There is a deep seated perception that art is escapist. As such, serious art and serious artists often are not considered as candidates when engaging need. What should be realized is that art can demonstrate hope in despair, beauty in decay and the voice of God in a seemingly, otherwise silent world; it can be that dimension of beauty and goodness that is generous, inclusive, inviting and which “flings its gifts to anyone who asks.” (Susan A. Ross, For the Beauty of the Earth)
The following initiatives are ongoing projects of the Continuum in need of your support, imagination, creativity, and talents. As an organization of creative, forward thinking artists we are always looking for new ways to reach out especially through art. Please contact us with any new ideas; we’d love to hear and help enable them. We’d love it, too, if you’d help us.
For, as if instinctively, our soul is uplifted by the true sublime; it takes a proud flight, and is filled with joy and vaunting, as though it had itself produced what it has heard.
—Longinus, On the Sublime
The poor and homeless do not always remain poor and homeless. Sometimes, the unbelievable and exciting happens; they find income, a home, and the first flushes of a renewed hope. They become what is known as “transitional”. Simply put this means that they can still recall the day that they were not like the “foxes who have dens or the birds who have nests” and needn’t worry about food or clothing. I remember the excitement of my first place. How much more exciting when one can still remember the great necessities and degradations of street life.
There is reason to celebrate, and for us to share in their excitement with creative acts of love and beauty. With them we can help make their place a home and demonstrate to them that they have genuine value. We can do this by donating art (a photograph, a painting, or a sculpture) to help beautify their space.
Why? Because there is something spiritual to beauty; it forces us to ruminate on the God of creation who as Charles Spurgeon reminds us “decks himself in majesty and arrays himself in beauty.” By sharing beauty with them we, also, show them a glimpse of God; it will be a daily reminder of His beauty. Also, giving generously demonstrates a love of the individual, humanizes and expresses shared joy in what is genuinely an exciting time in their life.
Should you like to donate your own art or purchase art for one of these transitional people, please contact us. We will provide a name, back story, and arrange for you to give it to them personally.
We are our stories. We are the product of all the stories we have heard and lived….We live in stories the way fish live in water, breathing them in and out.
—Daniel Taylor, The Healing Power of Stories
An untold story isolates; it dehumanizes; it implies that a person or people are without value, that they should and will be forgotten. To be a character in a story is to realize inclusion and worth; this is the gift we as artists can give a population whose stories often go unread: the poor, the elderly, the terminally sick, the refugee—in short any liminal, ignored, or silenced citizenry.
VOX Continuum seeks to help the voiceless to rehumanize by becoming part of a told story. In the telling and retelling of their stories, it is our hope to uncover a genuine human story shared by all: a universal humanity, a chorus of voices and an increased sense of community amongst us all. It looks to do this through the art of photography.
This project looks to identify individuals in order to redeem them and their story first by listening to it; then capturing it in portraiture. Doing so we claim them into our story in a tangible, visceral, human-to-human and vital, life-affirming interaction. Their portrait given to them provides them an opportunity to succinctly propagate their story to a larger audience; their portrait in combination with others can be shown in a gallery setting—expanding the reach of these individual stories to broaden perpetually their rehumanization.
Founded by celebrity photographer Jeremy Cowart, Help-Portrait is a community of photographers, coming together across the world, to use their photography skills to give back to their local community.
On or around, the first Saturday of December each year, photographers around the world will be grabbing their cameras, finding people in need, and taking their picture. When the prints are ready, the photographs get delivered.
Yep. It really is that easy.
Help-portrait is about GIVING the pictures, not taking them. These portraits are not for your portfolio, website, or for sale. Money isn’t involved here. This holiday season, you have the chance to give a family something they may have never had before- a portrait together.
Stay in contact with the Help-Portrait Memphis Community on Ning.
