Collective art is a simple and inexpensive way to touch your community, your church or any event that needs a time piece of art. And by doing a hand print collective art peace for a soldier you are letting them know that your hands and prayer are with them.

We were introduced to a HEROS piece at a show that we attended in DC. At first, like everyone else, we just walked buy and stared, trying to figure out what the deal was, how much it cost to participate, and most importantly, what you even did! But Paul Wislotski was quick to grab us and explain what he was doing.

HEROS stands for a Hand printing Experience Recognizing Overseas Soldiers. The purpose of these art pieces is for people at events or at gatherings to express their artistic side, while letting soldiers who are serving overseas know that there are people back home that are thinking of them and are grateful for what they are doing.

There are also collective art pieces that volunteers can create for their community, to show support for something good that is taking place or just to get people involved and interacting with one another.

Paul tells his life story on the website, how he went from being a simple farmkid in Ohio, to moving to Florida, to being the rebel that joined a gang, to being spiritually and emotionally lost in the world, wondering from place to place just working to survive. And then, how he found God and that faith has directed his life since to travel across the United States numerous times spreading his good news and positive energy.

The concept of a HERO or art piece is simple: a solid-colored clean bed sheet that is spread across a wood frame. All you do then is get some oil crayons and let people go to it. Depending on what you are doing the piece for, depends on what participants will provide you with, but the key to all the pieces is a sense of freeing an inner-child artistic self that we all have, but has been repressed in some of us!

If you would like to find out more about Paul’s traveling work, you can visit his site at www.geocities.com/paulwislotski/home.html. Or, if you are participating in our Poker Run on August 13th, we will have an opportunity for you to test the HEROS piece out at our third stop!