What to do to help those who are most unfortunate? This is the question that prompted a young car designer to get to know better the homeless people he encountered every day along the streets of the Californian city of Santa Ana, and to recover an old passion of his, painting, to put it at their service. .
What to do to help those who are most unfortunate? This is the question that prompted a young automobile designer to learn more about the homeless people he met on his path every day, along the streets of the Californian city of Santa Ana, ea recover an old passion of his, painting, to put it at their service.
The young man in question, Brian Peterson, thus launched the project Faces of Santa Ana - I volti di Santa Ana, which combines art and charity. Picking up palette and brushes in my hand, Peterson began portraying his new friends, creating intense and lively paintings, to be sold to finance the activities of a non-profit, Home Aid, which helps homeless people find housing.
“Art is slowly transforming the landscape in the center of Santa Ana” - he writes Peterson on the website of the initiative - “and I asked myself if it can exercise the same transformative power on the lives of the most needy. Now I walk the streets of the center looking for people to paint and help. I'm interested in telling their stories, raising awareness and inspiring others to help bring about change. "
“My paintings are for sale. I use a large part of the proceeds, two thirds, to help the subject portrayed in the piece sold. I started a collaboration with the non-profit Home Aid and together we are taking the necessary steps to find shelter for these new friends of mine. "
At the moment, this young artist, so full of talent and good will, has achieved three portraits, each of which bears the signature of the person who is represented there and, in some way, tells the story.
Requested by visitors to the site and the Facebook page of the initiative, Peterson also produced art prints of his portraits. Two of his works have already been purchased by local art galleries, priced at $ 1.500 each, while the prints are viewed on the web for $ 85 each.
The idea of the young designer is not to stop there but to expand the project, painting new portraits and involving other artists, who can create similar works, but with different styles and characteristics, in order to encourage fundraising and offer concrete help to the homeless of Santa Ana.
Lisa Vagnozzi
Photo Credits: Faces of Santa Ana
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