Invisible Children, Jacob's testimony, and the TenTimesTen project.

If you are unfamiliar with the Invisible Children campaign, I STRONGLY urge you to go check out the site. In short, it's a campaign to end the war in Northern Uganda that is forcing children as young as 7 years old into battle, brainwashing them into killing machines and forcing them to kill even their own mothers and siblings in support of the Lords Resistance Army. If a child is abducted it is unlikely they will escape alive. It is kill or be killed. Check out the videos on YouTube as well.



To put it in perspective, here is the story of Jacob:

"The night I was abducted, the rebels of the LRA came and took me from our village. No one was sleeping because we could hear their approach. The rebels broke down the door of my hut and forcefully took me. My mom did not cry because she knew if she did the rebels would kill her. She just had to watch us go.

"When the rebels see you cry the ask you, 'You, what are you crying?' If you say, 'Nothing' then htey say, 'Now you are thinking about home? So, we better kill you.' So they kill you. But they don't know what is in your heart. You see for me, my heart is that I am going to escape. For me, I wanted to be a lawyer, but no money. I didn't have money to be...to pay my school fees, so that I learn and then become one. I had nothing. I didn't even have a blanket. I didn't have anything to do with food. maybe we eat once a day. So it is better when you kill us.

"In the bush, the opportune moment to escape came when the soldier who was meant to keep an eye on me took a nap. So without knowing the direction I had taken, I moved till morning to town. After I came back, I was night commuting because of fear." (These children commute every night to a village an hour and a half walk away in order to avoid getting abducted into the rebel army) "While in the bush the rebels made it clear that whoever would escape would be got again and killed. My parents lived somehow far from town and I did not feel safe there, so I walked to town to sleep so I would not get abducted again."

Jacob
Former child soldier
Resident of Northern Uganda

This is the major cause that the TenTimesTen project will support. Money is needed in Northern Uganda to aid families that were forced into displacement camps by the government with little to no food or water. People are dying left and right of starvation and disease because of this war. They need to be fed. They need to be clothed. They need schools. Children need to be children and not killing machines. They need to live. By purchasing a TenTimesTen painting for $100 you are helping aid not only the Invisible Children, but people all around us that have needs. Visit my website at JohnAzoni.com to find a full archive of TenTimesTen paintings as I complete them. As of right now there are only 4 available paintings but more will be up tomorrow, and in days to come.

BUY ART, and save some lives already. :)

new site, same address.

I ditched my old website and put up a new one. It's certainly not as fancy as my other one. It's just a simple blogger page but it's way easier for me to update and it allows you to click on an image to see a larger version, which my other site didn't have. The address is still the same. johnazoni.com. That will take you to the new site.

On the right-hand side you'll see the sections "tentimesten", "drawings", and "paintings". Click on either of those to see an archive of images. All the finished TenTimesTen paintings and their status (available or sold) will be posted on my website in the TenTimesTen section.

YouTube

Hey just to let you all know, if any of you are on You Tube I'm providing you with a link to my channel. If any of you care to get video updates of TenTimesTen as well as just video documentations of paintings in progress and commentary, feel free to subscribe to my channel.

New paintings

Aside from the TenTimesTen project I have been finding time to do paintings of my own. These are a few paintings I've done in the last month or so.

"Animals Like Ice Cream"
Acrylic on canvas
36x41 in.

"Splash"

Acrylic on canvas
42x50 in.

"Concrete Factory"
Acrylic on canvas

Finished TenTimesTen Paintings.

Here are 5 completed paintings for the TenTimesTen project. If you dont' know what that means, please read/watch the previous 2 posts about it. Again they are priced at $100 each and all profits will go to different causes that need support and basicly to people that need it more than I do. Email me at JohnAzoni@gmail.com if you are interested in purchasing a painting.

TenTimesTen project

Schaeffer

Some friends of mine who make up the band Schaeffer have just released a new album that will blow your face off. If you've never heard of Schaeffer you're missing out and need to go to check them out on Myspace right now. Then go to their website and buy the new album titled "Something Worth Fighting For".

http://www.myspace.com/officialschaeffer

Paintings for a Cause

So it's been quite a while since I updated this. My apoligies if you've been checking back and all you saw was the same post for about 3 months. I got a new Macbook and it's inspired me to start blogging again so here I am.

I attended the Leadership Summit at my church, which is a conference held at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL and broadcasted to satellite churches all over the world. They brought in different big name leaders to speak and give insight about effective leadership. People like Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, The former CEO of Hewlett Packard, and a handful of others. One of the things they talked about was using your strengths to make an impact on the world. more on this in a minute.

With that said, the biggest reason why I stopped blogging was because I stopped making art. I became so disenchanted with my work, and with the Detroit scene and all its negativity, as well as with the amount of work that goes along with being an artist that I hate doing. Things like documenting work and updating price lists, hussling the work trying to get shows, hauling large paintings around, setting up and tearing down shows. All things that I hate. But I've recently rediscovered my passion for art and I think the break was necesary. I think God used that time to show me that he had a bigger plan for my life than what I was pursuing previously. I now am pursuing a position in ministry and know that that is a calling on my life. Another reason why I became dispassionate about my work is because I didn't really see my purpose as an artist. Why had God given me this passion in the first place? Am I really making an impact on the world and affecting anyone's life through my art? If I were to be honest, all my goals as an artist were self serving. I wanted to be a famous artist, and make a good living off my work. I wanted people to know my name and respect me and my work. I wanted people to look up to me. I wanted people to look at me and think "he's kind of a big deal". If all of my goals were all to serve ME, then how was i impacting anyone else? And so I left to pursue God's purpose in my life.


So this brings me back to this leadership conference. I was inspired by an interview with Richard Curtis (british filmaker who wrote Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones' Diary....etc) Where he talked about how he is using his leverage as a respected filmaker to help with the AIDS and poverty crisis in Africa. It's an amazing story, and got me thinking about how I can use my strengths as an artist to make some sort of difference beyond making a name for myself.

SO HERE IT IS:
I was driving home from this conference yesterday and had the idea that I would make a series of small paintings (like 10x10 in.) and make them very accesible to the general public. I figure most people would pay at least $100 for art. So these paintings would be around that price range. And all the money (minus the cost of supplies) will go to support different causes that I support. Some of these include the Invisible Children campaign (invisiblechildren.org) that works to end the war in northern Uganda where children as young as 7 or 8 are being abducted and trained to be killing machines, forced to fight in this war and kill even their own families. Also the Simple Way is another cause that I support (thesimpleway.org). It's a community outreach in Philly that is commited to living a simple lifestyle and spreading their resources out into the community. They dont' have a lot of "stuff" basicly. And what they do have they share with others in need. I also spend time with the homeless in Detroit, bringing them food and just hanging out with them. All these things take money. So I think it would be great to make paintings designated to filling a need in our world. I think if everyone were more generous with their resources, and less concerned about their "stuff" we would live in a much different world.

So that's the plan as of now. I haven't even started making any of these paintings. I am planning on starting them next week when I get back from up north. If you read this blog and wouldn't mind spending $100 or so on original artwork, or you've wanted my work in the past but couldnt' afford it, this is a perfect chance to support worthy causes, as the prices for this particular series of paintings is significantly lower than my other work.

more on this to come soon. And I will also post some new paintings that I've done in the past couple weeks.