We Can All Do Something

Twenty-one years ago I was overwhelmed with the amount of need and suffering I saw in different parts of the world; at that particular time it was Russia. Through a long sequence of events and a travelling exhibition of 120 of my paintings, I received enough donations of humanitarian relief for Russian orphans and impoverished families that I founded a charitable organization called Arts for Relief & Missions to provide a vehicle to do charitable work for years to come.  Well, that was the plan anyway.

It didn't take long until I was overwhelmed by my inability to keep up with affecting those needs for good. If I worked full time, day and night, and every day and night, it would never be enough, and I recalled the words, "The poor you will always have with you." I struggled to balance the one thing that only I could do, develop paintings, with the many things it took many people to do: arrange shipping containers to move enormous contributions over oceans to a destination. Oversee distribution. Visit orphans. Visit families. Travel on planes. Sit in airports. Speak at conferences. Manage accounting. Exhausted, I landed square on the ground of reality and decided, "There must be another way."

God made me an artist. Knowing that in our needy world, we all can do something, I had to come back to the artist. Even an artist can do something. So this "Something" is called  the Chapel Gallery™ line of products which helps fund the charitable work that was started 21 years ago. Most of us use cards and pictures in our homes. While we do that, we can bring new hope to so many places. Even in these small ways. Even if it's a little thing, we can all do something!

For a current Chapel Gallery™ 2014 product Catalog, check our Reproductions page.