About Face Charlotte | Creating from Kindness
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Creating from Kindness

Creating from Kindness is comprised of works of art made from over 100,000 strips of paper with acts of kindness written on them. The participating artists each developed a concept for a community art project that would bring people from all over the community together to create alongside one another. The 8 Community Artworks on exhibit all use the paper with handwritten acts of kindness as one material in their dynamic and varied pieces.

 

These acts of kindness were generated during The Blessing Box Campaign, which invited the community to write down and contribute their own acts of kindness to “blessing boxes” located throughout the community, thereby inviting the community to look for and perform acts of kindness on a daily basis.
CFK_Jamil

The Essence of Kindness

Wood Panel, Acrylic Paint, Colorful paper strips, and adhesive medium 
4′ x 8′
Jamil Dyair Steele
 
My piece portrays a montage of images of children at play and interacting with other children from diverse backgrounds. The background is patterned with colorful strips of paper displaying random acts of kindness.   Local churches, schools, and businesses were responsible for writing the messages on each piece.  Members of the community also help to affix the strips on the wood panel behind the painted figures.  The children’s clothing and the strips that adorn the background are bright, vivid, and colorful to promote a mood of joy and happiness to viewers.   
 
 
CFK_Leigh

Wrapping Our City in Kindness

Mixed Media Collage
4.4’ x 16.4’
Tina Alberni, Jackie Radford, Leigh Williams, & Numerous Charlotte Residents
 
“Wrapping Our City in Kindness” is a result of three artists being given the challenge of designing an art piece that would not only incorporate hundreds of colored strips of paper, but would be created with the help of the local community. Each strip of paper had an act of kindness written on it that a person in the Charlotte area had done. The idea to physically layer and wrap these strips of paper around a replica of our city’s skyline seemed the perfect way to show that our city is full of people who care and who desire to grow in awareness and compassion.
To make the idea a reality, the lead artists simplified the Charlotte city skyline and other shapes by drawing patterns for each. Each patterned shape was then cut out of foam construction material to serve as a substrate for the collage. A community art day was held and folks of all ages came out to help glue the strips of paper onto the various shapes. Before the day was out the entire background for the sky was completely covered with blue strips of paper. The buildings were covered in the various warm colored strips of paper, clouds wrapped in white strips and trees in green strips. The lead artists then met several different times to assemble all the parts together and add the finishing details.
 

 

Leigh Williams, www.lbwilliamsart.com
Jackie Radford, www.jradford.com
CFK_Maebeth

Kindness Quilt

Cotton fabric,interfacing, paper, thread
10’ x 10’
Maebeth Hill
 
Quilts have historically brought about a sense of community within different cultures, bringing  a fellowship of people with a common goal by working together and creating for the common good. I have chosen weaving as the concept and medium for this piece, illustrating how the woven “blessings”  create a cohesive and nurturing community. Similarities in providing comfort for each other was a common theme among the over two thousand five hundred written colored paper “blessings” that were woven and stitched together to create this piece. Acts of kindness from people woven together to create a common “good” shows our similarities rather than our differences.  I have come to the realization of  how generous both in time and talent the community of Charlotte is while creating this artwork. It was an honor to read each of these blessings and “create from kindness”.

 

CFK_Bree3

Dressed in Kindness

Kindness strips, glue, poster board, thread, sealant, staples
Variable dimensions
Collaboration of Bree Stallings as lead artist, Students of Behailu Academy and Tara Davis and students of Fashion Dept of AIC
 
A multi-collaboartive project headed by Bree Stallings with help from Behailu Academy students in NoDa and Tara Davis of the Fashion Department at the Art Institute of Charlotte. Thousands of acts of kindness were woven into pre-made pieces that the dresses were formed with. Bree began with the inspiration of what it would look like if we each wore a a physical representation of our kindest deeds? What is fashion became about love and generosity? And beauty was an active verb not just an adjective. What culture shift would we experience if these things were celebrated more often?

 

CFK_Dana

Kindness Begins With You

 

Plywood, brightly colored strips of paper, scissors/punches, water color paper, matte medium adhesive

4’x4′

Dana L. Endsley

www.afabp.com

 

 
 

A Mandala : a circular image that brings differing, maybe even “opposite”, parts together into a unified whole.

Thousands of brightly colored strips of paper: Each piece inscribed with acts of kindness performed by people of different ages, races, ethnicities, religions, professions, neighborhoods.

The perfect union.

This Mandala entitled, “Kindness Begins With You” was made from hundreds of strips of paper that were folded, cut and collaged by members of our community coming together to create. As the lead artist, I was thrilled to watch as people of all ages and backgrounds came together to spend time making art. My intention was for the community to make the pieces that I would then form together into a community Mandala; bringing all the differing pieces together to make a unified whole. For me, this is symbolic of the community in which I would want to live. A community made of many different people who work, play, worship, live together as a unified whole.

It was important to me that the task of making the pieces was one that was accessible to all ages and that the acts of kindness would be read as the making was happening. I also wanted to capture hands of people, as they are one of our primary ways of performing acts of kindness. So folding shapes, punching circles with key words on them and collaging hands became the activities of the day.

The mirrored center allows the viewer to place themselves in the center of the Mandala, surrounding themselves in kindness and making themselves the center of kindness. Kind viewer, remember you are where kindness begins. Take that out into your world. Thank you.

CFK_brooke

Kindness Starts at Home

 

Wood Dollhouse with strips adhered using Gloss Medium

4’x3′

Brooke Gibbons

www.kamiapulan.com

“Kindness Starts at Home”. A House covered with strips from the Blessings Box showing that kindness does indeed start at home. What we learn at home and how we are treated is something that stays with us and is representative in how we treat others.