Skulls turned to Found Art. These heads are left over from the earthquake of 2010 in Port au Prince, Haiti.

For me, they are practiced homework in seeking beauty to find beauty. At least these poor souls have found a home with Andre Eugene and managed to avoid the anonymity of the mass graves just outside the city.
Twinkle lights always help, too.

About Atis Resistans: 
Grand Rue is the main avenue that runs a north-south swathe through downtown Port au Prince from Bel Air and La Saline to La Cimetière and Carrefour. At the southern end of Grand Rue, amongst the labyrinthine warren of back streets that line the avenue, is an area that traditionally has produced small handicrafts for the ever-diminishing tourism market. This close-knit community is hemmed in on all sides by the makeshift car repair district, which serves as both graveyard and salvation for the cities increasingly decrepit automobiles.

The artists Celeur and Eugène both grew up in this atmosphere of junkyard make-do, survivalist recycling and artistic endeavour. Their powerful sculptural collages of engine manifolds, TV sets, wheel hubcaps and discarded lumber have transformed the detritus of a failing economy into bold, radical and warped sculptures. Their work references their shared African & Haitian cultural heritage, a dystopian sci-fi view of the future and the positive transformative act of assemblage.
The artists from Grand Rue are extending the historical legacy of assemblage to the majority world. Their use of the readymade components are driven by economic necessity combined with creative vision and cultural continuity. Their work is transformative on many different allegorical levels, the transformation of wreckage to art, of disunity to harmony and of three young men, with no formal arts training, to the new heirs of a radical and challenging arts practice that has reached down through both modernist and post-modern arts practice.

Items needed: headband, 16-20 gauge wire, scissors, 1/4 yard of your fave fabric, needle, thread

[slideshow]

1. Bend wire to the shape of bunny ears.
2. Lay the molded wire on top of the lace and stitch both pieces together.
3. Cut along wired border.
4. Wrap both bunny ears to headband.

Bunny Ears in 10 Minutes.

Here at HOPE Art we like to use the universal language of art to solve real problems. It was our pleasure to unveil this new literacy program during our January 2012 trip to Haiti. The basic gist? Bring books in French and read them to children. From there we compose art projects around the main characters, main ideas and main themes of the book.

It was my personal joy to bestow one of my all-time favorites, Ramona the Pest, onto a group of 6 girls. I left the book with the young ladies on a sunny afternoon. When I returned two days later they had all read the book and were excitedly jumping all over me screaming “Wah-Mona!”
When I return to Haiti in April I will be bringing the next Ramona installment to them.

In 1982, illiteracy rates hovered at about 60%. And it was even higher in rural areas.
As of 2012, just a smidge more than 50% of the population can read.

It is our job to make reading fun by throwing color, texture and silly voices into the mix. Wherever we go we want to leave a trail of books for children to read and enjoy.

First Project?
Max et les Maximonstres
(Where the Wild Things Are)

We read and watercolored monsters with 15 coed children aged 8-10 years old in Cite Soleil, at a school
We also read and watercolored monsters with 15 girls aged 4-15 years old, at OJFA, a girls empowerment center in Carrefour Feuille

Stay tuned as we build this program out and up and bring it to more and more children.
If you would like to contribute, please choose something off of our wishlist.

Make Your Own Custom Colored Chalkboard Wall

1. Pour 1 cup of paint into a container. Add 2 tablespoons of unsanded tile grout. Mix with a paint stirrer, carefully breaking up clumps.

2. Apply paint with a roller or a sponge paintbrush to a primed or painted surface. Work in small sections, going over the same spot several times to ensure full, even coverage. Let dry.