The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Today’s featured artist: Bryan Coppede
Artist Statement:
I discovered the New York City and Los Angeles based non-profit Refoundry a few years ago, and immediately offered to volunteer my services at their New York location. Their “mission is to provide formerly incarcerated people with the skills and opportunity to achieve financial independence and become leaders and job creators in our communities”. Refoundry works to break the cycle of incarceration and give people a sense of self-worth and empowerment. It is a cause I believe in, and it is a cause worth amplifying, especially now. Their Hand in Hand™ Project, documented here, is ongoing within the greater scope of their mission.
Below is Refoundry’s description of the Hand in Hand™ Project, used with permission:
“68 million Americans have a criminal record; when arrested their hands are ‘printed’ for identification. In this way the state coopts identity and brands these individuals as criminals for life, disseminating that ‘record’ throughout our society in ways that create barriers to employment, housing, and essential services for millions of our fellow citizens.
Refoundry’s Hand-in-Hand™ Project is designed to contrast this process, creating a new association with hand-printing – one that’s positive and creative, and that allows formerly incarcerated people to reclaim their identity and self-agency while embracing, and being embraced by, the larger community.
The one criterion of the program is that people can’t paint their own hand, but must place their hand in the hand of someone else to paint, and in turn take another’s hand in theirs to paint. This process employs safe yet intimate touch within a common creative process, providing space for value, trust and empathy to flourish between individuals and communities.
When displayed in large numbers, the visual impact of hundreds of hands simultaneously projects the uniqueness of each individual and the power and strength of community – our community. Refoundry’s Hand-in-Hand™ Project invites diverse people from many different neighborhoods, of many different colors, with many different stories – and draws them together, hand-in-hand, in a single expression of creativity, individuality and community.”
To see more of this project, click here.
To learn more about Refoundry’s mission click here
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
