Michelle Andrews and Karen Heitoff
Boys & Girls Clubs of Martin County
Hobe Sound, FL and Port Salerno, FL, USA
Emailed to Andrea Rosen on June 19, 2020:
"Andrea,
My mother, Karen Heithoff, and I would like to pool our invitations to allow us to manifest the work at two of the four Boys & Girls Clubs in Martin County, Hobe Sound and Port Salerno.
These Club’s have provided critical academic, social and emotional support for at-risk youth and teens for nearly thirty years, including providing two meals a day to these members. The current COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shelter-in-place mandates have had devastating effects on families‘ ability to meet even their basic nutritional requirements. In response to this crisis, the Club’s mobilized to serve and additional 1,100 hot meals a day and provide staple groceries to members’ families.
The fact that Felix artwork will feed not only the minds and spirits of this community, but also create the possibility for the children, should they elect, to provide hope-filled sustenance for their families inspires me to exercise my right to manifest two 1,000 cookies sculptures which will adhere to the proscribed rights and responsibilities and take the liberty to manifest two life-sized reproductions of the original 1990 manifestation of approximately 10,000 cookies. I believe an expression of inclusive abundance at this time of scarcity will have it own powerfully positive impact on the community. Further, it will allow the children to experience the process of loss in a more gradual, less anxiety producing way, and amplify the optimism of regeneration.
Timing: Open the exhibition a week late to coincide with clubs reopening and start of summer enrichment program....
Fortunes:
1ST batch of fortunes - Customize fortunes to reinforce community norms of positivity, self determination and grit. A familiar refrain and a call to action.....
2nd batch- find your personal voice...write your own fortune
Engagement strategy:
2 Monitors to create 2 windows:
1st; to encourage local community- look inward - photos of kids at the clubs because they haven’t seen each other in weeks and will not all be able to be together for months.
2nd: to encourage sense of being part of something greater, looking out...international community. All phots from other “places”
Programming to support kids reflecting / experiencing the art
Nothing 1st . Let them find their own relationship To and understanding of piles
Then develop weekly activity to approach each of the questions participants were asked to consider.
Wk2 chance/hope/unknown
Wk3personal voice/POV
Wk4Evolution/transformation
Wk5 Renewal / regeneration
Wk6 community"
