ArtWorks Armenia March 2006 "Children of Gyumri" Show Main page

Art Bridges Sacramento and Gyumri
The idea of holding an art show to benefit the children of Gyumri was conceived on a visit to Armenia on June 11, 2005. Coffee Works owner John Shahabian was visiting his daughter Tamara who was spending four months as a teacher with the Armenian Volunteer Corp (AVC). While there they traveled to the Western Armenian city of Gyumri, which was at the epicenter
	of the devastating earthquake of 1988, and visited an art school which had taken on the job of housing and nurturing many of the orphans left by the natural disaster. Seeing the delightful works of art created by these young students in such difficult circumstances, often with nothing more than powder paint with paper plates for canvases, gave them the idea to try to help raise funds for the school by hosting an art show back home in Sacramento, California. It was something the Coffee Works had been doing for many years for local public school art programs under the leadership of Coffee Works' art curator Melinda Johnson.
This web page and the links on the left tell the story in photos and text of the art show and the many rewards it produced for all involved. There are a few of the art works still available. Look for the ones with the asterisk (*) next to their number in the catalog. Of course, all proceeds from the sale go to the students and the Gyumri Aesthetic Center.

In the summer of 2006 Tamara returned to Armenia to oversee the distribution of the proceeds of the show. The school decided they wanted a computer facility to link their students to the outside world. Read more about Tamara's Armenia Artworks Project by clicking here. Tamara decided to do another U.S. art show benefit for Armenian school kids and sponsored an exhibition in Yerevan to help select the art. You can read more about that by clicking on the exhibition poster icon at the left.