Soleful Reflections

Now collecting images for the 2012 collaborative Global Art Project, Soleful Reflections.

How to participate:

1. Trace one foot with a dark marker on a piece of white paper. Make sure that the outline is complete... no gaps in the marking.

2. Write your message to the world on the foot print. It may be words of peace, concern, hope, love, frustration... whatever you want to say.* Large, dark lettering will show up best, however, feel free to make the message colorful. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, so if you'd rather draw your message, that's okay too.

3. Write your state or country somewhere on the page (on or off of the foot print).

4. Take a photo of the image.

5. Take a photo of your face.

6. Send both files (300 dpi 4"x6") to sgray@youngstownymca.org with Soleful Reflections as the subject. You may send multiple foot print messages, but need only one photo of yourself.

7. Anyone who participates in this 2012 Global Art Project for Peace will receive a high resolution digital file of the finished artwork.

8. If you do not have access to a computer, you may send the original foot print to Suzanne Gray, Davis Family YMCA, 45 McClurg Rd, Boardman, OH 44512.

9. Deadline for the images is December 15, 2011.

* profane and/or hurtful messages will not be used.

Cathartic Heeling 2011

Participants outlined their feet, then wrote their attributes on one, and negative traits on the other. Putting the words in writing created a cathartic experience. The final montage is a dance with the sun and moon, the light and the dark, the pluses and minuses of human existence.




Peaceful Soleutions 2010

More than 300 people participated, from six continents, 16 countries and 17 states. The drew, wrote, painted their messages of peace of the soles of their feet. They final montage is a flower, rooted in and blooming from the soles/souls of all nations.

Sneak Peek.. Faces of the Fair 2011

Scanning the Globe: Peaceful Soleutions

This piece was made using over 600 images of faces from around the world.
The barcode consists of foot prints and the world population at some point in early 2011.

Thanks everyone for the great support of the Faces of the Fair project. We photographed over 3500 faces this year for the 2011 montage. If you have suggestions for next year's poster, let me know.

Faces of the Fair 2010
is now on display at the
Arts & Crafts (#24) and Fine Arts (#2) Buildings
at the Canfield Fair.

Postcards, prints, and posters are available
for purchase. There is no charge to be photographed
for the 2011 Faces of the Fair montage.

To read more about what's new at the Fine Arts Building,
visit the Town Crier online.

Over four dozen senior artists from the Briarfield Group created the
paintings used to make this montage. Mary Meese of Ashley Circle
painted the large image, Purple Mountains Majesty, in 2009.