Thursday 10 February 2011

Starting one hope and one he:art at a time

This is the start of a collaborative art project borne out of love for our older sister Tanya and in memory of our brother-in-law, Stephen.

Two months ago today we both got phonecalls telling us that our sister's husband had passed away unexpectedly. From a heart attack. At the age of 53. Leaving behind two young children. And, just like that, we watched as grief barrelled its way into our family's lives and left us all struggling to deal with our sense of loss, sorrow, shock and utter disbelief. Heartbroken doesn't even come close to describing how we felt as we all tumbled into the chasm that opened up at the heart of our family.

Within days Caren and I agreed that we wanted to do something ... anything ... to help our sister and our niece and nephew. Something beyond our journeying to their doorstep with our hugs and beyond picking up the phone even when it feels like there's absolutely nothing we can say to provide comfort. We both wanted to create a legacy in Stephen's memory to provide a small amount of financial support to our sister and raise some money for charity along the way. In many ways it's started as a gesture of sisterly love but we hope that it will grow into something bigger.

Although our hearts will continue to break over and over again for our family's loss, this project is our recognition that life goes on filling our hearts with gratitude and happiness even on the darkest days. We will be making and selling lovingly crafted items over the coming days, months and years in the hope that our creative efforts will provide a little security for Tanya and her young family. All of the profit we make from this project will be donated ... we'll give 80% to our sister and donate 20% to the British Heart Foundation.

Our hope is that this project will grow wings as the months pass and become something that fellow artists will be moved to contribute to. For now we are starting off simply by selling greetings cards and prints of the photo above. Given that Stephen was such a big-hearted man and that he died from a heart attack, the heart has become hugely emblematic for us. The photo was taken by Helen and is of a heart that she found embedded into the pavement in Malmo, Sweden ... Sometimes fragments of joy find us in the most unexpected of places.

Please contact us if you would like to find out more or if you would be interested in donating your money/art/skills/time/enthusiasm to this project which is very close to our hearts.

We'll tell you more about Stephen as time goes by but we hope he would be proud of this legacy we're crafting for him. He will be very much in our thoughts as we start turning he:art into hope.

{Helen & Caren}
xx

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