HARTS (The Healing Arts Club) in a blitz, is plunging from the "IN PROGRESS" show, which was spread out from October through December, to hanging a show from a Russian orphanage organized by the group "Maria's Children" . The show will be installed during January and February in the student lounge.

Ian Rossman, (medical student at UMDNJ),  made the connection after visiting the orphanage in Russia and seeing that UMDNJ welcomes art projects and nurtures ideas. HARTS president, Snehal Bhatt, (India) and member, Melissa Boisclair are using the UMDNJ student lounge space as a vehicle to reach out and touch on areas that heal where it hurts. The show coming down: "In Progress" provides quality media arts (photography & video) training and mentorship to youth, ages 14-22, living in Minnesota. We help them share their artwork publicly and promote the recognition of their roles as young artists within their communities. Our partners are committed to the belief that if given the opportunity, training and mentorship, young people can gain visibility as media artists and critics, and their subsequent artwork can actively change the views many communities have about them." 19 yr old Mina Blyly-Strauss organized the show with the Ogichidaakweg (Sisiters in Leadership) from the Leech Lake Reservation, St. Paul, MN from the In Progress web pages

Maria's Children "Our Moscow-based organization provides arts therapy and training for Russian orphans. We also work to place these children in homes, not institutions. Our pupils, most of whom have never even held a crayon, learn to tap into their own imaginations, and paint their dreams. The work they produce is in the form of colorful murals, each piece a joyful expression of folk art." excerpt from Maria's Children web pages

Right now, getting ready to leave the student lounge and head on over to the Cork Gallery, Lincoln Center, NY is the show "PIPE DREAMS" which began with 5 students from Freda Rhodes classes at Paul Robeson School, Commercial Ave, New Brunswick. Two years down the road there are 8 schools involved with their pipe sculptures coming from New Zealand, a school from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a school in Kendall Park, NJ and East Brunswick's Camp Daisy for children with special needs, along with artists from Japan, Russia, France, Iceland, New Mexico, Canada and random others around New Jersey and States surrounding New Jersey.

As a community of people dedicated to healing in all ways, we can use art to create faith and hope and build self esteem. The Internet has made it possible to take great leaps of the imagination, linking dreamers already at work, constructing a wider foundation for problem solving and fast networking. J. Wray (UMDNJ Artist in residence)