I started this project in the Spring of 2016 while I was listening to stories of refugees from Syria while working in the studio. I felt the plight of these people so powerfully, leaving a life of daily terror to travel hundreds and thousands of miles, carrying nothing while I am sitting in my warm studio with lip balm at my desk, by my bed and in my purse so that I have it wherever I need it. I decided that I had to do something to try to help. I used my own skills by making 41 drawings of simple things in life that I am grateful for. Clean water to drink, seeds to plant food in the garden and water that comes out of a tap to water them, the constant presence of my son, the presence in my life that I am most grateful for. These are a few of the drawings. In the October of 2017, I started posting them every couple of days on Facebook to auction them to raise money for organizations that are helping these refugees. The person who commented with the highest bid by a certain time would win the drawing. I sent them the drawing when I received a check from them made out the the organization. Then, anyone else could purchase a generation of the drawing at the price set by the highest bidder. At first, I was concerned that the drawings were being sold for a minimum of $400, which would lock out people who could not afford as much, but then one drawing went for only $100, and 20 people purchased generations of that drawing, which meant that that drawing had raised 5 times as much money as any of the other drawings. It made me realize that many people of lesser means working together actually have more power to change things than individual people with much more money. Then the presidential election happened and I realized that we needed help here in this country to survive our new president and to keep this country from going down the road of a country like Syria. And the auctions changed to include organizations working for people's rights here in America. After all the drawings were auctioned, I made diptychs which are the work that is shown in exhibitions. The drawing on the left in the diptych is the final generation of the original drawing showing all the people who purchased the previous drawings. The drawing on the left is of the work done by the organization receiving the funds. I was able to raise just shy of $20,000 for 41 different organizations. This series has been exhibited at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Untitled Art Fair in San Francisco with NF/ Nieves Fernandez and with their gallery in Madrid as well as with Orth Contemporary in Tulsa.
Following is a list of the organizations that this project funded:
Doctors Without Borders
Heifer International
Water for People
Syrian American Medical Society
Parisar Vikas (who helps organize waste pickers in Mumbai for better working conditions and for better sanitation)
The Greenbelt Movement (Wangari Maathai’s organization to plant millions of trees across Kenya)
Families for Freedom (keeping immigrant families together when some family members don’t have papers)
National Resources Defense Council
ACLU
Oxfam
Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
Planned Parenthood
The Trevor Project (supporting LGBTQIA youth)
Save the Children (refugee work)
The Malala Fund
United Farm Workers
NARAL Pro Choice America
Human Rights Watch
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Southern Poverty Law Center
International Rescue Committee (refugee work)
National Coalition for the Homeless
Fair Trade USA
Ocean Conservancy
International Refugee Assistance Project
The Halo Trust (disarming unexploded land mines left over from wars)
The Committee to Protect Journalists
The Grey Arts Foundation (to help victims of the Ghost Ship Fire… this one was in conjunction with the SF Untitled Fair)
The King Center (on Martin Luther King Day)
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
NPR
RAIIN (to end sexual violence)
Musica Franklin (providing free after school music classes to at risk kids)
The Anti-Defamation League
The Prison Birth Project
Pro Activa Open Arms (going out on boats to rescue migrants on the Mediterranean)
Amnesty International
The International Red Cross
