World Vision recognizes the power of visual art as a way to communicate, which knows no boundaries across cultures, languages, and worldviews.  It can communicate the need to respond to child sponsorship, real-life issues of extreme poverty and social injustice, the global sex trade, or the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Visual art can inspire – and yes, even cast a vision of hope.

That’s why The Art of Helping Others has joined World Vision’s artist affiliate program, to invite visual artists, photographers and others in the visual arts to join this creative collective – to participate in group thematic exhibits and other events that advocate child sponsorship and ultimately, practice the art of helping others.  It will be a brilliant way for artists to show and sell their work, and help those that lack the ability or opportunity to help themselves in communities worldwide.

Perhaps you are or know of a visual artist or photographer that would be interested in learning more about what we plan to do and would want to get involved.  If so, invite them to connect with me at douglas@theartofhelpingothers.com for more information.

Follow The Art of Helping Others on Twitter or join our Facebook fan page.  Art.  Awareness.  Activism.

What’s the largest U.S. based international relief and development organization?  Save the Children, CARE?  While both are great mainstream humanitarian organizations, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization, which has 40,000 staff members in almost 100 countries – more staff than Save the Children, CARE and the United States Agency for International Development – combined.

The article also includes quotes from the head of World Vision, Richard Stearns book, “The Hole in Our Gospel” and other insights from columnist Nichols Kristof.  I want to encourage you to read the article and post your comments here. The Art of Helping Others: Art. Awareness. Activism.

One interesting topic of discussion at the conference that resonated with many of us was the thought of art as a hammer to shape culture.  This comes from the quote, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”  So what does that mean?  That’s a good question, which I may not have a watertight answer for – but I do have an opinion.

While I believe we should hold a mirror up to everyday life and reveal the reality – even the frailty of the human condition, we should pick up the hammer, be forward thinking, innovative and imaginative enough to be creatively dangerous, and shape our “circles of influence” in our communities, which will eventually affect culture itself.

So, what is the hammer?  I like to think in part it’s the words you write from the depths of your heart that inspire others, the lyric and melody of a song longing to be heard, a painter’s brush wielded with emotion and faith across a canvas, a moment in time captured through the photographer’s camera lens that needs no words yet leaves us in awe.  The dancer that dances first, then thinks later.  It’s the power of the arts to uncover truth.

Disregard what others expect of you or may think and employ the hammer passionately – use it differently than ever before.