Art for Children's Sake

is looking for artists for a very special project.

The Grosse Pointe Woods store is organizing An Artist a Day fundraiser, where every day in June (except Sundays) an artist will create an original piece of art – in full public view, no less, to benefit Art Road, a nonprofit that brings art programs to budget-strapped schools.

The plan is to have an artist spend four hours, from noon to 4 p.m. – creating something – and the public is invited to drop by and watch the artist work in his or her medium – painting, drawing, print or putting a collage on a 16-by-20-inch canvas or primed panel. As each work is finished, the canvases will be exhibited at Rainy Day along with a bidding sheet. Anyone can submit an offer, starting at $75, and the works will be auctioned at a July 28 reception, with the artist receiving half the funds, and Art Road the remaining 50 percent.

Rainy Day owner Lisa Amori says she came up with the idea from a Bellevue, Wash., art store that had a similar artwork-a-day fundraiser. This type of event, “it's showcasing local artists,” she says. All she needed was a charity. Amori, since her love and living is art, wanted a program that fostered it. Research led her to Art Road and its executive director, Carol Hofgartner.

Hofgartner founded the Livonia-based Art Road in 2004. A friend of hers who teaches in Detroit schools asked her to talk to students about her architecture career. Hofgartner showed the students some art she did as a youngster, and one child piped up: They didn't have art classes. Hofgartner credits the art instruction she received in school with giving her the confidence to succeed in life, and the child's revelation sparked her determination: “We have to do more.”

Besides art classes being a creative outlet for children (and adults, no less), Hofgartner says art is an important key to helping a child in many ways. Through art we can “see how kids see themselves, and their situation through what they draw.”

If a child, for example, draws a monster in the closet, it opens a dialogue: Is the child merely imaginative, or is there is a real-life monster in the child's life? Art can help reveal if help is needed.

Art Road teachers are professionals – Cranbrook Academy of Art grads -- and the core teacher is in attendance, so if a problem is revealed, a social worker can be brought in, but otherwise the children get to enjoy the experience of expressing themselves. Art Road says the art classes bring many benefits to students, from greater confidence to better performance in school.

Currently the program works with 400 students twice a month at Edison Elementary School in Detroit, where Art Road has also helped renovate the art room, rehabbed the greenhouse, painted a 30-foot mural and funded a new basketball court, with the help of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. And it's expanding to include 400 students at Charles Wright Academy public school in Detroit.

Artists interested in joining An Artist A Day can call Rainy Day for details or an application at 313-881-6305.