AIC Student Artists Raise Over $1,000 for Springfield Homeless Services Agency

Artwork created by American International College students raised a total of $1,025 at the benefit art auction held by Friends of the Homeless.

Friends of the Homeless provides shelter and meals to people in need. They work to find permanent housing for shelter guests and operate 100 units of low-income housing.

According to Sarah Tanner at Friends of the Homeless,

"$1,025 is just about 512 meals, or 28 people in shelter for the evening.

Either way, it has huge ramifications for our ability to serve!"

The art auction included creations by local artists, students and guests of Friends of the Homeless. Each artist created a work that portrayed her or his "Impression of Home."  The artists explored the meaning of home that connects us all.

Portraits of some Friends of the Homeless artists taken by Photo Minor Tiana Powell:

Aidy

John

David

Here is some AIC student art that sold:

Photo and text by Brian Maurer

To me, home is a place where I find comfort and peace. I am from New York City, and I live in the neighborhood of Spanish Harlem. Even though Spanish Harlem is still filled with poverty, and the neighborhood is not the ideal place to be sometimes, I still find it home. Spanish Harlem is where I learned to communicate, I learned to also be more empathetic for others, and most of all, it made me who I am today. To most people, Spanish Harlem is looked as a dangerous area and a place one must not visit, and I completely disagree. Spanish Harlem has culture and is filled with so many unique and kind people. You can really learn a lot living in my neighborhood, even if isn’t in the best condition sometimes.

Photo and text by Ruthlyn Richards

My Impression of Home is this beautiful lake. The calmness of water and evening dawning down surrounded by nature gives the image a more tranquil feeling and reminds of home. Not only my home here, but also back in Jamaica. As the saying goes, “home is were your heart is”. Home for me is a quiet and peaceful place were I unwind from the world. The place I relax after a hard day of work and school and meditate on what’s next. Home is were I can be carefree and not worry about what negativity the world has to offer. Home is my happy place.

Painting and text by Thaleeza Saenz-Flores

"Home is where the love is"

 This painting is used with acrylic paint, a little bit of marker and pen. In the painting, it is meant to show three different types of feeling at home. The first, there is a happy multi-racial family together—young a mother, a young father, and two young children. Their scene is displaying “family time”, the father holding his daughter as the mother plays with her son with planes.

Second there is an old man lying against a wall and around him, there isn't much but a fireplace keeping him and his loyal and loving companion warm--the old man’s expression is not sad, but peaceful one because although he does not have much he has a companion and they are keeping each other warm.

Last but not least is a wooden cabin, in the dark; there is a woman reading peacefully in her home with her cat on her lap. Living by them seems lonely, but the woman seems comfortable, is content being able to live in a small house. She has no family around her, but she is in her comfortable space—on the couch, with her furry companion on her lap and a book in her hands.

In these three different home representations, each person seems to be warm, smiling and joyful in their surroundings.

Home is not being able to live in grand houses or in fancy expensive places but being able to get to a house, filled with comfort, love, safety, and peace. A house can be any shelter; a home is a lucky place you can go to after a long day where the comfort and love is.

Photo and text by Ketirah Felder-Hogan

Homes are often described as a place where we live. Homes are said to be buildings created by multiple walls that are made of bricks and cement. I believe that a “home” could be found through any person, place, or thing. “Home” isn’t necessarily a place you were raised, where you presently live, or even where you will live in the future. A “home” is where you feel love, comfort, joy, and hope. Anyone can find and experience these emotions outside of a typical “home”.

One can get the feelings of love, comfort, joy, and hope through a meaningful object or even through another person as I have displayed in this photograph. This photograph shows two female college roommates holding hands. Each girl has had their fair share of issues like we all have; they are both different in many ways but alike in many more. Like every other college student, they are away from their families and they miss them. They miss the same old people, bedrooms, friends, and neighborhoods they grew up in. These “old” things are the things that have allowed them both to experience love, comfort, joy, and hope at some point in their lives.

Now, that these girls are experiencing a new chapter in their lives, differently it is not to say that this is a time to be sad or distraught. In fact, these two girls have found a friend in one another and a sister in each other during this time. Although they may not be blood they have united together to overcome the feelings of loneliness, doubt, and fear that we all must face in life. “Home”, is not just a roof over one’s head, a home is anywhere you feel ultimate happiness at.

A person’s “home” is not impossible to find, they must search hard enough to find it.