Spreading Hope - Oaxaca Grassroots

Hello ladies and welcome to the Art with Hope blog. My ideas with this blog is to spread hope through art-but in order to do this I need your help.  Sometimes we don't need lots of money in order to help someone, to help a child cover him/herself on a cold winter day, or to send a fellow woman a message of hope when she's feeling down or finds herself in what may seem a hopeless situation. Sometimes all a person needs is a little bit of our time and energy and positive message. And what better way to do this than through art?
I am a  true believer that God sent us each with one special talent, or many. And I believe that the way to show our appreciation, or thankfulness for His blessings is by using our  talent to help someone who needs it, even if just a little.

Recently I found a wonderful organization called "Street Children of Oaxaca Grassroots." It is an organization founded by Harold and Jodi Bauman. The purpose of Grassroots is to help get the children of Oaxaca, Mexico out of the streets and into school. Then have helped many children, they've put them through high school and some even through college. The way they do this is through sponsorships and donations. But like I said, money isn't always the only way to help. For me, sponsoring a child is not in my budget, as much as I would like to I can't afford to do that right now - I have three children of my own and I am a stay-at-home mom. I could probably donate once in a while but for me that's not enough. So what I would like to do, with your help, is to send these children our handmade messages of hope.
I think that sometimes we have to step up to the plate a little more, even though I am scared like you have no idea : ) I think that giving a little bit of our time and ourselves is a lot more valuable than dropping a few dollars in the jar - although that does come in useful. But what I want to ask of you today is a little bit of your help. Your handmade help. I want to help these children get ready for the next school year. These kids need backpacks and basic school supplies. What I would like to send to the children of Oaxaca Grassroots are some handmade backpacks (or store bought if you prefer). They can be any material, shape or form as long as they are sturdy and large enough to hold books and basic school supplies. I've been emailing Dave who the President at Grassroots. He says that they hand out book bags and school supplies to more than 600 children on January 6, Dia de los Santos Reyes (Three Kings Day). So if we can help get as many book bags and school supplies out there by December, that would really really be a HUGE help!
The address where you can send your beautiful stuff to is :

W. David Slaymaker, President

Oaxaca Streetchildren Grassroots

P.O. Box 2219 

Benton, AR 72018 U.S.A

They have people traveling to Oaxaca many times throughout the year.

I would like to post a tutorial on how to make a book bag, if anyone knows of a good tutorial that the can direct me to that would be great!

In the meantime you can follow by email to receive status updates and information on our next Art with Hope Blog stop. Also please become a follower so we can show Grassroots that there are many of us out here that want to help and send a message of HOPE.

Thanks for reading this super long post and I really really would to hear from you with any comments, ideas, or questions. Please leave a comment here or send me an email at: espebeltran79@gmail.com

Love,

Esperanza

More Found Art

It's Found Art Tuesday again! Can you believe how fast that came? Another month! Wow! And I'm still without a camera, I had been borrowing my daughter's camera but I think she took it to school today because it's not on my desk. So next best think to use is the camera on my computer. It's not the best and I do really apologize for the not so good photo.

It's a little piece of plywood, about 2"x2". It was a quick little project. I covered the wood with book paper then rubbed some burnt sienna ink over it, sanded it here and there and inked the edges with Ranger's Vintage Photo ink. The flowers are store bought and dipped in UTEE  to make them shiny, for the centers I glued down some UTEE drops. I painted the stems and glued the flowers in place, stuck a magnet on the back and ta da!

Oh, and the quote is by Jonathan Swift and it reads:

May you live all the days of your life.

I stuck it on a fence in my neighborhood, it hopefully will be cherished.

Have a great week!

Love,

Esperanza

Found Art Tuesday

Hi everyone, today is the second Tuesday of the April so that means it's Found Art Tuesday. I love FAT, I really enjoy leaving little pieces of art with a nice message for someone to find and be inspired. Secretly, I always hope that the person who finds it, is someone who really needs it at that moment. There have been a lot of times when I've stumbled upon something, a quote or a story, or something that was what I needed to see or hear or know at that exact moment. And that's what I want for the art that I leave every second Tuesday of the month. This month I left this

It's a box I made out of for pieces of plywood, a piece of cardboard for the back and newspaper and paperclay for the vase and flower.  I dipped the flower in UTEE so that it would have a little shine.
Then i rolled up that little message and placed it inside and lrft it on the sidewalk around my neighborhood. A lot of high school kids walk down this street so I'm hoping one of them finds it. The message reads:
Go in the direction of you dreams. Live the life you have imagined.  
I think it's perfect for a high scool student don't you?

Happy Tuesday!

Hope

Hi everyone, I've been away for a little bit. I am learning to listen to my heart, something I haven't done in a very long time. It's hard to believe that listening to your own heart is not as easy as it sounds. So I've had a few things on my mind, a few ideas circling my head, and whispers to my heart and I have made a few decisions:

1. I decided to close my etsy shop
I was not paying attention to it much and I wasn't selling. I still have a bit of a hard time putting my art out there and I still find myself searching for a style of art that truly speaks to me. Something was telling me to let go of my little shop and just focus on myself as an artist, just find my way. That maybe etsy, as wonderful as it is, just wasn't for me right now. So I listened and I let go. And I actually felt somewhat relieved, like a weight was lifted off, like when you clean out your closet and get rid of everything you don't use or don't need. Well, that's how I feel right now.

2. I decided to start a new blog dedicated to my art journal. A couple of weeks ago I started an online workshop with Christy Tomlinson and Junelle Jacobson called The Art of Wild Abandonment. These two women are wonderful and the class has been amazing! And I realized a couple of things. One is that I love to sketch, to draw. That it's the one artform that has always been a part of me. I paid attention to the fact that I love to draw and that without knowing it I have always carried a sketchbook, big or small, with me. It's funny how it's so easy to forget to see the most simple things, the things that are right in front of us. The other thing that I realized is that in my journal is where I feel the most free to express myself as a person, as an artist. It's the one place where I don't care about anything other than doing what speaks to me. That was the problem with my etsy shop, I think subconsciously I was still worried about making things that people might like, rather than just creating without a second thought.  So with that in mind I created a new blog with my name: esperanzabeltran.blogspot.com

3. I decided to use this blog to spread hope, to help in any way that I can. I definitely don't plan on letting this blog go. I love the name and I want to give honor to the name. Initially I named it Art with Hope for two reasons. One was simply because that is what my name means in Spanish. The other reason was sort of a message to myself. A message that there was hope in my art, hope for me as an artist. To remind me that even though I was older there was still hope that I could live the life of an artist. It was more of a message of hope to myself. But in making art and just being creative I realized that I don't need to sell a piece of my art in order to consider myself an artist. Just creating, letting go and doing what I love is enough to call myself an artist. In a way I feel like this blog has really spoken to me and sent me a message of hope different from what I expected. Another thing that I have always wanted to do was to help. A few years back, I heard this quote for the first time: Be the change you wish to see in the world. When I heard it I just couldn't think of how someone would go about doing that. But today I understand it so differently and I feel like I am capable of making a change, even in the smallest form. So that is my plan, my hope for this blog. A few weeks ago we, my mom and I, made some bags to participate in the donation the CraftHope had organized for March. I really admire their work and I've decided that I could do something like that. I'm still not sure how I'm going to make this happen but I will keep you posted.

In the meantime here are some pictures of what hope means to me, enjoy . . .

Found Art Tuesday for March

Good Morning! I just came back from my morning walk which I haven't been able to do because my baby has been sick with the flu and fever coming and going and the weather out here has been so weird. But today finally he is much better so we went on our morning walk but the wind was picking up so it ended up being a really quick walk.
Yesterday was Found Art Tuesday but I was busy all day and completely forgot but this morning it was one of the first things on my mind. I took it to my walk and hung it on a fence in the middle of the road. Unfortunately my camera broke (I now feel like an important part of me is missing) and the camera on my phone is really not good but here's a of picture I took, it reads "You are Beautiful" and the little square in the middle is an envelope made out of book paper that I sewed on and inside it is a mirror.

How I miss my camera! will hopefully get one for my birthday
coming up?? I need to start throwing out some hints : )

Have a wonderful middle of the week and see you back here soon!

Esperanza

Thinking about Grandma

I remember this one time when we went to visit my grandmother in my mom's hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico. A small village called Zoogocho. This village was/is poor in money but very rich in culture and agriculture. So, anyway, I remember this one time when we were walking to my grandparents' ranch, a 20 to 30 minute walk, and about 5 minutes into the walk, my grandmother came across a handful of beans thrown on the path and she was surprised, happy, and even a little confused that somebody would leave beans thrown on the floor like that. Of course I, being the little city girl that I was, did not understand what the big deal was. I mean, beans? who cares?who likes beans anyway? Yes, I ate beans but only because my mom made me. And no, we didn't have money flying out of or pockets but we always had food on the table and finding a handful of beans was no big deal to me at that time. But today I understand and I would probably be just as surprised as my mom and grandmother were that day. In a place like Zoogocho where life was simple and the only concerns were food, shelter, and clothing, finding what could be dinner was a big deal. We're so spoiled here, I bet if we found a can of vegetables on the sidewalk we'd kick it to the curb saying "yuck" because who knows where it came from. But what if we found an iphone? Oh, we'd be quick to pick it up, and hopefully most of us would be honest enough to try to get it back to its owner but we wouldn't think twice about picking it up right?
But my grandmother, the life she lived, and the things she did were so simple and humble. How I miss her. Lately I've been thinking a lot about her and how her village has changed since she passed away almost 15 years ago. So a couple of nights ago while I was painting, she came to my mind again and I drew my representation of a young her, the clothes she wore, the lines that are proof of her hard work. Here's what I painted . . .

"Chanelao" means Trust in the Zapotec dialect, my grandmothers language

My dear dear grandparents

And here's a picture of my grandparents' home (present day)
which has slowly been deteriorating since their death.

I miss coming here and seeing my grandmother, she was a little bit of a rebel but that's a story for another post.

Have a great Wednesday (The Middle and Modern Family day!)
Esperanza

Weight Problems and Some Art

Have you ever heard someone complain about wanting to gain some weight? No, you probably haven't and if you have, you've probably secretly made fun of her, "yeah, pobrecita, poor girl." Well that poor girl is me, yeah, I do complain because I do want to gain some weight. And sometimes it can be very irritating that all the attention, the commercials, the advertising are directed to the heavier women. There's weight loss programs of all types all over the world, there's clothes that makes you look slimmer and so on and so forth. But what about us? the women who have trouble gaining weight. This is just as dangerous and unhealthy as being overweight. And it might be even worse because guess what? all the bad fats and calories that we eat, because they don't go to our arms and legs and butt, they go to our blood stream and that, as you know, can lead to heart problems. I come from a family of diabetics, and none of then have been heavy, actually we're all on the petite side here. So yeah, I'm trying to gain some weight, healthy weight, I try to eat healthier, I walk everyday because doing aerobics makes me lose so much weight and no matter how much I try I don't seem to gain anything. Many women laugh when I tell them about my "problem" they just say "You should be happy. Everyone else is trying to lose weight."
Well here are a couple of questions:
Do you have trouble finding clothes that fits? I do.
Do you run out of breath easily? I do.
Is it hard for you to figure out what to eat? For me it is.
We're on the same boat only in different seats.
Last week I heard a commercial that really bothered me. It was a commercial for a weight loss program. An actress was talking about how wonderfully this program worked for her, she said she used to be stuck on size 7, 7! What is wrong with a size 7?! Anyway, she went on to say (proudly) that now, after the program, she wears a size 4 and they're still too big. What kind of message are we sending here?! I'm a size 4 and sometimes they're still too big and believe me it is not fun. It's not fun when when you're jeans are falling and everything that you try on looks too big and saggy. It's not fun when you want to go out and run and have fun but can't because you feel like you're gonna fall apart and lately this has been putting me in a bad mood so that's what I'm trying to work on because in the end I guess it's all about loving yourself and loving the skin you're in. And that's what I try to do. Love myself, and take care of my body, it's the only one I have and I need to take care of it.

Well on to other news, I finally worked on the journal that I made a few weeks ago, out of a cereal box and some old scraps of fabric. I'm not a sew-er so for me this was a real accomplishment.

But I hadn't worked on it because every time I looked at a blank page I would freeze thinking that I didn't have any great ideas in my mind and it wasn't worth "ruining" my journal. Yesterday I finally said "enough" and pulled out some paint and stamps and stencils and started working, and here's what I did, I'm not done yet but I'm liking the results so far . . .

Well that's it for now I guess, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Esperanza