ArtPrize: Everyone’s Story

Behind the Artwork

Over the last decade, I have learned through my interactive art exhibits, as thousands of ArtPrize visitors have responded, that art facilitates healing. Interactive art also serves as a catalyst for individuals to express their stories. Both adults and children alike are very eager to share.

Over the last decade, with each sacred story, the artwork transforms. Like a cluster of butterfly cocoons opening simultaneously—each story adds healing to the collage of hope—ready for flight. Teachers often will mention that their students, after viewing dozens of ArtPrize exhibits all day long, will end up talking about my work when they return to school; the interactive nature of the work leaves an impression. Students end up remembering the interactive experience and talk about how it impacted them.

What kind of art has an impact on you?

Broken Wings
Grand Rapids Public Museum
272 Pearl Street NW (west of the river)
September 19 to October 7, 2018
Vote #66688

In light of the recent tragic school shootings across America, find out how you can create positive change from national bullying specialist Jeff Veley.

Share your story #BrokenWings

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

ArtPrize Ten: Whitney and Butterflies

Behind the Artwork

Get the behind the scenes story of Broken Wings at ArtPrize Ten and Whitney’s story of courage and kindness. Watch time lapse clips of Broken Wings being set up and ArtPrize visitor interaction with Broken Wings.

Broken Wings
Grand Rapids Public Museum
272 Pearl Street NW (west of the river)
September 19 to October 7, 2018
Vote #66688

In light of the recent tragic school shootings across America, find out how you can create positive change from national bullying specialist Jeff Veley.

Share your story #BrokenWings

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

Broken Wings: Because We Care About You

General

Monarch butterflies are fragile, but they must also be strong and resilient. Every year the butterflies embark on a dangerous flight from Canada to Mexico. The resources that they so desperately need to survive are not always available, yet many push through and find ways to thrive. Like the butterfly, our children can be taught to be resilient too.

They can learn to overcome adversity. Broken Wings, interactive healing art, encourages students to overcome bullying through emotional strength and kindness. The work helps kids to solve their own problems and to diffuse negativity through kindness.

Broken Wings is a message of resilience. Broken Wings is a message of kindness. Broken Wings is a message of healing.

How can you encourage one person in your life with kindness today?

Broken Wings
Grand Rapids Public Museum
272 Pearl Street NW (west of the river)
September 19 to October 7, 2018
Vote #66688

In light of the recent tragic school shootings across America, find out how you can create positive change from national bullying specialist Jeff Veley.

Share your story #BrokenWings

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

Butterfly Effect: Strength, Resilience, and Kindness

From the Heart

Broken Wings empowers students to overcome bullying and toxic relationship by starting a Butterfly Effect of kindness. The interactive artwork also invites visitors to come up with their own creative solutions on how to diffuse negative social situations. In this video, one student offers his advice on how he has learned to personally overcome negativity and social aggression.

At Broken Wings, we love to hear how individuals are starting a Butterfly Effect—where one positive choice impacts another positive choice. This ancient wisdom still speaks: “A gentle answer turns away wrath.” We can all learn appropriate strategies to deal with adversity. Positive choices and kindness can impact our family or our community for good, and collectively we have the potential to influence our entire globe with the message of healing.

How can we transform negativity into a positive butterfly effect to encourage others?

Broken Wings
Grand Rapids Public Museum
272 Pearl Street NW (west of the river)
September 19 to October 7, 2018
Vote #66688

In light of the recent tragic school shootings across America, find out how you can create positive change from national bullying specialist Jeff Veley.

Share your story #BrokenWings

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

Broken Wings: Butterfly Effect

Behind the Artwork

Broken Wings encourages students to overcome adversity through emotional strength and to diffuse negativity through kindness. The work challenges visitors to come up with their own creative solutions on how to stop bullying and help end school gun violence.

After seventeen were killed in Florida, Jeff Veley, national bullying specialist, wrote about one student who had a different idea on how to respond: Why not show love to seventeen new people? Smile at seventeen new people? Or befriend seventeen new people?

Kindness may not solve every problem. Or stop every bullet. But perhaps the power of love could have changed the deadly consequences in some of our schools. Since none of our current solutions are successful, how can each of us start a positive butterfly effect to help heal our nation and bring an end to the suffering, chaos, and brokenness?

Who is a new person in your life that could use a little kindness today?

Broken Wings
Grand Rapids Public Museum
272 Pearl Street NW (west of the river)
September 19 to October 7, 2018
Vote #66688

In light of the recent tragic school shootings across America, find out how you can create positive change from national bullying specialist Jeff Veley.

Share your story #BrokenWings

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

Broken Wings: You Matter

From the Heart

I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, it can start a chain reaction. Rachel Joy Scott, first student killed, Columbine High School, 1999

Every person is worthy of compassion. Even people we find distasteful or crude. You know…the people that really bug us or grate on our nerves. Even those types deserve kindness and respect. Whether we agree with them or not, everyone deserves to be treated with civility. From the very top all the way down to the very bottom.

Mother Teresa, perhaps the greatest modern-day example of unconditional love, showed us what can happen when one person goes out of his or her way to show compassion. Although we can’t control everyone, we can control ourselves. And we can choose to treat each other with kindness. Think about it: What if Rachel Joy Scott’s theory is true? Then we never know when the next act of compassion may change a life and start a chain reaction of healing.

How can you start a chain reaction or Butterfly Effect of compassion in your school or at your workplace?

Broken Wings
Grand Rapids Public Museum
272 Pearl Street NW (west of the river)
September 19 to October 7, 2018
Vote #66688

In light of the recent tragic school shootings across America, find out how you can create positive change from national bullying specialist Jeff Veley.

Share your story #BrokenWings

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

Broken Wings: Giving Kids Hope

General

National bullying specialist Jeff Veley and I collaborated in making a few Broken Wings videos to give students, families, and educators new tools to deal with bullying and cyberbullying. Watch our daily updates as we release new videos throughout ArtPrize Ten.

We also invite you to visit Jeff’s page and sign up for his free training videos. His message on how to deal with bullying is solid stuff. Jeff’s teaches kids about the power of kindness, emotional resilience, and how to solve their own social problems. Jeff’s success has been recognized across the nation, and he has received several educational awards. So, check out his page.

What can you specifically do to help protect your children or your students from cyberbullying?

Broken Wings
Grand Rapids Public Museum
272 Pearl Street NW (west of the river)
September 19 to October 7, 2018
Vote #66688

In light of the recent tragic school shootings across America, find out how you can create positive change from national bullying specialist Jeff Veley.

Share your story #BrokenWings

Our healing art involves you—because you matter!