RIDGE ART TO CLOSE PHYSICAL GALLERY
Our lease is up at the end of August and after much going-back-and-forth we have decided to close our physical gallery and go strictly on-line. We've been open at 21 Harrison Street  in the Oak Park Arts District outside of Chicago for 12 years and have many terrific and loyal clients. However, it is time to ease up on the physical work that a gallery requires. Most of our client base is no longer local but extends throughout most of the country and even into Europe and Latin America thanks to the internet. Closing our space will free us up to travel more, particularly in Asia and Latin America.
We will be doing shows locally and elsewhere from time to time. In fact, we are doing a show of vintage metal from Haiti at Gallery Pink, 149 Harrison Street, September 10th through October 30th and we will be part of a group show at the same space during the holiday season.
For our many on-line clients nothing will change. Our toll-free number will remain the same. We will actually be expanding our on-line merchandise as we add pieces to the site that were previously only available in the gallery. We will miss chatting about art and politics with our local clients but we will continue to do our monthly e-letter and we encourage folks to reply. An on-line conversation would be fun. (I guess that's what a blog is.) We will keep everyone informed about shows we are doing and the new pieces that we will be adding to our collection. We encourage everyone to stay in touch via email (ridgeart@comcast.net) and call us when you are in the Oak Park, Illinois area and you want a private showing
Thanks to everyone who made our presence in the Arts District such fun!
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SAVE THE DATE
On Friday, October 1, Ridge Art at Gallery Pink (149 Harrison Street, Oak Park's Arts District) will host a reception and  fund-raiser to honor Robert (Boby) Duval, founder of L'Athlétique d'Haïti. LADH is a very successful youth development program located in Cité Soleil, the poorest and most violent neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. CNN named Boby Duval its 2007 CNN Hero. David Gonzalez of the New York Times wrote, "Duval has turned a patch of dirt on the outskirts of an industrial area into a rare sight here in Haiti's capital: a wide-open green space with lockers, showers and equipment usually unavailable even in the nation's biggest athletic club." This will be an exciting evening and a great opportunity to meet a very determined and dynamic individual. We promise that you will not leave unchanged when you meet Boby and listen to his story.
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TEXTILE DONATION TO A HAITIAN ORPHANAGE
Sometimes small things can make a huge difference. When I was in Haiti in April, my friend Sharona El Sajeh mentioned that she and her husband Mano were helping some folks who had started an orphanage in one of the camps on a Catholic church's property off Canapé Vert on the way to Pétionville a few miles outside of Port-au-Prince. The women working there were telling her how difficult it was to keep track of the children because they weren't wearing uniforms. "Keeping track" is the Sharona El Sajeh with some of the boys  | basis for providing security for Haiti's vulnerable children. Trafficking in children is a problem in poor countries under stress like Haiti. All the women needed were 100 yards of shirt fabric and 100 yards of denim. They had volunteers who could sew dresses and skirts for the girls and shirts and pants for the boys. I emailed my husband Noel who works for Workers United to see if he could get one of the companies his union has contracts with to donate the fabric. Cranston Print Works of Cranston, Rhode Island, and Levi Strauss & Company of San Francisco, California, graciously agreed to make the donation.
Kay Bonè Timoun (House of Happiness for Children) is the name of the orphanage. It was started right after the January earthquake with the help of a French NGO, Enfants Bonheur, to care for neighborhood children who had either been abandonedMme Georges with her assistant leads the kids in greeting and song  | by their parents who couldn't take care of them or who had lost their parents. Until recently there were 70 children from 3-13 years old who were being cared for. The accommodations are tents with one wood and metal structure that serves as a school in the mornings. Sharona describes Kay Bonè as having "good energy" in large part thanks to the guidance of a remarkable woman called Mamie Georges, a retired school teacher. This past week (July 11th) 10 more girls ages 12-15 were welcomed to the orphanage. The security situation for girls and women at many of the camps is very bad.
Sharona and a volunteer from Israel arrange a fashion shot  | Fashionista!  |
The church has told Kay Bonè that it has to move at the end of September or October, so their goal right now is to purchase land outside of Port-au-Prince where they will move and begin building permanent housing and a school for the children. If you wish to donate to Kay Bonè Timoun, log on the website of Enfants Bonheur http://enfants-bonheur.org/index.html.
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