At the time of writing we are 27 days into the US Government shutdown instigated by President Trump. 80,000 families are without earnings which is obviously a stressful time, especially for the youngsters.
We were watching a news report on the BBC recently when a story appeared about a young man called Tiger Blaylock. He is nine years old and had offered to sell his artwork to support the family who were caught up in the struggle. We were stunned by the sentiment and had to watch the report again and again. The story really touched us for so many reasons. Firstly the bad rap that a lot of youngsters get, and yet here was a young man who was automatically stepping up for his family, and he was nine years old. As artists the story resonated. He wasn’t offering scans or copies but the actual work he had drawn and coloured with is own hands. Even though we are adults we could see how much value that would hold for him. We sat and talked about how proud his mum must be of that sentiment. The conversation here was very casual but we couldn’t let it go, then we started to wonder?
How could we offer him some support and more importantly some distraction from the events unfolding for thousands of families?
So we did some research online, found his mum and contacted her. It wasn’t a political statement we wanted or any great fundraiser, just some support and understanding as fellow artists. In the end we offered to produce several hundred professional greeting cards based on his designs. We are so excited to be packing them up in the next few days and shipping them across the world for him to sell locally. We will also be making them available in the UK through our normal sales channels. All profits will be sent to Tiger to support his education and his forthcoming comic book. Watch out for that.
The cards will be on our website and available for sale any day now. If you want to support tiger then you can add them to your order in the normal way. They are really cool designs with a brilliant positive message in every one.
As a sidenote
Yesterday we were contacted by one of the camera crew who works for the BBC in Washington DC. He was simply curious and when we told him it was his report that had started the ball rolling he was over the moon. He was really pleased that the work he did had such an impact.