A special heart painting event brought together 40 mobile home residents in the Life On Art studio.The residents of Youngstown and Little Woods mobile homes have been facing rent increases and threats of eviction by their park owners, a situation difficult for many, especially seniors on a fixed income. 

To provide a space of reprieve, Life On Art invited the two mobile home park communities to come and paint paper mâché winged hearts for their personal use. Each painted heart was photographed and printed on postcards, which were made available for sale online and in select Petaluma businesses to help raise money to support the mobile home park residents.

Every third Thursday of the month, we open our studios to “Arts Alive,” a city-wide eclectic art experience sponsored by the Petaluma Downtown Association. Along with other Petaluma organizations, we invite our community to experience our work. 

In May, we held a Spring Artist Market to celebrate local artisans and creativity in our community. In July, we were involved in the Art and Garden Festival Chalk Art Contest, and hosted a demo with Bob Hone to create paper art “gratitude” stars. And in August, we hosted “The Portrait Drawing Machine,” an innovative portrait-making tool that sparked fascination and joy for participants.

Unbound, our nationally and internationally recognized project, was completed in 2022, but keeps on giving.

We continue to hold tours of this large-scale installation in its locked facility at the California Department of State Hospitals in Napa. Community leaders, nonprofit teams, therapists, students, philanthropists, and government and civic leaders have all witnessed the power of this evocative work of art.

“Unbound, the Documentary,” a film that reflects the creation and impact of Unbound, is currently in production; we expect it will be entered into nationwide film festivals when completed. 

When Unbound leaves DSH Napa in November, it will be reinstalled, for the first time for public viewing at Life On Art.

We hosted a Summer Solstice celebration to show how ART is one of the most powerful and overlooked tools to build a better world.

Benjamin Von Wong, a World Economic Forum Cultural Leader, spoke to the power of art to provide a common visual language, bring people together, and accelerate change. Forward Global and Next Legacy supported this event as an amplifier of a diverse community  building relationships that unleash resources, connections, and talents to maximize impact for the greater good. Tracy Ferron, Life On Art’s Founder and Board Chair, helped attendees experience the role of art in bringing communities together in co-creation.

Tracy Ferron took part in the Idea Lounge conversation at the Petaluma Arts Center. Tracy spoke about the power of community art to address our mental health crisis.

The Idea Lounge is a monthly event where speakers share stories that inspire, motivate, and help us reflect. Each month, one speaker is from the arts and the other is not.

In July, we hosted California Forward, a state-wide organization of civic leaders committed to identify solutions to help ensure the economic, environmental and social prosperity of all people. Tracy Ferron shared Life On Art’s goal of creating a new model of participatory public art that includes and elevates underserved and marginalized populations. We are grateful for the partnership of Óscar Chavéz, the President of the Community Foundation Sonoma County, in arranging this powerful event.

This month, we changed our name from Life On Earth Art to Life On Art. 

Life On Art more clearly articulates our mission: Life On Art unites people from diverse communities to co-create handmade large scale interactive art as a platform for social action and healing.

Visions of Hope has been an eight month project that began in January with our first art making workshops in a California state prison. It culminated in an exhibition of the art of the incarcerated at the Marin County Civic Center from September 5—October 24, 2024. 

In June and July, we completed 12 workshops with the incarcerated at state prisons in Soledad and Chowchilla. More than 150 participants designed and painted 18” winged hearts, designed feathers to create two 9-feet hearts, wrote prose and poetry, and recorded themselves in both audio and video. We were joined in this effort by The People’s Commission for Integrity in Criminal Justice and its founder, Jennifer Sheetz. 

Using the artistic output from the incarcerated individuals, we curated and built the exhibition, produced a documentary and mini-documentaries, and published a book of poetry. We developed a robust gallery tour app—all of the incarcerated individuals’ work from the Visions of Hope exhibition can be viewed via a free online app from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

In August, we were joined by Kristin Nelson as Life On Art’s new Executive Director! 

Kristin has already shown our organization a new path into the future—for community outreach, fund development, and program strategies. We are thrilled and excited for this fresh change to Life On Art, not only through Kristin’s unique and experienced perspective, but also her dedication to the impact we bring to our community.

What we’re looking forward to for the rest of 2024:

• Of course, continued support by our volunteers in adding to our inventory of winged hearts, in anticipation of delivering more art workshops to state prisons.

• Bringing Unbound home to our studios and preparing for a public exhibition early in 2025.

• Further monthly “Arts Alive” events, especially for the holiday season.

• Partnering with Home First, an organization that supports individuals experiencing homelessness. We’ll present six artmaking workshops during "Home Is Where The Art Is," their annual program of workshops, art show, reception, and art sale.

• Producing “Unbound, the Documentary.”

• Holding a mini-strategic planning initiative for 2025.

• Finding new homes for some of our large-scale projects—The Spell, Spellbound, and Visions Of Hope.