Category: Art Projects

Let There Be Light!

Art Projects

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In honor of the third anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince Haiti, Project HOPE Art is building a sculpture from recycled materials with Haitian artists, students and other project partners called “Let There Be Light”.  We will be creating a chandelier of plastic trash collected from the streets of Port au Prince.

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Local artists from Atis Rezistans in Port au Prince are designing and building the trellis from which it will hang.  Students from Centre d’Education et de Formattion des Jeunes are collecting and cleaning the plastic materials and we will be assembling the parts and installing the sculpture together.  The final sculpture will remain a part of the school.

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The original design of these light sculptures were created by artist Stuart Haygarth as a part of his Tide series, where he was collecting trash that washed up with the tide on his local shores.  He lights his chandeliers with a 100 watt bulb suspended in the center.

To support PHA in its art endeavors please make a tax deductible donation HERE! Thank you for your support!

PhotoPhilanthropy Visual Essay Submission, 2012

Melissa Schilling Art Projects, Join the Team, Visual Storytelling

Bleak Landscapes and Grim Living Conditions meet your arch nemesi:
Vibrant Color, Laughter and Creativity.
This photo essay follows a group of American artists through the slums of Port au Prince and into schools, hospitals and orphanages. In their war against despair the best weapon of choice is intentional whimsy and purposeful joy.

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Project HOPE Art is comprised of a colorful cast of characters that appeal to my inner child. They work fervently to heal and inspire the children around them. I choose to photograph this organization’s journey into the Third World because I love their efforts, compassion and artful endeavors. They sing. They dance. They laugh. They create beauty from trash. They insert hope into eyes. Inspiring people to not give up or give in. But to laugh and appreciate what is and to make it through another day.

All of my photographs are used to populate the Project HOPE Art web media to tell stories of art upcycling, vermicomposting and dance workshops. This year I am working on my first illustrated Moringa Tree gardening and cookbook. This book will contain upcycled art and agroecology lesson plans, Creole recipes and actual Moringa seeds so each child who receives the book will have a grasp on nutrition, soil cycles and healthy eating. Science and Art really go hand in hand.

Several things are required to stay alive: water, food and shelter. Project HOPE Art provides the things necessary to be ALIVE: laughter, joy, ideas, color and vibrancy.

During my first trip to Haiti, in January 2010, I captured more than 5,000 images for Project HOPE Art. Together we turned those images into a book about PHA’s programming.

Now we have decided to collaborate together on a gardening cookbook, entitled “There Grows The Neighborhood.” The book’s first edition will travel down to Haiti in January 2013 filled with children’s recipes, food paintings and gardening photographs.

I will work on a second edition of the book, with a professional illustrator, to be released in January 2014. This edition of the book will encompass The Growing Gardens Guide, Vegetable Planting Guide and Container Garden Activity List — but also include a handwritten story accompanied by characters like Mardochee Le Magique Moringa and her best friend Herbie the Worm.

Through Project HOPE Art’s Visiting Artist Program and local collaboration with Haiti NPO – Haiti Communitere, I will also be traveling to Port au Prince to photograph a collection of artistic projects each quarter of 2013. My plan is to photograph alongside Project HOPE Art for as long as they will tolerate my intrusive camera lens.

Project Express Yourself

Art Projects

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Project HOPE Art is proud to support performance artist Pamela Crawford and her Project Express Yourself via our Visiting Artist Program.  Her goal for her two weeks in Haiti with PHA partner organizations is to bring self and group expression to the children of Haiti through the art of Hooping.  Pamela will teach hooping skills that will culminate in a community performance at the end of her residency in Haiti.  This performance and the days leading up to it will be filmed for documentation.

This form of dance and exercise carries many physical, mental and emotional benefits.  In dance as a whole, children find ways to use movement for exploration, and to communicate ideas, issues, and their own feelings and thoughts. Adding a hoop to the foundation of dance not only has a fun and memorable impact on their childhood but throughout their life.

Help Pamela reach her goal by making a tax deductible donation via our Indiegogo campaign Project Express Yourself!

sirèn, zetwal lamè ak avanti anba dlo a

Melissa Schilling Art Projects

To make believe:
(idiomatic) To pretend or imagine. To form a mental image of something; to envision or create something in one’s mind.

For our January 2013 trip to Haiti we will be creating an under the sea adventure for classrooms, hospitals and orphanage bedrooms. Sirèn, zetwal lamè ak avanti anba dlo a (mermaids, sea stars and underwater adventures) will abound.

Christopher Columbus reported seeing mermaids while exploring the Caribbean 500 years ago.   People have spotted mermaids in the blue waters ever since. Since we are believers of magic, it is our goal for our January 2013 trip to create sirèn, zetwal lamè ak avanti anba dlo a (mermaids, sea stars and underwater adventures) in the bedrooms of all our girls in Haiti.

 

We are now collecting glitter, sequins, clear umbrellas, shiny fabric and other sea-related trinkets to take down to Haiti with us. We’ll be creating mermaid tail pajamas for all the girls. Decorating their walls with ocean drawings, toilet paper mermaids, blue fabric and streamers, umbrella jelly fish and paper plate sea stars.

 

We’ll also be creating our newest addition to the Art + Literacy program around an underwater theme.

Among the Neo-Taíno nations of the Caribbean, the mermaid is called Aycayia. Her attributes relate to the goddess Jagua and the hibiscus flower of the majagua tree Hibiscus tiliaceus.In modern Caribbean culture, the mermaid is found as the Haitian Vodou Loa La Sirene (lit. “the mermaid”) who is the loa of wealth and beauty and the orisha Yemaya.

To learn more about getting involved, click here