus Wright was thrilled to see his artwork installed in the World Cafe Live. Two of his teachers, Rebecca Dampf and Mike Kapusta from Norristown Area High School asked us to take Marcus to see his artwork on the walls of one of the hottest music venues in Philadelphia. We were eager to meet this talented and generous young man and his mentors. It is always a rewarding experience to watch a youngster see their artwork for the first time, blown up huge, mounted on the wall of a famous place like World Cafe Live in West Philadelphia.

Marcus is serious about studying art and needed supplies to work on his college portfolio in earnest. So Fresh Artists surprised him with an Angel Art Grant, a shopping spree at Merion Art & Repro (Fresh Artists favorite art supplies vendor) in Ardmore!

Fresh Artists is honored to support Marcus on his path in life.

The Vision:   You walk into Fresh Artists Print Studio…

Senior Apprentice Tanika gently guides a 42” x 68” print of a 2nd grader’s interpretation of van Gogh’s sunflowers off the large-format ink jet printer. She helps the Print Manager mount it to Gatorboard, part of a 40-piece order from a Fortune-500 corporation. Coffee and soft jazz fill the sunlit space. Three retired art teachers chat while making art-themed Memory Games for sale on our website. A local jewelry artist preps an air-dry clay demo for our Sunday Salon for new art teachers.

Our ED gives a studio tour to a new client, the CEO of a multi-national pharmaceutical. Jason, our Junior Intern, sizes digital images in Adobe Photoshop for a presentation to another new client, a child advocacy center in Denver, with the help of his mentor from a local graphic design firm. There are 30 pieces of children’s art waiting to be scanned, part of the recent Mini-Masterpiece project where kids interpret Impressionist treasures from a world-famous art museum.

A group of teens are color-sorting a mountain of recycled paint sample chips donated by Home Depot, into mailers, adding Fresh Artists’ lesson plans for delivery to art teachers struggling with empty shelves. A retired volunteer is on the phone coaching a Brownie leader in Detroit on the fine points of running her Clothesline Art Sale that will provide art supplies for an inner city Michigan school.

Tanika answers her cell phone and then shrieks, “I got a full scholarship to study photography at RISD next fall!” Jason peers over his 27” screen. He thinks he’ll stay in school and hang out with Fresh Artists for another year. He gets to print his own artwork next week. This place is pretty cool.

First step: Clean out the Space & Build!

We signed our lease on our new headquarters… 1200 sq. ft. sunlit studio space at Sherman Mills art complex in East Falls! The space was last occupied by a metal sculptor, so a major overhaul is under way! Lots of paint, window washing and designing an open, flexible studio with everything on wheels.

The Print Studio will be the new home for Fresh Artists as well as an inter-generational collaborative space bringing teens in as digital printing apprentices and inviting art teachers to our Sunday Salons where artists will demonstrate new materials and retired master teachers will coach new teachers in their favorite, most successful lesson plans. Funded by a generous grant from the Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with matching funds from The CHG Charitable Trust (as directed by Carole Haas Gravagno), and the Hamilton Family Foundation, Print Studio is the next phase of our strategic business plan: involve at-risk teens from Philadelphia public schools in the operations of this entrepreneurial social art business to give them marketable job skills while they work towards their GED.

Fresh Artists is grateful to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The CHG Charitable Trust (as recommended by Carole Haas Gravagno), and the Hamilton Family Foundation for their generous grants to make this dream a reality!

We will partner with Y.E.S. Philly, an alternative high school program for teens who left traditional schools and have returned to receive their GEDs. Older than typical high schoolers, focused on success, these teens will intern in Print Studio helping with digital printing, art fabrication and all aspects of running an art-based entrepreneurial business. We will offer coaching in portfolio development and the kids will print their own large-format digital artwork for a final exhibition. The professional digital print community will help set up and fine tune the studio’s printing program, welcome the Fresh Artists apprentices with tours of their facilities and hopefully be a potential source of employment for the teens as they graduate.

Pablo stopped for a PBJ at the neat little healthy food cafe in the art-themed complex next to the Pennsylvania Ballet dance studio. An ice sculptor is our neighbor down the hall, as is a glassblower!

 

Stay tuned to watch the progress of Print Studio! 

Tune in this Saturday!

Fresh Artists Founder Barbara Chandler Allen is the opening speaker at 1:00 pm

streaming live on the internet at
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tedxphiladelphiaed

Fresh Artists is thrilled and honored to have an amazing presence at the upcoming TEDx event in Philadelphia on Saturday, June 25. Our founder, Barbara Chandler Allen, has been invited to give the opening TED talk at this event, which takes place at Huntsman Hall at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

The signature large-format digital reproductions of children’s artwork from the Fresh Artists collection will decorate the Baker Forum where the brainstorming activities between sessions will occur. Fresh Artists teens will be acting as the facilitators for this inter-session electronic journaling and art making on six giant interactive kiosks around the Forum.

The vibrant children’s artwork will also grace the iconic giant TEDx logo letters on the stage, along with recreations of Independence Hall, City Hall and the Liberty Bell made by 2nd through 5th graders at Hancock School under the brilliant direction of art teacher Robyn Miller.

Tune in this Saturday at 1:00 pm to watch us reach a global audience with the unique and effective message and mission. Follow the link above!

We are thrilled to announce Fresh Artists is a $75,000 winner in the Miami-based  for “best ideas” in arts innovation. With the additional local match of $75,000 from the CHG Charitable Trust we will develop the Fresh Artists Print Studio where inner city teen apprentices will learn large-format digital art printing by producing our signature Fresh Artists work for corporate client/donors. This is the next step in our original vision to have Fresh Artists be a child-centric philanthropic social business. Thank you, Knight Foundation and Carole Haas Gravagno for taking us into this next, exciting phase of Fresh Artists!

Read more…

And the same day that we won the Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia, we were covered in a full page article in the Wall Street Journal!
Read on…

Fresh Artists Angel Carole Haas Gravagno with board at Knight Foundation announcement event NEW ART ACQUISITIONS FOR 2011

This year’s new Collection is the strongest ever.  125 new pieces of art have been donated from delightful 2nd grade interpretations of beneficial bacteria to several astonishing charcoal self portraits created in senior art classes. We have invited the Norristown Area School District to join Fresh Artists and 15 students have donated their artwork to this year’s collection.

FRESH ARTISTS MAKES THIRD ANNUAL DELIVERY OF ART SUPPLIES TO TEACHERS

We delivered the retail value of more than $17,000 in art supplies to Philadelphia’s most severely under-resourced art teachers this spring. This brings the the total retail value of art supplies delivered in our first three years to $117,000.

COSMIC CAFE AT LLOYD HALL OPENS WITH FRESH ARTWORKS

Chef Peg Botto has been following Fresh Artists for years.  As soon as she sealed the deal to rent riverside space in Lloyd Hall through Fairmount Park, she contacted us for healthy food Sign Studio artwork.  We installed 16 large images…here are tossed salad, club sandwich, tomato soup and garlic made by 3rd thru 5th graders at Hancock ES. Pretty cool, eh?

SERVICEPOINT USA EXECUTIVE VISITS FRESH ARTISTS

Alex Brame of Service Point USA came down from New York City to see the work his company printed for the Fresh Artists-Barnes Foundation Project Exhibition. The Philadelphia office of Service Point USA provides the high-quality, large-format ink-jet prints that have become Fresh Artists’ signature in the corporate workplace.

SIGN STUDIO WORKING ON THEIR FRESH SPRING LINE

The ever-expanding collection of healthy food artwork now includes radishes, asparagus, watermelon, a citrus medley and baby lettuces.  All will be available this summer at the Fresh Artists Virtual Farm Stand!

SIGN STUDIO KIDS DELIVER THE GOODS

The young artist-philanthropist-entrepreneurs delivered $500 in art supplies to Art teacher Andrew Zimmerman and his 2nd graders at Howe Elementary School in North Philadelphia. This was the culmination of Fresh Artists Sign Studio, the year-long pilot project where 3rd – 5th graders at Hancock Elementary voluntarily made healthy food artwork for a “client”, Weavers Way Co-Operative. Funds were raised to cover the cost of the food signs to be made and installed in the new little grocery store and the kids were honored by the co-op in October. A needy school in North Philadelphia was identified, and the kids delivered the art supplies purchased with funds they raised.  After hauling the hundreds of pounds of supplies into the school, they taught Howe’s second graders how to make the beautiful paper mosaics that Sign Studio has become famous for…thus passing along not only much-needed art supplies but also a precious skill they have acquired from their beloved art teacher, Robyn Miller. It was pretty moving.

We are grateful to professional photographer, Joan Cimino, who volunteered to document this important day for us with sensitivity and skill.  Look at these brilliant photos!  And to talented writer Maureen Neville,who captured the children’s impressions in words. Thank you, Joan and Maureen!

Fresh Artists will turn three years old on February 28th! To mark this important milestone, Fresh Artists’ founder, Barbara Chandler Allen, sat down and reflected on these wildly busy, creative and inspiring years.

Someone recently asked us the following question, “Fresh Artists says it delivers “innovative programs and art supplies” to public schools in need. We get the art supplies part. Tell me about your “innovative programs”.

It’s hard to believe Fresh Artist’s is three years old! We were so busy these first years developing our organizational infrastructure we scarcely took a day off. We are proud of what has been accomplished with the help of many, many wonderful people:  creating our structure and operations, going into schools and building the Fresh Artists Collection of more than 500 images, raising money, installing 750 large-format reproductions of children’s art in more than 60 corporations and delivering the retail value of more than $100,000 in art supplies to schools in need. As piece after piece fell into place, we realized our vision was a success! Helping Fresh Artists come to life has been the best three years of my life.

As we went about accomplishing all of these things, of course we were interacting with wonderful people. First and foremost, we began to meet very young artists around the city and learned about their hopes for the future. We met art teachers striving to deliver exceptional art programs for their students. And we began to partner with corporations around our city that had traditions of civic engagement and generosity. Listening to each one of these constituencies has led us to develop new and innovative programs and initiatives:

• Fresh Artists Clothesline Art Sales
• Partnership with the Barnes Foundation
• Sign Studio
• Pablo, the Philly Philanthropist
• Stories Behind the Art
• Memory Games: Fresh Faces, Fresh Food and Fresh Art
• Partnerships with nonprofits serving vulnerable children

Meeting Our City’s Children

What can we say? The kids are why we are doing this, and they are wonderful: hopeful, fun, creative, “outside the box” by nature, the kids we meet steal our hearts and make us proud. But we began to realize that the letter we sent to them when their work is selected was not enough — the children didn’t understand the full impact of their generosity and talent. The thought they’d just won an award. Fresh Artists is unusual and sort of complicated. Especially to 8 year-olds! How could we help them “get it”?

Because the philanthropy of the small child is at the very core of Fresh Artists’ vision, we realized we needed to go back to the drawing board and find a way to communicate this to the kids we served, to have real conversations with children about philanthropy. So we developed several pilot programs that offer tangible evidence to both the children who become Fresh Artists and the general public, which was, by now, getting pretty interested in what we were doing. We also heard from super-talented 4^th graders who talked about “starving artists”, saying they couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to grow up to be an artist. Gasp!

Co-Creating with Art Teachers

We heard from art teachers who are starving for meaty, wildly innovative art programs for their kids. They told us that they wanted to “get their kids out of Dodge” into the real world, visiting museums so they could have experiences with and see lots of art.  Teachers asked us why only “big offices could show Fresh Artists art,” and why couldn’t the children’s art “be put in places where real kids could see it”. Like us, they also wanted to find a way to include children who wanted to help Fresh Artists raise money for art supplies but whose work would not be part of the collection.

Listening to Our Corporate Donors

When we install art in corporate spaces, people go nuts. They love the color, the freedom, and the creativity of our children’s art. The only complaint we get is that they want to know more about the artists!  To help bring our kids to life in the corporate boardroom, we are developing “back stories” that will accompany each piece of artwork, Stories Behind the Art. These story sheets will tell something about the art lesson being taught, and some interesting (nonsensitive) information about the young artist and the dedicated teachers who teach them.  Again, a core part of our mission is to have people see the extraordinary talent and promise of children in our struggling public schools, and call to others to action on their behalf.

As everything else was zipping along on schedule (art acquisition, art supplies distribution, annual Sprout Fest honoring the young art donors), we set about to experiment…to address the other challenges we were learning about.

_______________ Challenge: “Our young donors don’t truly understand that they are making a                                                                difference in the world through the gift of their artwork.”

Solution: Find a way to speak directly to kids, through a medium they understand and will delight them.  A brochure for 8 year-olds?  So we wrote an illustrated children’s storybook called “Pablo, the Philly Philanthropist” about a little boy whose passion for drawing and painting was getting him in trouble. His artwork is chosen by Fresh Artists and he learns he is a philanthropist who fills his school shelves with art supplies through his talent and generosity. We read this book aloud at our last Sprout Fest, and then questioned the kids afterward about being philanthropists. Eureka! They got it!  We also gave a copy of “Pablo” to every child inducted into Fresh Artists in 2010.  This will be a feature of our program from now on. Truth be told, corporate lawyers are also becoming fans of the book!

An art teacher wrote, “I just want to let you know how thrilled Josh and Jalil are over the fact that their artwork will be used to help other needy students. When I explained Fresh Artists to them, the first thing Jalil said was, “I love helping other people!”. It really warmed my heart that his first reaction was concerning other people, rather than himself. He really gets it!”

_______________ Challenge:  Getting kids connected to and comfortable in art museums.

Solution: We were invited to create a unique partnership with the world-famous Barnes Foundation to give 64 kids unprecedented access to this delightful but remotely located museum.  The museum is moving from the Philadelphia suburbs into the cultural heart of Philadelphia and the director wanted to connect with the city’s children while their building was being constructed. The kids were given three private tours of their collections then each child adopted a masterpiece to “interpret”. Beautiful mini-masterpiece renditions of Matisse, Monet, Cezanne, Renoir and Soutine were created by the K-7th grade kids.

We were grateful to be able to exhibit the entire project at Woodmere Art Museum, and the Barnes had 29 of the pieces made into huge, weatherproof panels that they installed on the fence surrounding the construction of their new building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway! Now these kids feel at home in the Barnes and Woodmere. They see their art in a very public place, and can’t wait for “their” new museum to open. Fresh Artists now has gorgeous artwork from the Barnes Foundation in our Collection, available to our donors. We have been contacted by other prominent museums to offer this program with their collections and other schools have asked to be involved!

_______________ Challenge: Kids don’t realize how art can be a business or a career.

Solution: We developed “Fresh Artists Sign Studio”, a little pilot graphic design business where a group of 14 elementary school kids volunteered to take on a client to design interior signs for a new healthy food cooperative. Part of an after-school art club, the kids worked over 10 weeks with Josh Giblin, the merchandise manager of Weavers Way Food Co-op and their art teacher, Robyn Miller, to make stunning pictographs of healthy fruits and veggies for the new store. The kids learned about graphic design, visual communication, and working for a client. Each work session began with a “crit” (critique) of the previous week’s work, with gentle suggestions from the client. When finished, the artwork was scanned, blown up big and installed in the grocery store for the world to see. The kids were honored at the store, and will deliver the art supplies to a school in great need, bought with money their little volunteer “business” earned. Sign Studio generated extraordinary publicity and goodwill in addition to being a grand success with the grocery store, the kids and their teacher. Their healthy food artwork, now part of the Fresh Artists Collection, is being chosen by big corporations and individuals all over the country! These kids now know that art can be a viable, rewarding career choice and that art and design are everywhere they look!

_______________ Challenge:  ”Fresh Artists art is only in big, fancy office buildings.”

Solution: Fresh Artists was born at the peak of a boom economy. Then the economy fell apart. We knew we had a solid business model, but needed to find new markets while we waited for the upturn. So we developed relationships with nonprofit organizations that desperately wanted our vibrant, hopeful artwork to freshen up their offices. Retooling our pricing structure to make the donation for artwork affordable to nonprofit budgets, we found a wonderful new market for the children’s art that both brought in new dollars and made the artwork accessible to ordinary people…and kids!

We forged a relationship with World Café Live, the hip new music venue and home of Penn’s public radio WXPN. We filled their public spaces with Fresh Artists work. Now tens of thousands of adults (and thousands of kids) see and enjoy our art. We created a partnership with the National Children’s Alliance in Washington DC and now are placing our  artwork in Child Advocacy Centers throughout the USA, from Green Bay, Wisconsin to Portland, Oregon. These centers support children who have been sexually abused and maltreated with forensic work, counseling, legal and social support services, and our artwork is being hailed as creating a welcoming, child-friendly, hopeful environment for these fragile children and those who work with them. This fall we placed 173 large-format works of Fresh Artists in “Safe Shores”, the Washington DC Child Advocacy Center. This expansion from our original focus of placing artwork in large corporations has given us the opportunity to widely display our artwork to a new and deserving constituency, provide income during a weak economy and showcase our program to a much wider geographic clientele. All in all, we are thrilled with the lemonade we made from the lemony economy!

_______________ Challenge:  ”How can my child be part of Fresh Artists?”

Solution: Our new program, “Fresh Artists Clothesline Art Sales”!  We hear this again and again. It’s true. Fresh Artists is fundamentally a corporate art collection. We choose artwork to attract and engage businesses and corporations… artwork that is visually bold and vibrant, that fills its space to the edges and can withstand “scaling up” in size. Often our images are enlarged up to 6 feet by 9 feet. Although we believe that all children’s art is charming and meaningful, very few pieces fill our Collection’s unusual requirements.  Another parameter of the Fresh Artists Collection is that the art be made and donated by children in low-income schools. That eliminates a whole lot of kids who don’t fall into that category, from suburban and private schools.  But we were determined to design a way that ANY AND ALL children can be part of Fresh Artists. So we started a grass-roots program that is accessible to all kids: Fresh Artists Clothesline Art Sales!

“Make some art, hold a local art show/sale. Donate the proceeds to Fresh Artists”, we say. Then we purchase and deliver art supplies to a school in need in the name of the kids who held the Sale!             Badda boom!  This is a great way one child or groups of children, a family, school, scout troop or faith-based organization can get involved with Fresh Artists and make a huge difference to lots of kids. It’s easy and fun.  Several “all school Clotheslines” are in the works at local private schools this Spring, run by young people as their senior projects.  The Fresh Artists Clothesline Art Sale Helpful Hints instructions are here and on our website.

_______________ Challenge:    ”What’s next for Fresh Artists?”

Solution in the works:

For sure we want to continue to build relationships with corporate partners, to place our artwork in offices throughout the country and to raise substantial funds to deliver much needed art supplies and art programs to children in need. As we watch arts funding getting slashed in the current frenzy of local and national budget cuts, the need for Fresh Artists’ entrepreneurial social enterprise is obvious.

But we also want to deepen our commitment to having Fresh Artists be a “child-centric” philanthropy, to provide useful real-life hope and tools to low-income teens, to lower our art fabrication costs and to create a “cool clubhouse of service” as Fresh Artists’ homebase.

To this end, we will create the Fresh Artists Print Studio and Apprenticeship program where local teens will be trained to print and fabricate the hundreds of large-format, ink jet images that we give to our donors and help us install them in our donor’s businesses. As digital printing surely is the wave of the future…we will offer our teen Apprentices real-world job experiences that will give them marketable skills. The teens will receive a stipend for their work, get help with their college portfolios and have a senior show of their own work. We have a terrific volunteer Advisory Team of local and national experts in digital printing, photography, operations and youth mentoring in place, and are actively making plans for this exciting next chapter of our life. We hope manufacturers of large-format digital printers will partner with us by donating equipment and expertise for this unusual studio. We are pleased to announce that Adobe Systems has partnered with us and has donated all their cutting-edge digital design software!

So when you see “delivering innovative art programs” along with art supplies, you know that we are thinking way outside the box. In fact, I don’t think a box was ever in our plans!

To all those who have stood with us since the start: We thank each and every child and grown up who has helped Fresh Artists achieve so much in such a short time.

To all who have recently discovered Fresh Artists: Please join in and help us help our public schools. Help build access for ALL children to artmaking, to creative careers, and most importantly, to a life full of giving and meaningful service to others.

June 10, 2010, Philadelphia – A bumper-crop of 180 new Fresh Artists were honored at our annual “Sprout Fest” (annual celebration to honor our new, young artist-philanthropists) on June 10th in the beautiful Atrium of the Education Center. Young artists from kindergarten through 12th grade received thunderous applause from the more than 250 adults who came to congratulate them for their philanthropic gifts and extraordinary artistic talent.

This year’s Collection adds work from the partnership with the world-famous Barnes Foundation (mini-masterpieces “adopted” and interpreted by K-7 Fresh Artists kids).

This year, we were proud honor Josh Giblin, Merchandising Manager of Weaver’s Way Food Co-op in Mt. Airy for helping us develop our new K-5 student-centric nonprofit design initiative called “Fresh Artists Sign Studio“, our new K-5 student-centric nonprofit design initiative.  The 18 children who made the vibrant paper mosaic pictographs of fruit, veggies and other healthy grocery store items were acknowledge by their “client” and the crowd assembled. All images are now available to our donors and will be seen throughout the little cooperative grocery store within the next couple of weeks.

The adoring crowd of parents, aunties, principals, corporate donors, art teachers and press were treated to the premiere dramatic reading of Fresh Artists first children’s book, Pablo, the Philly Philanthropist, written by Stephen Trueman with founder Barbara Chandler Allen. The book was illustrated by Gardner Allen and art directed by Roger Allen, Fresh Artists Design Director. The cast of readers was headlined by the unsinkable sparkle-plenty Molly McQuoid (grade 3) reading the part of Pablo.  Molly is an accomplished actor, currently appearing in Carousel at Plays and Players Theater!  Stephen Trueman, author, narrated. This wonderful children’s book can be read on our website by clicking the Pablo button on the front page.

A cast of Fresh Artists community champions and volunteers played roles in the dramatic reading of Pablo, with Fresh Artists board member Nancy Wolff (above),playing Ms. Clarke, art teacher Robyn Miller, playing Pablo’s beloved art teacher and Ludy Soderman (head of the School District’s Office of Translation) as Pablo’s Tia Carla. Ludy personally translated “Pablo” into Spanish for us.  Jason James, Quincy Ellis and Luis Hernandez also did a terrific job reading parts.

Cheering the children on was Philadelphia School Reform Commissioner Johnny Irizarry, who also spoke directly to the children about staying true to their creative natures. Mr. Irizarry, himself an artist, spoke about how painting has enriched his life over the years. Head of the District’s Department of Creative & Performing Art, Dennis Creedon, also had inspiring words for the children.

An inscribed first edition of “Pablo” was given to every new Fresh Artist, as well as to their art teachers.  The kids kept author Trueman (below) autographing their copies for over an hour!  We are grateful to Jim Pinheiro of Pearl Pressman Liberty (PPL) Communications Group who helped with the printing of Pablo. PPL has filled their new headquarters/plant near the airport with Fresh Artists artwork.

Publication of the new book ”Pablo, the Philly Philanthropist“ was made possible by generous gifts from Barbara and Isaac Clothier in memory of their daughter, Melinda Clothier Biddle and Elizabeth Beatty, by C. Gloria Akers in honor of Delta Sigma Theta, and by Health Partners Foundation. The new book is available for a donation of $25 plus $5 postage by sending a check to Fresh Artists, P.O. Box 44, Lafayette Hill, PA 19444.  It will be available on our website as soon as we can get an e-commerce capability on the site! Any web developers out there who would like to make this happen for Fresh Artists, please let us know!

Each young artist-philanthropist went home with a 2010 limited edition t-shirt with their artwork on it and a framed “certificate of extraordinary artistic and philanthropic achievement” designed for us by well-known author David Macaulay, Advisory Board member and long-time Fresh Artists champion.

Each young artist-philanthropist wore the special “front stage pass” lanyard emblazoned with a full color reproduction of their donated artwork, so that all guests would be sure to talk with the youngsters about the art they donated.

NEWS FLASH! Within 24 hours of being inducted into Fresh Artists, the artwork (shown below) of kindergartener Rovic Merginio (shown above discussing his artwork with founder Barbara Allen) was chosen to be installed in the front hall of Drexel University’s Goodwin College of Professional Studies!

This year, an new tradition was inaugurated: the gift of two little art kits, each containing a set of 12 professional oil pastels and a sketchbook, one for each of the Fresh Artists to keep for themselves, and one for each child to “pass along” and give to another child as a tangible, active symbol of the philanthropy of children. This idea came from Meredith Allen Wiggins, the editor of “Pablo“.  Art supplies were generously given by the Fresh Artists Business Advisory Council led by Bob Reid (Elevate Architects + Collaborators) and Heather Gibson (Sentry Art Advisors), as well as Merion Art and Repro (our art supply vendor), and Jan Van der Lande and Laura Kellner, of global design-leader, Kikkerland Design.

Fresh Artists  granted  its first Scholarship Award of art supplies  to Senior Fresh Artist Alexandra Valles. Alex will start her college career as an art major at Penn State Main Campus. Beginning in the 6^th grade, Alex donated four pieces of her artwork to Fresh Artists, and 15 corporations have chosen her artwork over the past three years. Alex’s philanthropy has made it possible to deliver art supplies to thousands of children in Philadelphia, and we are grateful for  her generosity. Senior Fresh Artist Alexandra Valles was given a scholarship of art supplies to start her college career as an art major at Penn State Main Campus. Alex has donated four pieces of her artwork, starting with piece she made as a sixth-grader at Greenerg Elementary!  Alex’s philanthropy has made it possible to deliver art supplies to thousands of children in Philadelphia as a result of 15 corporations choosing her artwork over the past three years. Fresh Artists wishes all its graduating seniors the very best as they go forth into the world.

We thank Chef John Gallagher, Head of the Pastry Department at the Restaurant School, whose students made and donated 600 special Fresh Artists signature sugar cookies in the shape of artist’s palettes in honor of the children, and to Jennifer Braxton, IKEA North America, for their delicious cookies.

At the end of the program everyone who had made and donated art, corporate and individual donors, parents and art teachers and all Fresh Artists’ staff and volunteers were asked to stand. That left very few sitting!

Barbara Allen asked everyone present to “Close your eyes…tight! No peeking,” and to imagine a gi-normous mountain of art supplies in front of them:

- 981 jars of tempera paint,

- 320 pounds of clay,

- 10,104 sticks of oil pastels,

- 25,016 sheets of heavy white drawing paper, and

- 5,800 juicy new colored markers

Barbara continued, reading from their newly published book, “Did I do this?” Pablo asked. “Yes,” Ms. Kelley says, “You did this!  Your art and your giving made a difference!” Barbara went on to say, “Now open your eyes. Everyone standing actually made this happen.  The children who made and donated their artwork… the teachers who guided these children in new techniques, skills and creativity… the parents who encouraged and praised them, putting their artwork on the fridge with big, fat magnets…and the generous corporate, foundation and individual donors who gave money to purchase the art supplies.”

Sprout Fest 2010 celebrates the powerful philanthropy of children, leading us all to be more generous change agents.  Thanks to all the generous children and all who support them as they go forth to make a substantive difference in the world!

(Special thanks to our talented photographers, Seth Shimkonis and Andrea Tucker, who generously donated their services for the Sprout Fest)

We have just completed the second annual delivery of art supplies to Philadelphia public schools. Added to last year’s grants, we have now exceeded delivering the retail value of $100,300 in much-needed art supplies to 265 severely under-resourced K-12 public schools!

This year Fresh Artists streamlined the delivery process by creating Art Kits from data obtained from last year’s orders and a questionnaire asking art teachers exactly what they most needed.  Twenty-four themed kits were created, all exactly of the same value. Teachers simply applied for a grant on our website, specifying the Art Kit they needed.  The delivery was simplified as well, with the Art Kits available to teachers on three pick-up dates at the School District’s central loading dock.