Update #1 - Introducing Ronnie Goodman and CAP

We're almost half-way there!

Thanks for your amazing support

Our fundraising campaign is off to a roaring start! As of today, we’ve nearly reached 50% of our goal. We are all humbled and touched by your overwhelming response. We truly cannot do this without you. 

Ronnie Goodman's artwork was specifically commissioned for this campaign. He has an incredible story:

As a San Francisco native, Ronnie’s love of art began at the age of six, when he started drawing, but it wasn’t until he turned 25 that he really embraced his talent and decided to explore painting. Growing up in San Francisco’s Fillmore neighborhood, Ronnie couldn’t avoid the influence Jazz music had in the area, which became a major motif later in his works. Life’s lessons led him away from art until much later when he encountered the Art in Corrections program at San Quentin Prison. With the help of the volunteering artists who facilitated the program, he further broadened his skills, incorporating a wider range of disciplines into his work.

Once released in 2010, he decided to rebuild himself and strengthen his core values to make up for time wasted in his youth. For him, art was to become the focus from which all else stems. He feels that art gave him a second chance in life and he believes in the importance of giving art back to the community. Ronnie's work was recently featured in the San Francisco Arts Commission City Hall Gallery. Occupy Mid-Market was created specifically for this campaign, drawing directly from Ronnie's experience at being in a location central to the Occupy movement.

Linocut signed and numbered 16" x 22". Edition of 10.

Ronnie practices his art at the Hospitality House Community Arts Program (CAP). CAP is also a benefiting partner of 5 Blocks Project. Once this campaign has been fully funded, we will launch the Media Mentor Program at CAP, which will teach residents of the neighborhood the skills necessary to tell their own stories through video and audio. Hospitality House takes great pride in its arts program. It is the only free-of-charge fine arts studio for homeless and poor artists in San Francisco. Each year, CAP offers more than 250 artists the materials and space necessary to create, house, exhibit, and sell their artwork. But more than the art that is made here, CAP is a progressive and crucial component of the programs offered at Hospitality House because it helps relieve the intangible, private effects of poverty. For those navigating through the impersonal social service system, self-expression and imaginative talent can be stifled and ignored. CAP exposes people to creative resources that would otherwise be unobtainable to them. These materials are the tools that provide an often-neglected outlet for creative freedom and, subsequently, they serve to enhance self-esteem and ambition. 

Support the 5 Blocks Project here