The Art Department

THE ART DEPARTMENT

Visual arts is an ever-growing and evolving pillar of HEART

Although we were sad to lose our Visual Arts mentor, Lauren Ridenour, we were even more excited to see her thrive in pursuing becoming a full-time artist. She left us in a great position to continue exploring and further developing each HEARTist’s individual style and creating intentional work that we are proud to showcase

We had three full gallery exhibitions coinciding with each major event: “Exquisite Creatures” at Some Kind of Funny, a second version of “Exquisite Creatures” at Disability Pride and “Creative Misfits” at Creative Misfits Live! For the first time, we were invited to be a major part of a collaborative art show, “Animal Shred,” alongside three other well-known Charleston artists Not only were these artists generous enough to let us keep 100% of our personal sales, we even received a portion of the total art sales. We are so grateful and proud to be part of the Charleston arts community and be seen and recognized for our talents.

We have been able to create new and continue to foster existing relationships with creatives all over the Lowcountry We had the largest artist participation in the Creative Misfits Art Auction to date, some even returning for their third year. We garnered the attention of a local artist’s husband and received an extremely generous donation of art supplies allowing us to further our creativity Another exciting relationship that began this year is with Public Works Art Center in Summerville, who we are looking forward to collaborating with in big ways in 2023. We are feeling strong, positive and excited to see what this next year has in store for HEART.

-Rae Weekes, Assistant Director and Volunteer Coordinator