Raw Arts Tinkers with fundraising

LYNN – The construction is complete, the art is hung, and now Raw Art Works is in the homestretch, announcing it is just $150,000 from successfully completing a $2 million capital campaign.”We’re inches away from our goal, and we’re looking to ignite some love,” RAW founder Mary Flannery said Wednesday.Flannery stood looking at an outline of a large heart painted on floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of RAW’s new expanded space. Colorfully decorated paintbrushes with donors’ names hung from the ceiling, falling within the borders of the heart.”We want to see that this whole heart gets filled with people who wanted to hug RAW,” Flannery said.Raw Art Works, a nonprofit that uses art to promote creativity and confidence in youth, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2013 with a capital campaign to raise money for a $2 million RAWSOME expansion. Today, the expansion is complete, increasing the Central Square headquarters by 4,400 square feet; allowing the film studio to double its equipment and grow by 20 percent; adding a new print shop; and providing five times more space for Project Launch, a college- and career-readiness program for high-school students. The expansion also helped the organization take 170 kids off the waiting list for programs.Now the organization just has to finish paying for the addition.In true RAW fashion, this task incorporates art and creativity, and empowers youth.A large brush decorated with donors’ names represents the fundraising that allowed RAW to buy its 37 Central Square headquarters in 2006.To raise the remaining $149,851 (as of Wednesday afternoon) for the current capital campaign, the organization is asking donors to purchase individual brushes for $100 apiece. RAWSOME participants and families can buy a brush for $25. Each brush will be painted by kids, and the names of the donor(s) will be written on the brush by a program graduate who is a third-generation sign painter, Flannery said.All the brushes will be hung within the heart on the new gallery’s facade and then permanently displayed in the gallery.The new space also will host a retail store named Tinkers, which will open in April.But this isn’t going to be your typical gallery gift shop.Tinkers will be run by The Tinkers, a group of older teens. They will not just help customers make purchases in the traditional sense. The Tinkers will help customers make – as in create – their purchases.”The public get to interact with the piece,” Flannery said.For example, a previous exhibit at RAW featured three-dimensional hearts made out of painted, wrapped wire, Flannery said. The Tinkers have sculpted smaller versions of these hearts, two of which are connected by a string to form a mobile. One of the two hearts uses wire painted in cool blues and purples and has a stone attached. The wire of the second heart is painted in warm reds, oranges and yellows and a feather hangs from it.When a customer comes into the store, a Tinker will introduce him or herself and explain the project that inspired the hearts, said Tinker Elisabeth Hornblower, 16. A customer interested in purchasing the mobile will then need to finish the piece. A typewriter will be set up where customers must type a word that makes them feel heavy-hearted and a word that makes them feel good and lighthearted. The former will be placed in the blue heart; the latter in the orange heart, Hornblower said.Flannery said the exercise teaches students not only about running a retail store but about mass production of crafts, how to instruct others in creating art projects and how to interact with customers.”All the ideas somehow tell the story of our past and are inspired by previous exhibit ideas,” Flannery said. “We’d like to think that in 25 years on the block, we’ve had some good ideas.”For more information on Raw Art Works and its Ignite the Love campaign, please visit www. rawartworks.org.