Join Our Team for ArtPrize Ten!

General

Butterfly paintings

Who We Are

We create spaces where visitors feel personally cared for and validated. Our healing work has touched thousands of ArtPrize visitors—one person at a time (ArtPrize is a huge art event held in Grand Rapids, Michigan). Last year, 70,000 ArtPrize visitors participated with our soul healing artwork by writing Let Go notes.

Your Healing Stories

An ArtPrize visitor wrote: “I will be clean from crack cocaine sixteen years. Finally letting go!”

A mom wrote: “I want my son back. I feel like watching his internal battle is slowly killing me. I’m now choosing to let go of my lack of control. I need to take this step for my own emotional healing.”

A third grader wrote: “I am letting go of perfection because I want to be myself—the self that is not perfect!”

A son wrote: “Dad, you’re supposed to protect me from people like you. All I ever wanted was your love and approval. My heart longs for a real father.”

Our Next Challenge

This year’s interactive work will address bullying and school shootings by starting a Butterfly Effect—where one positive action impacts another positive action—to help better our world.

Make a Difference

We would love for you to be part of this journey. Since our art is very much collaborative and interactive, we would like to invite you to be part of our team for ArtPrize…and beyond. We would be so grateful for your help. Come join our team! Our healing art involves you—because you matter!

The Scarlet Cord: Mentoring Students

Behind the Artwork

Students from Saugatuck High School created their own sex-trafficking installation

“I was raped,” a student revealed during a recent phone interview. Each year several students contact me requesting an interview or mentoring. Although the purpose of each interview is to discuss my work, the conversations often turn personal.

This past year, students from Colorado and southern California asked for coaching with their sex-trafficking projects. I also worked with students from Saugatuck High School via email, text messaging, Skype, and a visit to my garage studio. Because of generous donations from art supporters, I gave the Saugatuck students most of the supplies needed to develop their own sex-trafficking installation.

When the student shared during our phone interview that she was raped, I had the opportunity to talk about my healing art and how her school assignment about human trafficking could be therapeutic for her. Amazingly, at such a young age, this student already understands how her own wounds have the potential to help other victims find freedom’s path.

DONATE NOW and join The Scarlet Cord’s mission:
Freedom and healing for sex-trafficked children

Image (above): Students from Saugatuck High School created their own sex-trafficking installation

Instagram @ Pamela Alderman

#paint4healing
#artistcitizenwork

Sex Tourism Booms

From the Heart

The Scarlet Cord - Stripped (detail)

“Nine point four million men come to Thailand every year for sex.” My simple Internet journey to double check this statistic from Noel Yeatts led to the discovery of more shocking statistics about sex-trafficking. The number of pedophiles or sexually broken people demanding to satiate their sex drive with sickening perversions and barbaric acts forced upon another human—many of which are innocent children—is out of control.

To combat this evil and to rescue these innocent victims from the dark creepy crevices of our world, there are many successful non-profits, such as Women at Risk International, StreetLight USA, Manasseh Project, and Shared Hope International. I have had the privilege of working with these particular organizations through my art called The Scarlet Cord: Healing for Sex-trafficked Children. But, unfortunately, the numbers of trafficked victims aided by these hard-working, dedicated organizations is so small compared to the hundreds of thousands that are still held in bondage.

Because millions of tourist are soliciting elicit sex in just one country alone, it will take a united front of non-profits, law makers, law enforcers, community leaders, and even average citizens—like you and me—to eradicate this blight on our watch. Like the abolitionists of past centuries, it will also require great sacrifice and resolve to demand, and assure, freedom for all. Meanwhile, as these tireless organizations work to free one child at a time, and The Scarlet Cord continues to raise awareness and encourage healing, remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful words: “No one is free until we are all free.”

Resources and Help

RAINN
Men & Boys

DONATE NOW and join The Scarlet Cord’s mission:
Freedom and healing for sex-trafficked children

ArtPrize 8: Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind Travels to Virginian School

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Students at Virginia school tying paper koy fish with kindness promises on Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind

In April, my ArtPrize Eight Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind installation traveled to an elementary school in Virginia, shown above, and influenced students to create their own work in a Detroit area school. In Virginia during my presentation, seven hundred students pumped their fists and chant “Oh yeah” every time I said, “Be a friend first” or “Treat everyone like a friend.” Then the students wrote promises to live by the Golden Rule on orange paper fish and tied the fish onto an orange canvas.

This installation has started conversations in other schools, too. Here are some pictures showing how ArtPrize Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind also inspired students in Detroit to color their school orange. These third graders painted koi fish and wrote kindness promises.

Close-up of kindness promise Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind third grader project Close-up of koi fish

Logan’s Story

The Gold Rule encourages us to treat everyone like a friend. Logan’s story shows us how to live by the Golden Rule.

“Hey, Logan,” the kids taunted. “Go get the gas meter and bring it over here.” Innocently, Logan, who has autism, ran over to the gas meter and attempted to pull it off the house. But when the game was over, the kids ditched Logan, leaving him in tears.

But Logan continued to respond to bullying with kindness. When students forgot their lunches, Logan was the first to say, “Do you like potato chips? You may have mine.”

By living by the Golden Rule—treating everyone like a friend, even your enemies—Logan colors his neighborhood with kindness. How can you live by the Golden Rule?

For more information on how to book Color Me Orange—Color Me Kind for your school or next event, contact ally@watercolorbypamela.com.

Hometown Hero II Travels to the Pentagon

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Hometown Hero II: Guardian of Freedom

Hometown Hero II
The Pentagon, Washington, DC
September 5-17, 2016

Sergeant Ron Kelsey, founder of Reflections of Generosity, a traveling art exhibition which helps provide soul healing for our military community, invited me to give a presentation, lead a workshop, and exhibit my artwork at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. in September. I answered, “Yes!”

My talk will raise awareness of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and soldier suicide through my new art series called Hometown Hero II that focuses on hope and inner healing for our military community. Some of our soldiers are struggling with a cascade of emotions after returning from war. While in Iraq on an American base, Sergeant Ron Kelsey heard police sirens whiz by. Suicide had claimed another young soldier’s life. Ron writes, “Fellow soldiers walked around like lifeless zombies.”

According to the VA, approximately 11-20% of our current veterans are experiencing PTSD. And 18 to 22 veterans commit suicide daily. This means that approximately 8,000 veterans a year take their own lives. According to NBC News in 2012, more soldiers took their own lives than died in combat.

Healing in Arts

Hometown Hero II paintings are being created for soldiers like Sergeant Ron Kelsey and their families to sign the names of their heroes on the artwork. These paintings will be unveiled at the Pentagon and then will travel to military bases with the Reflections of Generosity Collection. Sergeant Ron Kelsey says, “Art can help heal the battlefield trauma entrenched in the soldier’s heart. Thankfully, in the art world, their feelings and voices can be freely expressed.”

Healing Wings (detail)

Hometown Hero II Art Unveiling and Fundraiser

Hometown Hero II fundraiserJoin us for a pig roast on Friday, August 19, 2016 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Marne American Legion on 1469 Arthur Street, Marne, Michigan. The Hometown Hero II painting will be available for viewers to sign. This event is sponsored by Ottawa-North Kent Blue Star Mothers MI #194.

Become an Art Patron!
Help Fund Hometown Hero II

Many of you will want to help raise the funds needed for the artwork and travel expenses. The paintings will be donated to Reflections of Generosity. Tax deductible funds can be donated through New Horizons Foundation.

The Scarlet Cord and The Super Bowl

Behind the Artwork

Targeted - mixed media by Pamela AldermanA year ago when Jim Waring, the vice mayor of Phoenix, spoke at The Scarlet Cord Exhibit opening during the 2015 Super Bowl, he had a message for the buyers of sex: “We are coming after you.” Listening to the vice mayor, I felt like I was on the set of a Batman movie.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, an estimated 100,000 children are sold within the commercial sex trade in America each year. Wherever thousands of people pour into athletic or other large events—like the Super Bowl—the risk of trafficking increases.

Last year The Scarlet Cord exhibit was located on a vacant lot in downtown Phoenix during the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl, offering hope and healing to the sexually wounded and curious. During the two-week exhibit, we spoke to students, professionals, vagrants, tourists, and trafficked women.

Here are some of the Phoenix visitors’ responses to The Scarlet Cord:

  • One woman said she was trafficked while her father was wearing the coveted Super Bowl ring.
  • A young girl sat on the curb—holding her head in her hands—crying out, “I know what it is. I know what it is.”
  • A seasoned Phoenix news anchor said, “I did not realize the extent of the problem when I went out there; you can’t walk away without having an impact.”

Shared Hope International reports that “underage sex workers average 6,000 clients over the course of five years, and are typically instructed to serve between 10 and 15 clients per night. However, reports confirm that girls have served as many as 45 clients in a day during peak demand times, which includes major sports events.”

The 2016 Super Bowl is only days away. Will San Francisco, like Gotham, rig up the search lights in the sky—an “SOS”—calling for justice in the war against commercial sex trafficking? We need national leaders and concerned citizens who will stand for the protection of our nation’s most vulnerable—our children.

Visit the Do 1 Thing Challenge page to learn about seven red flags that may indicate a young person is being groom or targeted for trafficking. Find out more about The Scarlet Cord Exhibit and Film to schedule an event or to better understand the issue of sex trafficking—the dark world of Gotham—that exists in our communities. We may not be able to save the thousands of children that will be trafficked this year at the Super Bowl, but we can offer love and hope to one at-risk child within our circle of influence.

StreetLightUSA sponsored The Scarlet Cord in Phoenix, AZ

IMAGE: Targeted, Pamela Alderman, 21 x 62 inches, Mixed media, 2016

The work called Targeted—portraying a child, a bull’s eye, and a roll of film—pictures how children are the ones left harmed by pornography. Not only does the industry deliberately prey on children to ensnare younger and younger viewers, but according to Shared Hope International, one out of every five pornographic images is of a child.

ArtPrize Seven Hometown Hero Generates Shoe Drives

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Row of young girls writing hero messages on Hometown Hero at ArtPrize SevenTo honor fallen soldier Army Spc. Eric Burri, his sacrifice for our country, and his concern for the Iraqi children, his family with the West Michigan community collected 5,000 shoes for the Iraqi children in 2005. This past year Eric’s story and Pamela’s Hometown Hero artwork have inspired other concerned citizens from children as young as eight to older adults to organize additional shoe drives.

Miss Coopersville Scholarship Program showcased Hometown Hero and the legacy of Eric Burri’s life in August; pageant guests donated shoes at the event. After the pageant, Little Miss Coopersville, Chloe Russell, and first runner up, Olivia McDonald, walked door to door collecting shoes with their little red wagon. The two eight-year-old girls donated over eighty pairs of shoes.

This month in response to Hometown Hero, Denise Kohler, president of Kohler Expos, is teaming up with Patty Alexander and the South-Kent Blue Star Mothers to collect shoes during the Kids & Family Expo at DeVos Place. Pamela will be exhibiting a Hometown Hero mini installation at the event. Plus Grand Rapids Harley-Davidson will be showcasing four motorcycles.

ArtPrize Seven’s Hometown Hero is inspiring young community leaders, as well as adults, to honor Eric’s legacy of making a difference—demonstrating the power of a hero’s influence and how art is a catalyst for healing.

ShoesHometown Hero Shoe Drive
DeVos Place
Saturday, January 24, 2016
10 am to 5 pm

From January 16-30, drop off your donations at the following locations:
Brann’s Steakhouse • 401 Leonard Street NW, Grand Rapids
Marge’s Donuts • 1751 28th Street SW, Wyoming
Peppino’s Pizza (South) • 1515 Eastport SE, Kentwood

Sponsored by Kohler Expos and the South-Kent Blue Star Mothers