Julie Eakes loves to pixelate images. In many of her works, she divides an image into squares and reassembles the pieces into a whole again. That’s the way her brain works.
Thirty-six polymer artists were given 3″x3″ drawings to replicate in the polymer colors and techniques of their choosing. Follow the pattern that you are given. “I’ll screw it up,” each of us thought. It’s a daunting task. It will never work.
There’s a lovely luminosity about these most recent hearts from Kentucky’s Ron Lehocky. The gold dots popping through watery colored layers lead us to summer’s end.
Because Ron builds his hearts from lots of others’ scraps, it’s hard to know the provenance of the bits and pieces he uses. His heart brooches are lovely collaborations between other’s scraps and Ron’s magic.
He’s close to making 50,000 of these for his Kids Project that receives all the proceeds from sales.
A flock of angels will flutter through PCD this spring as we raise travel funds for the 3 Samunnat women who will visit the US in October for training and market development.
Gita, Pramila, and Kopila are anxious to meet face to face with those who have supported them and watched the Nepal project grow for 11 years!
The angels are elegantly draped in repurposed sari silks. Each artist has given her celestial creation a personality, tucked a special message for you under the bodice, and folded it into a gift bag.
Each costs $50 and will be mailed free in the continental US. Ron Lehocky is spearheading the effort. Make your checks out to Ron Lehocky. Mail to: 1763 Casselberry Rd, Louisville, KY 40205. Contact him at rlehocky@bellsouth.net
If you’d like to support Samunnat in other ways, you can click on the Paypal donate button next to the angels in the right column on PCD and make a donation in any amount. The ladies share their excitement on Instagram. Learn about Samunnat in a nutshell here.
I’ll be escorting the visitors and will talk about our plans, ask for your suggestions and help in upcoming posts. With your help, we can do this!
Your chance to send some valentine joy is waiting at the top of the right column. Your donation, no matter how big or small, will help the women of the Samunnat women’s project in eastern Nepal build a home.
Ron Lehocky will double the love by matching your gifts up to $2000.
PCDaily will bring you regular reports about the project. I’ll tell you about all the wonderful ways polymer artists have already helped their sisters thrive. Go on and CLICK to add your love.
The backstory
Ron Lehocky is no stranger to fundraising projects. He has made and sold over 20,000 polymer hearts to support the Kids Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The ones pictured here are part of his 2013 Valentines Day collection.
Australia’s Wendy Moore contacted Ron to purchase some hearts to take to Nepal. She thought the women in the Samunnat project would be inspired by the work of an American doctor who developed a small polymer project that became remarkably successful at helping children.
As they corresponded, Ron and Wendy shared stories. Wendy told him about the abuse and discrimination that the Samunnat women had endured and how the polymer skills that they learned had transformed their lives and made them agents of change.
She described how the group had moved its offices four times in the last six years because of arbitrary and frequent rent increases. Their first facility, shown here, was little more than an open storefront on a busy highway.
A gift of a small parcel of land and growing success in marketing their beads abroad allowed Samunnat to consider building a facility. For under $10,000 they could construct their own building that would give them the room they need to continue and grow.
To Ron, the building sounded like a small step with a big payoff. He thought it over. To kickstart a construction fund, Ron offered to match donations up to $2000. Isn’t that fantastic?
More to this story on Monday. Why wait? CLICK now.
