Project Update #2: 100 Acts of Human Kindness

Past halfway point! I'm starting to doodle... Posted by Maria Arango Diener Feb 3, 2020 View on Kickstarter Thank you everyone! We now have over half of participants needed to make the project "a go"! Please keep sharing, especially directly through email, text or direct message, if you have some fellow artists that are on the fence. Remind them of the awesome group deals and how cool the final prints are. Did I just dangle a verb?! Sigh... Calendar of Events for everyone's info: January 26 2020 - PROJECT LAUNCH WOOOOSH! March 3 - Funding period ends February/March 2020 - Blocks designed and cut by me April 1 2020 - (at the latest) Single puzzle pieces mailed out September 30 2020 - PARTICIPANT DEADLINE to return carved puzzle pieces with information filled out October 2020 to January 2021 - I print assembled Kindness puzzle, photograph each image, gather info, send book to publish, send poster to printer...whew! February 2021 - 100 Acts of Kindness woodcut print, books, posters and postcards mailed out Anyhow, aside from that I am so convinced we are going to make it I started to doodle in my head about the final 4-panel work (maybe 5 if we have a rush-hour influx of artists!). This takes some thinking; the great City of the World was 5-panels side by side and it is the easiest to exhibit. On the other hand, the Peace Puzzle and the Fantastic Garden were easier to design because of their shape.  Our Fantastic Garden was truly awesome and the most "puzzly" of our puzzles I'm thinking along the lines of graphic whimsical butterflies let loose by a helping hand or hands, with the characteristic swirls you expect from a true Maria design. So...here we go doodling, I promise to share once I have something that actually looks presentable.  Tell a friend! Thank you all and sharpen your chisels, Maria Update #1 WOW What a start!

Peace Puzzle on the web finally! Kindness awaits...

Peace Puzzle

I finally got around to dusting off my website skills (such as they are) and published a page with the Peace Puzzle 2015 images. This was our largest undertaking, 160 artists, 8 22x30 inch panels, massive!

Mounted on my studio table...
not me! the puzzle!!!

 Here is the final image and a link to the website where you can browse all the panels:
http://1000woodcuts.com/projects/peacepuzzle/images.html

Peace Puzzle 2015

100 Acts of Kindness Awaits all of you!

Newest art-venture! In the spirit of peace and kindness, here is our next collaboration awaiting artists from all over the world to join us. Details:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1000woodcuts/100-acts-of-human-kindness?ref=7gs7uo

Stay in touch!

1000woodcuts Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/1000woodcuts 
Maria's Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/maria.arango.diener 
Maria's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/1000woodcuts 
1000woodcuts YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1000woodcuts/videos

What the goodies do for me and two more peaceful images

Goodies...

I have reported that I enjoy getting all those little things with the blocks. I requested that all participating artists wrap their blocks in their local papers and for the most part, I am pleasantly greeted by art sections, headlines, comic strips, classified ads and all kinds of local flavor from all over the world. I don't read all of them cover to cover but I do spend a bit of time browsing and enjoying the similarities and differences between cities and towns the world over. 

As for the goodies, I enjoy most the hand-written notes almost always heartfelt and honest and funny and warmly welcomed. I used to write letters for my father after he lost use of his right arm due to a stroke. He wanted to write his friends and would struggle with a manual typewriter I bought him, pecking until he got too frustrated. Then he would ask me to write for him but when I sat down at the typewriter or the computer he would say: "Ay no, Tata, a mano, a mano!" 

So I would write "a mano" (by hand) whatever he would slowly and thoughtfully dictate to me. When his friends replied, I would take the typed letters from the mailbox, re-write them by hand, place them back in the envelope and give them to him resealed. He would then open them and say to me: "Ves? Ellos tambien escriben a mano" (See? They also write me by hand). Chuckle. Ay Papi, how I miss you...

Anyhow, thank you all for the notes and the strange and wonderful gifts of art and otherwise, wrapped in gift wrap, tucked in tiny boxes. I truly enjoy every one of them and they give me the energy I need to continue to do these projects. I much appreciate the time that goes into every carefully wrapped package and the thoughts spent choosing the tiny prints and gifts. With each one I feel loved and that's all I really need in life.

Two more peaceful gifts for everyone.

Kay Walker
Adelaide, South Australia

"When I see images of unlikely animal friendships on YouTube, those who would normally be the hunter and hunted relaxing in each others company, I am reminded of Isaiah 11:6 – “In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together, the leopard will lie down with the baby goat”

Here we are presented with an image of PEACE in the animal kingdom………….  Perhaps one day men will lay down their weapons of war and overcome hatred with love."

Andrew Stone Florence, Italy rospobio.blogspot.com

"We are too many.
Conflicts arising from the scarcity of food and water, arable land, housing and jobs are all partly caused by the competition among us for the same resources.
Peace won't likely be in our future or that of our planet unless we can stem the growth of our species. At 7 billion humans and counting,  the human population continues to rise and the increasing pressure for dwindling resources and the effects of rising temperatures, air and water pollution and habitat loss are the driving forces of the mass plant and animal extinctions that have already begun. (and Peace must embrace the lives of all of the world's living things--not just humans).

Population control starts with family planning and birth control.
Sex education and the encouragement within communities for members to have small families can all help stem or reverse the problem of human overpopulation.
Birth control is one solution and contraception (the prevention of unwanted pregnancies) is one way to reduce our numbers and is better than the alternatives of
War, Famine and epidemic Disease.
So add my small piece to the bigger puzzle.
Encourage smaller families.
Make sure women (and men) around the world have access to safe and just reproductive care. "

Stay in touch!

1000woodcuts Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/1000woodcuts 
Maria's Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/maria.arango.diener 
Maria's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/1000woodcuts 
1000woodcuts YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1000woodcuts/videos

The Puzzling Itch

Puzzle? Anyone?

Right about this time every two years or so I get an itch to lure my fellow artists into a massive collaboration effort. We call these projects, quite appropriately, Monumental Collaborative Puzzle Prints.
This will be the fifth such project and hopefully, the biggest to date. Right now the whole thing is just coming together as a Kickstarter.com project, but in the meantime, maybe I can whet everyone's appetite with a speedy video on what exactly is a puzzle print. Oh and some visual samples below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glpXWU3-vOw

Previous MCPPs

The City of the World 2012, 112 artists

The Great Cairn 2010, 82 artists

More Garden Denizens

Three More!

Richard Stockham - Birmingham Alabama USA
A snake in the grass and an apple rotting to the core. How much more fantastic can a garden get?

Barbara LaPlaca - New York USA
http://potatoisland.com
I am a novice carver though not a novice illustrator, painter or photographer. I managed to impale my left hand about 60 seconds into my first cuts but forged on, my hand safely wrapped so as not to dye the wood red with my carelessness. Somehow, flowers, leaves and other natural looking things sprung from the block.
I hope you are pleased with my results.

Michelle R Unger - Edmonds, Washington USA
http://bellstjournal.blogspot.com
It's a thrill to be a part of this!

Fantastic Garden Headquarters: http://puzzleprints.blogspot.com

Latest arrivals to delight all!

Enjoy!

The first peaceful contribution I placed among the cool branches and fragrant pods of the Arbor Vitae. Well watered and properly drained, this evergreen does well in our area and is a welcome sight in our desert landscaping.
The second I again placed in the hardy Oleander (Azalea) which has a knack for flourishing and flowering wherever it is found. Should be all be so adaptable!
Finally, faced with a couple of blocks that clearly belonged in the water, I resorted to floating them in our pool. Not really. I liberally used Photoshop in order to float them in our pool. The flowers in the pool were happily floating so I placed the fish in the water by them. No blocks were drowned in the process, although leaning over the water with my camera on hand could be thought as reckless. Anything for art!

Michael Palmer - Bozeman, Montana USA
I have done soft block printing for many years, but have never carved in wood until now. It was fun and a learning experience! I wanted someone meditating in the scene. Is the person sitting in a fantastic garden or are these fantastic thoughts floating by?

Leslie Halpern - Beloit, Wisconsin USA

William Evertson - Connecticut USA
website - http://www.williamevertson.net/ - blog - http://billevertson.blogspot.com/
Our gardens surround a pond that is home to several Koi. I wanted to share one of these beautiful creatures for the Fantastic Garden.

Fantastic Garden Headquarters: http://puzzleprints.blogspot.com

Meanwhile, back at the office...

Blog Page Updates

I try to faithfully update the Participant Page to reflect the current status of things so if you wonder where we are in the project, here it is:
http://puzzleprints.blogspot.com/p/participant-list.html

Also, the Accountability or Accounting page has been updated to reflect that I ORDERED THE PAPER!
Yay! Hurray! The last big expense is mailing back the prints so I think we will be close to scratch again. Excellent!
http://puzzleprints.blogspot.com/p/accountability.html

Blocks Trickling In!

Your lovely blocks are all coming in now at a furious pace and finding their partners in "the box". "The Box" is simply, er, a box where they all mingle until I am able to place them in their proper places. I am one carving day away from being able to start that process; the last skeleton block is about ready!

36 blocks are in and I have 34 colophon entries. Don't forget to fill out the Info as soon as you have an image on the works.
http://puzzleprints.blogspot.com/p/2013-fantastic-garden.html

That's it! More photos of blocks coming soon.

Only four weeks to go to the deadline August 31st!

Fantastic Garden Headquarters: http://puzzleprints.blogspot.com