my friend leisa is the author of the blog leisa a. hammett--the journey with grace: autism, art, and all the rest. leisa is the mother of an about-to-transition-to-adulthood daughter with autism who creates a line of mixed-media greeting cards and prints. grace’s work has appeared in numerous exhibitions over the years, including the cover of the american journal of psychiatry november 2010 edition.
leisa has given me permission to excerpt a blog post about grace’s work, and i hope you’ll click thru to read the rest of the story because here is yet another chance to help someone in a real, meaningful, specific way!
If you've been following "The Journey with Grace" you may be aware that things are seriously percolating with GraceArt--that's the originals, print and card line of my 17-year-old daughter, Grace Walker Goad-- www.GraceGoad.com. The scale got tipped this morning when I said "yes" to our seventh exhibition invitation since May--six since October, all unsolicited. (I was waiting a year to re-rev GraceArt as Grace approaches transition. The Universe seems to have another idea. Yesterday, I got "the memo.")
Quick recap: In addition to her usual annual participation at this Vanderbilt Kennedy Center-based show, GraceArt showed in autism art exhibits in Washington state and in Soho in October. This spring she will have at least three solo shows, two in April and one in May. (I've been contacted about the fourth venue--a local gallery, but it is yet unconfirmed.) The May exhibit will be at the Green Hills Library. And commemorating national Autism Awareness Month, GraceArt will show in Hillsboro Village's new hip Hot and Cold of the Bongo-Javafamily. For three weeks that month, she will also be the featured artist with autism at a museum in Georgia. More details to come as I secure them.
That last invite just came in yesterday morning. Which got me to thinkin': We gotta get busy! And that's where you come in. We broke our budget when we printed our fourth and last batch of GraceArt cards. Our printing costs went up by half--necessitating a small price increase in the cards--plus and we have lots of framing to do before April! I need to recoup those funds to prepare for these exhibits. We will print more cards, but these will be the last set that will be archival inks and papers, and depending on prices, these may or may not be the last fold-over-style cards we print. You can frame these, as you will be able to future ones, but again these are fade resistant. All proceeds from GraceArt originals and prints go into her future independent living fund. Her card line, however, covers the expenses of printing the cards and framing, etc.
Help us sell these newly printed archival-quality cards! We have 50 sets. I've not even assembled them and put them into bags yet, but I will and I'm offering them to you because we need to sell these. (Did I say that already?) So, in a set you receive 8 cards. There are four designs with two of each design. The cards and envelopes are made of archival quality paper and printed with archival inks. You can frame four of them, split them up, give them as singles, etc. You decide.Each set of artisan-made, locally produced (in Nashville) cards by a teen (mine!) living with autism is $25.
And, because I'm so nice and a little anxious to recoup costs and get additional work framed by April (repeat-repeat), if you are in Nashville, I will deliver them to you to save you shipping cost. (Ack! I can't believe I'm doing that to myself!) If you want them mailed, I will foot the postage for the first packages of three. We've had a frustrating snafu with our web design, so I regret we are still not e-commerce at GraceGoad.com. So, you'll have to place your order with me through email: lahammett(at)gmail.com and I will send you a paypal link so that you can still have the ease of paying online. Deal?
*buy local, buy handmade buyer’s hack: even if you can’t make a purchase, you can help spread the word! you can share the links on your favorite social networks, and you can even send a GraceArt online greeting card to someone FREE just by visiting the autism society of middle TN website.
