Fresh Artists Blog 

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.

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.

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!

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.

 

 

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.

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.

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.

“Tell me about the child who made this artwork“, we hear as we install another huge, vibrant reproduction in a corporate office. People always want to know about the young artist or about the lesson being taught through the artwork. Not always, but we often know a little about the child, the art lesson, or some interesting tidbit about what inspired the teacher to introduce this subject to their young students.

A wonderful young writer, Janine James, jumped at the chance to work with us to create “story-sheets” on some of the most popular pieces of artwork from our collection. A talented creative writing major from Eastern University, Janine has joined the Fresh Artists team as our intern and her project is to document stories of the children, their inspiration and processes by interviewing their art teachers.  We will be able to create customized storybooks for our donors about the specific pieces they have chosen to display in their offices.

Our aim is to build a bridge of understanding between our generous young artist-philanthropists and the generous donors who support Fresh Artists. Having stories about the art available in the donor’s offices can make the artwork more meaningful to those who visit and work there.  We thank Janine for her gifts of time and talent to bring this important project to life.

Fresh Art-vocates assembled at World Cafe Live for the Second Annual Salon on the Schuylkill.  This annual fundraising event showcases new art installed for a year-long exhibition in public spaces throughout this popular new music cafe/cabaret. The World Cafe Live staff, waiters, dishwashers, chefs and bartenders vote on the art they want on their walls from the more than 500 pieces in the Fresh Artists collection. The art installed last year will be removed and re-installed as a gift to Red Cross House at 40th and Powelton Avenue in West Philadelphia, a family shelter for disaster victims.  We were pleased to have Donna Palmieri, COO and Interim CEO of Southeastern PA Red Cross Chapter attend the Friday Salon event. She expressed her delight and gratitude for being chosen as recipient of Fresh Artist’s artwork, “This beautiful and inspirational artwork will bring so much pleasure to the families staying in our Red Cross House Center for Disaster Recovery. The images are positive, bright and most importantly, hopeful.  I can’t wait to see the artwork displayed on the walls throughout the Red Cross House and the joy the artwork will bring to the children and adults recovering from a disaster at our transitional housing facility!”

Thanks to our generous Salon Sponsors: Anapol, Schwartz, Elliott-Lewis Corporation, Robert and Marcy Fenza, The Glenmede Trust Company, Goodwin College of Professional Studies, Drexel University, Hangley, Aronchick, Segal and Pudlin, Haworth, In Posse, LLC, Martin Banks, The Neiman Group, SAP, Pearl Pressman Liberty Communications Group, Steelcase Philadelphia: Steelcase GCC, Coalesse, Designtex, Corporate Interiors. Their sponsorship makes it possible for more than 170,000 people a year to have the pleasure of seeing this brilliant children’s artwork by placing “fresh” art into World Cafe and moving the “retired” artwork out  to our community partner, Red Cross House.

Laresha Williams (CAPA ’14), stopped by with her aunt, and enjoyed seeing the artwork that she donated to Fresh Artists when she was in 7th grade reproduced as large digital prints.  Her interpretations of Matisse’s Red Madras Headdress” and di Chirico’s Portrait of Dr. Barnes, were part of the Fresh Artists-Barnes Foundation Partnership Project.

Laresha‘s artwork was part of a specially designed interactive photo-booth experience called “Silly Salon” created for the party by Seth Shimkonis, Rachael Lufkin of Jihm Booth with design assistance from Fresh Artists co-founder, Roger Allen.  Images on the backdrop were selected from the Fresh Artists collection of mini-masterpieces interpreted from the Barnes Foundation Collection by K through 7th graders under the guidance of art teachers Robyn Miller (Hancock Elementary) and Evelyn Bock (Henry Elementary). Photoshopped into digital reproductions of glorious gold-leafed museum-quality picture frames from Godel & Co. in New York, the pictures recreated a turn of the century French “salon” with heavy currant-colored drapes, and fun props like mustaches, top hats and chalk boards that became customized “speech bubbles” for event guest hilarity.

More than 300 people attended this year’s event, and enjoyed drinksand hors d’oeuvres graciously provided by Lisa Margraff, Food and Beverage Manager of World Cafe Live, and live music donated by the ten-piece hip hop band, Wyld Lyfe (Semaj Worrell and Crew) and Brooklyn’s Double Rainbow (Gardner Allen and Tim Laursen) complete with 5 outrageous automated robotic drummers!

Thank you to the Business Advisory Council, led by architect Bob Reid of Elevate Architects + Collaborators for adopting the Salon as their project: Jennifer Braxton (IKEA), Nicole Carville (Haworth), Rob Diemer (In Posse), Rosemarie Fabien (Fabien Communications), Lauren Fantini (Caroselli, Beachler), Heather Gibson (Sentry Art Advisory Services), Ken Johnson (Glaxo Smith Kline), Valerie Lagauskas (Event Navigators), Lori Morrissey (SAP), Jim Pinheiro (Pearl Pressman Liberty), Suzanne Schwartz (Tasty Baking Company), Suzanne Turk (Goodwin College, Drexel), Jerri Williams (SEPTA), Susan Yeager (Arch Insurance Group).

Thanks to the to the wonderful board and staff of Fresh Artists: Nancy Wolff, Heather Gibson, Christine James, Laura Bernardo, Roger Allen, Merry Wiggins, Steve Trueman and our amazingly talented and delightful intern from CAPA, Andrew Diemer!  Here are a bunch of terrific photographs courtesy of the following photographers who donated their professional services for the event:  Seth  Shimkonis and Rachael Lufkin of JIHM BOOTH and Viviana Pernot.

At the request of many Fresh Artists friends, we are introducing several exciting new art-embellished products featuring the children’s artwork at our annual funds & friendraising event at the World Cafe Live Friday, October 22.

We have put a new spin on the classic “memory” game by designing three signature sets using artwork from our collection. . The heirloom sets of brightly colored artwork decoupaged by hand onto 2″ polished hardwood tiles and glazed with a high-gloss acrylic are packaged in a recycled paper box and include the mission of Fresh Artists and a list of the young artist-philanthropists who donated their artwork to help other children. These charming handmade game sets are crafted by a volunteer cadre of dedicated retired art teachers who are committed to supporting Fresh Artist by making art, staying in touch with each other and mentoring new teachers!

Fresh Faces features 16 bright faces in mosaic, oil crayon, watercolor and block printing from Lady Liberty done by a seventh grade Masterman School student to a vibrant self-portrait oil pastel by a graduating senior from the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA). For an additional donation, we will customize your game set by inserting two photograph faces of your own choice…your children, parents or favorite animals!

Fresh Food is a tribute to healthy eating featuring the new Sign Studio Collection of paper mosaic fruits and veggies designed for interior signage in local organic food cooperatives.  Blueberries, peppers, a club sandwich and trout tiles in jewel tones make playing this game both fun and educational for youngsters learning to make healthy eating choices.

Fresh Art is the set of tiles highlighting the favorite pieces from our collection like Penguins, Dancing Koi, City Blocks (a Cubist take on Philadelphia’s “Old City” with the Ben Franklin bridge in the background), a star “mini-Matisse” from our Barnes Foundation partnership, and the now-famous kindergarten piece, “Seven Ants on My Pizza”!

The Fresh Artists Memory Games are the perfect inter-generational activity…a charming activity for the upcoming holidays. As engaging to grandparents as it is to very young children, these sets are magnets bringing all ages together at your holiday table.

We are offering four exquisitely matted and framed reproductions, printed on rag paper by Silicon Graphics Fine Art Prints for the first time. Alexandra Valles‘ popular drawing of the city skyline, City Crane, and Sara Hendrix’ moving self portrait of her grandmother holding Sara as an infant will be available at the event as special orders for holiday gifts.  Fifth grader Matthew Ryncyzk’s brilliant interpretation of Soutine’s 1919 masterpiece from the Barnes Foundation, The Little Pastry Cook, is breathtaking and would make any a fascinating gift for any art lover or passionate “foodie”.  Rounding out our first framed collection is a group of four luscious fruits and vegetables from the Sign Studio Collection, “The Fresher the Better”, by 3rd and 4th grade artist-philanthropists…perfect for a kitchen or breakfast room wall.

Our first children’s book, Pablo the Philly Philanthropist, will also be available, with the author, Steve Trueman, and the illustrator, Gardner Allen, present at the World Cafe Live to personalize and autograph your purchases for a special child.  Two special edition t-shirts have been commissioned for the event, the healthy food “Fresher the Better” graphic and a handsome dark gray Fresh Artists logo tee.

Thanks to our generous friends at Pearl Pressman Liberty Communications Group, the 2011 Fresh Artists Executive Desk Calendar will again be available at our Salon event.  A personal miniature art-gallery-on your-desk, this beautifully printed, sophisticated 12-month calendar shows off the artwork of exceptionally talents kids from kindergarden through 12th grade. A great gift for anyone, make sure to get one for yourself!

One stop shopping for innovative and meaningful gifts for your holiday gift-giving! Some quantities are limited. Come early for the best selection.

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.

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.

Come celebrate the fresh children’s artwork installed throughout the World Cafe Live on Friday, October 22nd. With the support of generous corporate sponsors, we are refreshing the public spaces of the hottest music venue on the East Coast with brilliant artwork made and donated by K-12 Philadelphia school children.  Each sponsor is adopting a work of art that was installed last fall, and recycling it out into the community to freshen up a nonprofit community partner’s facilities. The sponsor’s name and logo will accompany the permanently-installed recycled artwork panels.  The sponsorship includes the new, fresh large-scale digital artwork that will be installed in its place for the next 12 months. To see details of this innovative sponsorship opportunity, click here freshartists_salon.

Our innovative partnership with World Cafe Live began last year, with their employees (wait-staff, bartenders, dishwashers and cooks) choosing 15 large-scale reproductions of artwork from the Fresh Artists collection to decorate the walls of their hip music cabaret. The response was so positive that they offered to host this fun party for Fresh Artists as an annual fundraising event to support artmaking and philanthropy among city kids. Most of the staff of the World Cafe Live are accomplished artists and musicians who care about keeping art alive in our public schools so it was a great fit. World Cafe Live founder Hal Real is an enthusiastic and generous supporter of Fresh Artists.

In addition to viewing the freshest artwork in town, sponsors and guests will enjoy live music donated by our friends, Wyld Lyfe, plenty of beer, wine, soft drinks and a delicious Mediterreanean buffet for heavy grazing. A “merch” table will be front and center, filled with cool Fresh Artists stuff…t-shirts, posters, calendars and children’s box games, featuring the artwork donated by some of the 510 young artist-philanthropists that comprise Fresh Artists. Great place for unusual and meaningful holiday gifts!

Whether you sponsor (adopt) a work of art (hurry, they’re going fast!) or buy a handful of tickets ($15 each)…call up your pals, that bunch of special clients or someone you wish was a client…and make a date to meet after work on Friday, October 22nd, from 5:00 pm to 9:00.  Bask in the wonderful, inspirational artwork made by these generous K-12 kids, listen to great live music, have a drink and delicious food donated by the World Cafe Live, served by young artists and musicians who care deeply about nurturing and equipping the next generation of our creative economy. We promise you will be uplifted, engaged and inspired. Pretty cool for a Friday night on the way home from work!

Salon on the Schuylkill is an annual event organized by the Fresh Artists Business Advisory Council. The Council is led by Bob Reid AIA, Elevate Architects + Collaborators and includes the following wonderful team:

Jennifer Braxton (IKEA), Nicole Carville (Haworth), Rob Diemer (In Posse), Rosemarie Fabien (Fabien Communications), Lauren Fantini, Esq. (Caroselli, Beachler, McTIerney Conboy), Shawn Gibbons (CI Solutions LLC), Heather Gibson (Sentry Art Advisors), Jennifer Heller (Comcast Corporation), Valerie Lagauskas (Event Navigators), Lori Morrissey (SAP), Jim Pinheiro (Pearl Pressman Liberty Communications Group), Jeffrey Totaro (Jeffrey Totaro Photographer), Suzanne Turk (Goodwin College, Drexel University), Jerria Williams (SEPTA), Susan Yeager (Arch Insurance). If you are interested in getting involved, please call Barbara Chandler Allen, 215-920-3317.