Fresh Artists Blog 

December 27, 2011

Kids Use Kickstarter to Bring Their Game to Market!

Fresh Artists pizzazy art images will soon be appearing on a range of family box games.  The Sign Studio graphic design kids were eager to make things out of their art, and we remembered an old family classic called The Memory Game. We went down into the basement and found our original adored game and began to experiment with the design using all the fresh food images made by a group of 3rd – 5th graders from Hancock School.

Fresh Artists Memory Game

Now how to raise the capital to get the first batch designed and manufactured! We know it will be a huge hit in museum shops, bookstores, specialty catalogs and up-scale gift stores. We have a great friend we met through the Specialty Graphics Imaging Association (SGIA), Tim Markley, President of Markley Enterprises, a first-class large-format digital printing firm in Elkhart, IN. Tim has volunteered to help us design, engineer and print our first run of Memory Games.  Being a wonderful human being and a big backer of Fresh Artists, Tim has offered to do all this work at cost, charging us only for materials. Our goal is to do a first run in order to sell it on our website and also to find retail or wholesale customers for the games. All of the proceeds support our mission of delivering art supplies and innovative programs (how’s this Kickstarter project for an “innovative” teaching tool?!) to severely under-resourced public school kids.

Fresh Artists Memory Game

Being an entrepreneurial social business, Fresh Artists chose Kickstarter as a way of raising the funds to manufacture the first run of games!  Kickstarter is an internet-based fundraising platform place where crazy designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and general folks gather to pitch their ideas to the masses and have people make $1 to $1000+ investments in their vision and newly invented products.  People who invest in new ideas have the option of receiving one (or more) of the products they backed ONLY if the entire project cost is funded by the deadline of February 4th.  We thought it was the perfect place to enable hundreds of Fresh Artists kids to watch a product they helped produce raise toward the finish line of being fully funded.

Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freshartists/fresh-artists-memory-game?ref=live and make an investment in these talent kids and their first foray into capitalism!

Fresh Artists Memory Game

The game is 54 2″ heavy cardboard tiles, each with a vibrant original healthy food image on one side and a small overall “sprout” design (our logo) on the reverse. The game is played by kids from 3 to 103, with as few as two players up to 10 or more. There are two identical tiles of each art image. To start, all tiles are laid art-side down on the table. People take turns turning over two tiles at a time, hoping for a match. If they match, the player keeps the pair.  If no match is made, the tiles are returned to exactly where they were, face down.  The deal is to pay rapt attention to where each design is at all times! Watch your competitor’s revealed tiles as well as your own.  This is a terrific game to play with mixed ages, and a great game for the elderly.

Please support the kids and go to Kickstarter to back our project.  You will feel great about helping us get full funding by February 4th, and will get some of the premiere editions of what is destined to be an enormous retail success.

 

 




December 14, 2011

Fresh Artists Gives Back to The Red Cross House

Anyah and her art installed at Philadelphia's Red Cross Family Shelter

Anyah and her art installed at Philadelphia's Red Cross Family Shelter

We fell in love with a vibrant abstract piece of art made by a young girl named Anyah this spring.  It would be a wonderful addition to our collection, but we couldn’t find Anyah and her mother, Sherrea, to obtain their permission.  Her Harrington Elementary art teacher, Leila Falcon, told us there had been a terrible fire in their house, and the family of 7 had sought temporary shelter from friends and family around Philadelphia.

Then we heard the family had been taken in by the Red Cross House Family Shelter in West Philadelphia, where, several months earlier, we had installed 15 large reproductions of children’s art that were re-gifted from the World Cafe Live on the Penn campus!  We were finally able to reach Anyah and her mother and they happily signed the license giving Fresh Artists permission to include her work in our collection!

As a way of honoring Anyah’s talent and generosity, we thought it would be really neat to install a large reproduction of her artwork in the Red Cross House for children to enjoy in the coming years. Chad Lassiter, Director of the Red Cross House planned a little reception for Anyah and her family with bouquets of flowers and presents galore!  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Anyah Holmes Fresh Artists ArtworkAbstract, Anyah Holmes, Grade 2, Original artwork: Glue resist with oil crayon, 12″ x 18″
Fresh Artists Founder Barbara Chandler Allen, Leila Falcon (Harrington ES Art teacher), Anyah and Sherrea Holmes, Chad Lassiter (Executive Director, Red Cross House), Mary Digiacomo (Principal, Harrington ES)



November 14, 2011

OUR NEW HOME – Fresh Artists Print Studio!

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 New Studio Space

Pablo, Lauren & Roger Visit the New Fresh Artists Studio Space

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.

Fresh Artists at the Mills Cafe next to our new Studio

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! 




October 27, 2011

Annabelle to the rescue!

An ordinary day turned extraordinary this week.

We got a call from a wonderful art teacher who had just been transferred to an inner city school, and the art room shelves were totally empty! The principal had no money to give her for supplies. She was desperate, calling to see if we could help. I told her to come over at 4:30. I would scrounge around in our storage space to see if there was anything we could find to help her. Our yearly distributions take place in late winter, but I would see what we could do. I wasn’t feeling very optimistic.

Exactly two hours later, the phone rang again. It was a young suburban mother whose 7-year-old daughter had a bunch of art supplies to donate to a needy school. Turns out this young philanthropist, Annabelle, had a birthday party and instead of bringing her expensive toys that she really didn’t need, she asked all her pals to bring art supplies for kids who had none.  The guests all complied and Annabelle had a ton of  neat loot to pass along to some really lucky kids. They had heard about Fresh Artists, and figured we might be able to help.

I told Annabelle’s mom to bring her over at 4:00 with all her art supplies, that I had a surprise for her.

They arrived, little Annabelle struggling with shopping bags full to the brim with sets of juicy colored markers, glue, tempera paint, scissors, reams of paper, and tons of glitter! Journals to write in, kits to tie-dye t-shirts, stamps and block printing kits. It was a true bonanza! I asked her to unpack everything, laying it all out on the floor in the late afternoon sun.We chatted about art, life, and why she chose this unusual way to celebrate her special day.

Then Miss Jane arrived, the art teacher with empty shelves.

   

There wasn’t a dry eye in the joint. Jane told Annabelle all about her school with 400 children and no art supplies. Annabelle heard how much her gifts would mean to so many children. She realized the power of her generosity and the circle of her philanthropy was complete.

Miss Jane met her little Art Angel, and was thrilled with the wonderful supplies that would delight her children the next day and days to come.

We were honored to play a small part in this happy serendipity.

Thank you, Annabelle, for making a difference in so many children’s lives, and helping a wonderful art teacher.




June 21, 2011

Fresh Artists at TEDxPhiladelphiaED

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!




May 23, 2011

Fresh Spring News – May 23

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

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.

Self-Portrait by Lawrence Cryor, Norristown Area High School, Grade 12, Charcoal on paper

Self-Portrait by Lawrence Cryor, Norristown Area High School, Grade 12, Charcoal on paper

"Good Bacteria" by Jack Chen, Grade 2, A.S. Jenks ES

"Good Bacteria" by Jack Chen, Grade 2, A.S. Jenks ES

Intern Andrew Diemer, Creative & Performing Arts HS helps Laura Bernardo catalogue new accessions

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.

Julia deBurgos ES art teacher Jeanne Fontaine collects art supplies from Fresh Artists, with Tessie Varthas of the School District of Philadelphia

Julia deBurgos ES art teacher Jeanne Fontaine collects art supplies from Fresh Artists, with Tessie Varthas of the School District of Philadelphia

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?

Upstairs at Cosmic Cafe, Lloyd Hall, Boathouse Row, Philadelphia

Upstairs at Cosmic Cafe, Lloyd Hall, Boathouse Row, Philadelphia

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.

Alex Brame of Service Point USA's New York office marveling at Fresh Artists children's interpretations of Cezanne's masterpieces. Holding the "original" child's work, the large-format digital reproduction is on the wall behind them

Alex Brame of Service Point USA's New York office marveling at Fresh Artists children's interpretations of Cezanne's masterpieces. Holding the "original" child's work, the large-format digital reproduction is on the wall behind them

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!

Radishes by Janine B. and Nina C., grade 6

Radishes by Janine B. and Nina C., grade 6

Kathleen L. with her watermelon in process

Kathleen L. with her watermelon in process

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!

Part of the fun was struggling to carry the pounds of art supplies they brought!                                                                                                                   photo: Joan Cimino

Part of the fun was struggling to carry the pounds of art supplies they brought! photo: Joan Cimino

Fresh Artists' kids help open the Art Kits they brought.  photo: Joan Cimino

Fresh Artists' kids help open the Art Kits they brought. photo: Joan Cimino

Marium A. teaches Howe School student her techniques for mosaic magic photo: Joan Cimino




February 20, 2011

Coming of Age – Turning Three!

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 4th 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.




October 19, 2010

Fresh Artists Launches Two Clothesline Art Shows & Sales!

from a backyard birthday "Clothesline"...

from a tiny backyard birthday "Clothesline"...

to a huge community “Clothesline” at the Chestnut Hill “Fall for the Arts” street festival

we’re off and running with our new grassroots initiative in children’s philanthropy!

When Juliana turned 9, she asked for an “art” birthday party and wanted to help other children less fortunate than she. Fresh Artists provided a template for a small, simple art activity for 8 young girls to do at the sleep-over, and was such a success the girls went right back to making the bright paper mosaics as soon as they awoke the next morning. After pinning their artwork up on the clothesline, they invited their parents to view their show, and make donations for art supplies for children in severely under-resourced public schools in the inner city. Proud to send in their donation, the girls had fun and were thrilled to know they provided watercolor sets for a whole class of elementary school children through their generosity.

The First Annual Chestnut Hill Fresh Artists Clothesline Art Show and Sale was also a smash success. More than 400 children donated their artwork for the benefit of under resourced public schools and generated over $800 in donations.  26 private and public schools answered the “call for donations” as well as many home-schooled children throughout the area. Weavers Way Coop sponsored the event, and provided refreshments for the Sign Studio children who made the artwork decorating their new grocery store.

Sign Studio artists with their artwork installation in the produce department of Weavers Way Food Coop

Patrons from Rotary and Electrical Wizardry honor the generous children

Patrons from Rotary and Electrical Wizardry honor the generous children

young artist-philanthropist hanging her art

young artist-philanthropist hanging her art

Our message to the world is clear!

Our message to the world is clear and unequivocal!

Kids were our biggest customers for art!

Volunteers Sue Davis and Ken Johnson with Fresh Artists founder Barbara Chandler Allen

Thanks go to our generous patrons of Sign Studio: The Rotary Club of Chestnut Hill, Electrical Wizardry, Inc, and Carol Tyler for making this innovative pilot project possible.  Also thanks are due to the Terrific Clothesline Team, Merry Wiggins, Andrew Diemer, Evelyn and Hoagie Bock, Sue Davis, Ken Johnson, Anne Galbally, Lucretia Robbins, Roger Allen, Robyn Miller, Eileen Rudnick, Valerie van Pham, Dylan Spellman-Hall, and the Weavers Way team led by Glenn Bergman, Annette Aloe, Pat Evans, and Kim Spellman-Hall.

Any child, family, scout group or school interested in holding their own Clothesline Art Show and Sale, please call us at 215-920-3317 and we will provide all kinds of help to you.




August 23, 2010

SIGN STUDIO IN SUMMER SESSION: the fresher the better!

Young artist-philanthropists visit the Weavers Way Food Co-op to see their digitally-reproduced artwork on the wall

YOUNG SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS BRING ART TO THE MARKET AND DELIVER ART SUPPLIES TO A LOCAL UNDER-RESOURCED PUBLIC SCHOOL

Artwork created by the Fresh Artists Sign Studio’s 18 young artist-philanthropists was installed in their first client’s small grocery store in June.  The idea of Sign Studio is three-fold:

1)  Completing the Fresh Artists Circle of Philanthropy: Creating the opportunity for children to see funds generated by their donation of art purchase and physically deliver art supplies to a school in need with the proceeds. The eighteen Sign Studio children will deliver art supplies to children in another under-resourced sister school.

2)  Giving children a real-life experience of working with a small business client, demonstrating a practical use for their artmaking.

3) Connecting children’s artmaking with kids making healthy, locally-grown food choices. Each Sign Studio workshop featured healthy and unusual snacks to try such as candied ginger, unusual apples and locally-produced cheese.

The response to the infusion (invasion?!) of art was so positive by the staff and members of Weavers Way Co-op that more art was quickly commissioned.  Two young members of the Fresh Artists Sign Studio volunteered to work this August to create artwork depicting seasonal fruits and veggies, so their large-scale artwork can be switched as the seasons change.

Starting with summer fruits, the kid’s next installation will feature fall apples, ripe garlic, collard greens, multi-colored bell peppers, indian corn and a big plump pumpkin. Early spring will bring new peas, spring onions, cherries and tender young lettuce.

yellow tomatoes?

“Field research”  becomes BLTs for dinner!

Volunteering to give up a few days of their summer vacation, these two Sign Studio girls picked some real veggies, then made mosaics of garden peas and a pumpkin to prepare for the seasonal switch of art.  They would like their artwork to be used in the new national project of putting a salad bar in every public school!

ON PHILANTHROPY

Third grader, Molly M. said it best: “I love being a philanthropist…giving to other people makes you feel good inside…and it’s fun!”

Making fresh spring peas for the collection

Making fresh spring peas for the collection

Art teacher, Robyn Miller stops by to lend an hand

GENEROUS FOLKS WHO INVEST IN OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE

The original co-op location in Mt. Airy and the new Ogontz community store have both asked for the children’s artwork to brighten up their stores. Both the vibrant mosaic produce range and the Art in the Marketproject (see below) will be going into the renovated Ogontz store, opening September 7th. This large-scale artwork will be on display for 6 months and then changed. This project is sponsored by local businesses to showcase the artwork of local children. The kick-off sponsor of the Art in the Market Gallery is Valley Green Bank.  The Sign Studio graphics pilot project is made possible by generous gifts from Carol Tyler and John Siemerowski of Electrical Wizardry, Inc.

DELIVERING THE GOODS!

Gifts to Fresh Artists Sign Studio and Art in the Market Projects will purchase art supplies for the young artist-philanthropists to deliver to a severely under-resourced public school in late September. For sponsorship opportunities in either the Chestnut Hill or Ogontz stores, please call us at 215-920-3317.

Fresh Artists founders, Roger and Barbara Chandler Allen with artwork by Roxborough High senior Cruz Gallardo-Bernal in the new Chestnut Hill Weavers Way store

Fresh Artists founders, Roger and Barbara Chandler Allen with artwork by Roxborough High senior Cruz Gallardo-Bernal in the new Chestnut Hill Weavers Way store




August 22, 2010

Pablo’s Big Idea: Clothesline Art Shows Launch!

Pablo's Clothesline Art Show Design Team

Pablo's Clothesline Art Show Design Team: From rear left: Andrew Diemer, Class of '12 Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), Evelyn Bock, freshly retired art teacher from Henry Elementary, Hilary Merzbacher, Fresh Artist program assistant, painter and recent graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. Front left to right: Janet Carey, artist and junior at Montgomery Community College, Meredith Wiggins, family therapist, artist and Fresh Artists Clothesline Program Coordinator. (Not present at this meeting, but part of the team are Sue Davis, social worker and community activist, and Lucretia Robbins, painter, retired art teacher and private art instructor of plein aire painting for children)

Remember the idea we were cooking in the spring…a way for ALL kids to play an active role as philanthropists by hosting a Clothesline Art Show in their own community? Well…we have been working on this all summer! The first thing we did was to bring together a really smart and energetic group of people to brainstorm. See this bright group above.

THE TEAM

We met, made a plan and fanned out to contact schools, church groups, summer camps, a private art instructor, several retired and retiring art teachers, our local healthy food cooperative, and several families of Fresh Artists kids around the region to get their input.  A member of our Business Advisory Council, Rosemarie Fabien, introduced us to Liz Scott, the mother of Alex of Alex’s Lemonade Stand. We figured she could give us some advice on how to start a really successful grassroots initiative for young children. Alex’s Lemonade Stand is 10 years old, and has raised more than $35 million. Kids love to be involved with this wonderful organization and we sure could use their tips on how build this program…and do lots of good things for kids.  Liz told us about their history, gave us tons of ideas, and was very encouraging.

KIDS CAN START NOW AND HOLD A FRESH ARTISTS CLOTHESLINE ART SHOW

Click here to download complete instructions on how to organize a Clothesline Art Show.

freshartists-clotheslineartshow3

CLOTHESLINE KITS FREE TO THE CHILDREN!

By Thanksgiving, we plan to have an entire website page devoted to Clothesline. Then, when a youngster wants to do a Fresh Artists Clothesline Art Show, he or she, with the help of a trusted grownup, register on our website.  Registration will provide them with a kit of materials (name badges, art price tags, certificates of philanthropy, sample flyers, tips for making art projects and perhaps a coupon for a free clothesline!)  Also, a trained volunteer coach will call or email them to give some pointers on how to have a successful event.  We are harnessing the army of retiring art teachers and inviting them to help us as volunteer coaches!  Evelyn Bock, 37-year veteran elementary school art teacher has agreed to be the leader of the coaches, and she and Robyn Miller are helping Meredith Wiggins develop some easy, fun art projects that non-art people can do with their kids.

PABLO: THE SEQUEL (next the movie?)

As is our habit, we have written a second children’s story, Pablo’s Big Idea!, to explain the purpose and process of Clothesline Art Shows to young children. We asked Steve Trueman, author of our first story, Pablo the Philly Philanthropist, to help us tell the story and Gardner Allen, illustrator of Pablo, eagerly agreed to make drawings to accompany the story.  We asked two terrific young ladies to help us with the story, Molly (3rd grade) and Hope (4th grade). Both girls are extremely creative young artist-philanthropists who have together given eleven works of art to Fresh Artists!  They jumped right in and created Pablo’s dog’s personality and the perfect name, “Luna”.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE STORY!  Pablo Story #2

We thought it would be fun to ask kids how the Clothesline story should develop…so we are inviting anyone to give us suggestions about the plot, the characters and the illustrations.  Here is what we have so far with about 12 people weighing in on all aspects!  The drawings are in a preliminary state, so kids can see how an illustrator works.  Very sketch sketches first, then solid line drawings, then color is applied.  In this case, the illustrator is using Photoshop to apply the colors.  Many more drawings are needed, and are being worked upon as I write.  We will post the finished product here and it will be part of the Kit that all children receive when they register to hold a Clothesline Art Show.

We welcome any child or groups of children to hold a Clothesline Art Show to benefit schools in need. Please contact Barbara Chandler Allen, at 215-920-3317 for more information.




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