“Buy” a Donation to Prevent Domestic Violence

Uncovered Artistry has officially opened shop! Available for “purchase” on our website (www.uncoveredartistry.com) are donations to prevent domestic violence. You can buy a $10 donation to Uncovered Artistry to “Provide a Survivor with a Loan to Start Her Business.” Your donation will help Uncovered Artistry provide micro-loans to its artisans. Micro-loans, which are small loans that range from $25-$300, give artisans the initial capital they need to start their businesses with Uncovered Artistry Boutique. You can also purchase at $25 donation to a domestic violence shelter. The “Give a Victim a Place to Stay” donation will support a domestic violence shelter, which provides temporary housing, counseling, and support for domestic violence victims.

These two new donation options are Uncovered Artistry’s first step to selling online. We are currently in the process of reviewing artisan applications and are hopeful that our shop will soon be filled with beautiful artisan work!

Spreading Peace

Uncovered Artistry Boutique was founded on peace.

Uncovered Artistry will promote peace by focusing on the individual. Since survivors will be able to improve their lives financially and emotionally, they gain peace within themselves, which will impact their families and the entire community. Likewise, raising awareness about domestic violence victims will encourage understanding.

The stereotypical domestic violence survivor is a white, lower class female who is abused by her white male spouse. However, domestic violence can affect anyone no matter their sex, age, race, socioeconomic background, or sexuality.When an individual understands the struggles of another, he or she is less likely to make judgments and to commit violent acts of his or her own.

In this way, understanding between individuals promotes peace within communities and in turn within the country and the world.

Some more thoughts on peace...

Sisters and brothers, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace.
-2 Cor. 13:11

History will never change because of politics or conquests or theories or wars; that's mere repitition, it's been going on since the beginning of time. History will only change when we are able to use the energy of love, just as we use energy of the wind, the seas, the atom.
-Paulo Coelho

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
-Martin Luther King Jr.

We can all take responsibility for helping to bring about change, and keeping our friends and colleagues safe from domestic violence.
-Charles Clarke

Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death.
-Buddha

Our Progress

Uncovered Artistry is proud to boast some small victories. After being awarded the Projects for Peace grant, Angie and I focused on creating a website for our non-profit and getting the word out that we were looking for artisans. Angie did a great job writing a press release (see an earlier blog post for Angie's advice on writing your own press release), and we were featured in our local newspapers.


We want to give out a big thank to our community, family, and friends for their support! We have received so many words of encouragement.


^Our "desk" (ie dining room table) full of letters to domestic violence safe havens and churches around the country.

We are still on the search for artisans. Once again, if you know anyone who has suffered from domestic violence and who creates some sort of artisan work (painting, quilting, woodworking, knitting, etc), please refer them to our website (www.uncoveredartistry.com).

Be on the look out for new products (all made from domestic violence survivors) on our website very soon!

Peace,
Sarah

Why we started Uncovered Artistry in the first place

The universe always helps us fight for our dreams.

-Paolo Coehlo

It was just after my sister and I had discovered the power of Fair Trade (trade based on a fair wage, no child-labor, healthy working conditions, and usually environmentally-friendly products), micro-loans (read Angie's post for more info), and social entrepreneurship.

We realized that business didn't have to be that big, scary, masculine world of corporations and greed. Business could in fact change the world...for the better. The Projects for Peace grant was the opportunity we needed to make our ideas reality.

So why domestic violence survivors? At first, we wanted to sell the artisan work of American women who were in financial hardships. We wanted to empower women. And we wanted to empower women in our own country. For as much as we love the idea of empowering women from far-away countries, the hardships of women in America were never clearer to us.

After sharing the idea with our family, our dad asked, "Why just women? Why not men too?" Eventually, we settled on the idea of providing domestic violence survivors the opportunity to be empowered through business and art. Domestic violence survivors who are women and men, young, old, heterosexual, homosexual, and who come from rich and diverse cultural and religious backgrounds.

If you know of an individual who is a domestic violence survivor as well as a creator of beautiful artisan work, please have them visit our website at www.uncoveredartistry.com and send us an email at uncoveredartistry@gmail.com for an artisan application

Peace,
Sarah

Search for Artisans

We recently recieved a grant through the Projects for Peace Organizaion, which will allow us to start Uncovered Artistry Boutique.

This boutique will sell the artisan work of domestic violence surviors. If you or anyone you know is a talented artisan who has suffered from domestic violence and would like to sell your work in our online boutique, please email us at uncoveredartistry [!at] gmail.com.

Your identity will remain anonymous if so desired. See the description below for more details!

Sarah and Angie
La SuaVoce Designs
Uncovered Artistry Boutique

The Project:

Uncovered Artistry Boutique, operating out of Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, will be a non-profit online and catalog retailer that sells the finely crafted work of domestic violence survivors and distributes the products throughout the country.

The business will have two main goals. First, it will provide an outlet for domestic survivors in America to sell their artisan work,thereby providing them with financial independence and personal confidence.

Second,Uncovered Artistry will educate the customers about domestic violence in order to raise awareness and eliminate stereotypes.We will solicit applications from domestic violence survivors, who also have an undiscovered artistic skill such as jewelry-making, quilting, sewing, or woodworking. We would like to represent domestic violence survivors from different cultural, ethnic, racial, and regional backgrounds, who each have their own unique personal stories.

In order to raise awareness, we will include a profile about the survivors on the website, catalog, and in informational packets sent to customers. To protect the safety of our artisans, we will work with safe havens to develop these profiles in a manner that protects the anonymity of the artisans. We will also recruit students and professionals as volunteers.

Uncovered Artistry Begins

Sarah and I are happy to announce that we have arrived to New Hampshire from college in Illinios, and we can start working on Uncovered Artistry Boutique. The online boutique will sell the finely crafted artisan work of domestic violence suvivors. We recieved a grant to start the business from Projects for Peace, which supports projects that in some way promote peace throughout the world. Our first steps to starting Uncovered Artistry include creating a website, connecting with local safe havens, and of course searching for artisans!

Check out our "About Us" page for more information. Please follow our blog and expect more updates, resources, and stories to come!

Sarah and Angela Spoto