Art on Edge calendar sales going to relief

Picassos are available in Coeur d’Alene for $8 and well worth every penny if they’re purchased with an open mind.

They’re not the artist’s work exactly, but Emily’s and Reanna’s and another little girl’s, who picked up ideas from the master. The children signed just their first names to works they created in Art on the Edge, a program that offers free art workshops to kids. Kids had no intention of parting with their creations until program coordinator Kendall Lewis suggested they sell their art to help child survivors of the devastating Dec. 26 tsunamis.

“They all know what’s going on in the world,” Kendall says. “They really want to support the other children who are suffering and don’t have food or parents.”

The art for sale is in a 2005 calendar designed by Marcelle Moe, a North Idaho College graphic design student. It’s Art on the Edge’s first calendar.

“People are always asking us when we’ll sell our kids’ art,” says Ali Shute, who started the free program 10 years ago. “Kids don’t want to sell their work. It’s precious to them.”

Ali started Art on the Edge for children living in homeless shelters. She wanted to give them an outlet to express themselves and a chance to appreciate their creativity. From the start, benefits, grants and donations covered the program’s expenses so all children could attend free.

The program quickly expanded to include all kids. It spread to Post Falls. For a few years, Art on the Edge exhibited its work at the Coeur d’Alene Cultural Center in City Park. About 700 kids had participated in the program by the time it reached its 10th anniversary this year.

From Art on the Edge’s start, Ali and other volunteers gave kids some basic tools with which to work. They introduced kids to the techniques of masters, color wheels and design concepts usually saved for college courses. They provided kids with art secrets and materials and left the rest to the kids’ imaginations.

Last year, one little girl designed a smiling face using Picasso’s cubist approach. Another wrote a story and illustrated it. A third showed her sadness at leaving her father with the blues and blacks she learned Picasso used to show emotion during his blue period.

Ali duplicated those works with nine others for the calendar. She included a poem written by a listener to one of her presentations. She also included quotes from some of the children.

“Art is me.” “Art is whatever comes to mind.” “Art is like life. It will take you anywhere.”

The result is a work of art – creamy yellow pages with brown calendar grids topped with glossy new creations fresh from Coeur d’Alene’s young minds. Ali planned to sell the calendars to help support Art on the Edge – until the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis hit.

“I feel guilty asking people to pay for something here when so much is needed there,” Ali says.

So, with Art on the Edge kids’ approval, money raised from the calendars will go to Unicef to help children in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other devastated areas. Art on the Edge will depend on its annual mARTi Gras to raise some of the $15,000 it needs to run the free art program this year.

This year’s mARTi Gras is Feb. 5 at Brix Restaurant in Coeur d’Alene. The party is a wild affair patterned after Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Revelers wear beads and masks, dine on Cajun food cooked by 10 Coeur d’Alene restaurants competing for honors, and dance to the Pat Coast Band’s rousing blues. Tickets cost $30.

Days in the sun

One more note on Nicholas Ashby, the little Orofino boy with a nasty blood condition that deprives him of sun exposure. His mother, Mary Ann Mattson, called last week from Salt Lake City, where Nick, 3, had undergone a bone marrow transplant at the University of Utah’s Primary Children’s Hospital. It was his only chance to beat erythropoietic porphyria, an extremely rare condition that threatened his life.

“The transplant was a complete success. He’s disease-free,” Mary Ann happily announced.

The hair Nick’s body grew to protect his skin fell out. His sores healed and his skin darkened after the transplant.

“Doctors say he can run naked through the sunshine the rest of his life,” Mary Ann said. “It was awesome.”

Nick isn’t out of the woods. The porphyria is history, but his body is fighting the transplant. Mary Ann said doctors believe they can stop the rejection if Nick starts eating on his own. He’s fed through a tube now.

Readers’ compassion overwhelmed Mary Ann and, with the nurturing hospital staff, helped her get through the toughest weeks of her life, she said. One look at Nick’s hospital room door reminds her the ordeal was worth it.

“The staff put a banner on the door: Porphyria-free and loving it,” she said, chuckling. “How cool is that?”