At artstream, each year we have tried to give back in many ways to our community. In turn, we are given so much. Our greatest gift has been a host of interns, college aged, young women (ok, and one male!) who have been indispensable to us in running our busy studios.

Our last intern, Mattie had just graduated from Dartmouth College and was contemplating furthering her education in art. She dropped by the gallery one day to introduce herself and a line of jewelry that she and her two sisters have been making jewelry for the past few years to raise money for Breast Cancer Research. I was mesmerized with her story as she continued. The three young sisters had lost not only their mother, but their aunt to breast cancer three years ago. Since that time, they have tirelessly made a line of fun and affordable jewelry to sell to shops and galleries with the sole purpose to give their profits to research of this deadly disease. Mattie not only wanted us to carry their line “Betty’s Jewels” (named after her grandmother who loved big earrings) but also jumped at the chance to intern with us for a few months. We loved her instantly, as she was not only efficient, but willing to try anything we threw at her.Per usual when it came time for her to go, we felt we couldn’t do enough to show our gratitude.

As we became swamped with work at the end of the year, we missed Mattie and her helping hands even more. Thinking back on all that she had really done for us, we finally hit upon an idea which would honor her time with us and plan out our philanthropy for the upcoming year.

We decided to do something we felt was significant for women everywhere and to celebrate Mattie and her sisters dedicated charitable works. We also wished to stay true to our mission and encourage emerging artists and include artisans from around the world. The Lovely Hearts exhibition idea was born. This is how it shakes down thus far:

• We created an online submission form which allows artists and crafters of all levels to enter work into a juried exhibition.
• We have kept the size limitations small due to the expected numbers of works.
• We are giving all of artstream’s profits to charity, however we are not asking the artists to do the same, (although some have donated works) there is a small fee for the jury process, to help offset the massive amount of work to catalog.
• All the works will be for sale on line in our shop and in the gallery, and in our regular site at artstream.
• We are encouraging non traditional fine arts as well as outsider art and student works. Nothing need be framed.

It is our hope to reach as many artists as possible and exhibit as many new interpretations on the theme of love and raise some money for a very good cause. The initial outpouring of work and support has been wonderful! Please consider joining us with your work or perusing the fabulous variety of art and craft work which will be available on Feburary 10th online. Of course if you are in the ‘hood, please do drop in for the opening!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 9:58 pm and is filed under exhibitions+design+extreme. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.