As my readers already know, the works of art donated to PerpetuArte by the participating artists were auctioned on Friday, the 2nd of March at the closing ceremony of the exhibition at the "Casa de la Cultura Benito Pérez Armas" in Yaiza. Over 2500 euros were raised to improve the quality of life of cancer patients in Lanzarote at the auction - half of the pieces donated were sold at the event. This is just the first step towards the organization's objective of raising 30,000 euros a year to provide a psychotherapist specialized in oncology for the hospital in Arrecife.
We have successfully taken this first step thanks to the support received from, first of all the Town Hall in Yaiza by agreeing to help PerpetuArte organize the event in their culture center, the people who came to visit the exhibition, and especially those who came to closing night and bid for the works of art. We still have a lot of work to do, however, to make people aware of the need to bring solidarity closer to home. Sometimes we are so ready to go to great lengths to help out when disasters occur around the world, which is a good thing - don't get me wrong, but we forget, or we simply don't see, that there are many right under our noses who need our help. Who doesn't have a family member, friend or acquaintance that has been affected by cancer, or is, in fact, this very moment fighting the disease, which is so difficult to come to terms with both emotionally and psychologically? These patients, their families and the people who care for them need support from a specialized professional. We can all help to achieve this by participating and helping out associations created for this purpose, such as PerpetuArte and AFOL (Asociación de Familias Oncológicas de Lanzarote).
I'm very proud and grateful of having had the opportunity to participate is this exhibition and would like to thank the President of PerpetuArte, Mereces Crespo for inviting me to take part in the project, and congratulate her for her hard work. I would also like to list my fellow artists, who participated and donated their artwork, in recognition of their generosity and solidarity.
The participating artists are:
Alberto Cáceres, Alicia López, Angelika Gransow, Cindy Batsleer, Cristina Efres (myself), Dieter Noss, Elena Matzkin, Elisa Betancort, César Manrique (Fundación César Manrique), Gretl Brand, Hasso Von Henninges, Helen Richardson, Isabel Calderón, Luke Shillingford, María Jesús Crespo García, Margret Sickert, Peter Sickert, René Lizardo, Richard Ellis, Romana Brunnauer, Sonja Tibbert, Susan Dixon, Susan Thain and Victor Socas.
