First, thank you for opening this.
My birthday is May 16.
I’m throwing a party, an art show, a One Light Show, and I’m asking you to be part of it.
May 16th, at 304 Main Building painting purchasers entry at 7pm, general public at 8pm, One Light Show starts at 9pm. (One Light Show information still being confirmed)
This is connected to a documentary I’m making called The Copyists.
The Copyists
During the Holocaust, in Białystok, Poland, a Nazi officer forced a group of Jewish fine art painters to make copies of European masterworks. He sold the paintings and got rich.
There were around 20 painters in the workshop. They made roughly one painting a week for two years.
They believed their skill might keep them alive.
It did not.
Every artist was murdered. At their easel, in the streets, or in concentration camps.
For decades, the story lived almost like an urban legend. One teenage apprentice survived and told what happened, but no painting from the workshop had ever been found.
Until one showed up in Rockford.
Tim Prince and Sarah Thistle of Scavenged Parts bought a painting out of the back of a pickup truck for $75.
Then they discovered it was the only one of these paintings.
The only one.
They could have sold it for a small fortune.
Instead, they refused money, paid their own way to Poland, and donated it to the Jewish art collection of a gallery in Białystok.
If you don’t know Tim and Sarah, I understand. I didn’t either.
But I want you to.
They run an oddities shop. Scavenged Parts. Tim makes bone sculptures from roadkill. Sarah sells death ephemera. It is the kind of world some people dismiss before they ever bother to understand it.
But that world saw what others missed.
Not a historian.
Not an institution.
Not some polished, official gatekeeper.
Two beautifully eccentric people in Rockford recognized something the world had been searching for.
When I first read the HEADLINE IN THE ROCK RIVER CURRENT…
When I first saw the story, I read the headline I froze. The room shifted. I can’t explain it better than that. I didn’t read the story, only that a Holocaust-era painting made in Poland was discovered in Rockford.
I’m Polish. I speak the language. I’ve been to Poland many times. Both my Babcia and Dziadzia came to the United States out of Nazi work camps. I’m a painter. I tell stories about remarkable people from Rockford.
This story hit every nerve I have.
I met Tim and Sarah, we had an hour long discovery interview where we were all in tears at the end.
I used my new car savings to go with Tim and Sarah to Poland and begin filming this documentary. I’ve borrowed money to fill in the gaps. I’ve been doing everything I can to keep it moving.
And the truth is, this project has changed my life.
I got sober.
I stepped more intentionally into helping my family.
I drive my autistic nephew to therapy many days a week.
I’ve been purging grudges.
I’ve been trying to forgive people.
I’ve been trying to extend that same grace toward myself, which is somehow the harder part.
The name change you’ve seen is part of that.
Pablo Korona was armor. Armor I built for a bullied kid who needed to become someone else to survive.
This trip made me realize Paul is healed enough to carry his own name again.
So, hello.
I don’t think we have been properly introduced.
PAINT WITH HAPPINESS.
I’m asking for your help.
For this fundraiser, I’m making and selling 100 small 5” x 7” paintings.
I’m also creating a second wall of paintings made by friends.
That is where you come in.
I will provide the 5” x 7” canvas.
You paint whatever you want and return it to me by May 13.
The only instruction is this:
Paint with happiness.
I will sell your piece for $100.
You keep $50.
The documentary keeps $50.
This is a film about 20 artists who were used for their gift and then discarded.
Their lives were cut short.
I can’t bring them back. None of us can.
But maybe the best way to honor them is to use the freedom we have. To make something. To be seen. To be paid. To be grateful. To live.
That’s the ask.
HOW TO GET A CANVAS
Blank 5” x 7” canvases are in the side lobby of 304 Main Building, off Jefferson
Brown cardboard box! I can drop them off to you as well!
Tell me which you prefer please.
This is the canvas I will be getting you.
Make a small painting.
Come to the party.
Help me move this story forward.
DUE May 13th. Drop it off in the lobby of 304 Main.
My number is 815-540-9554 if you have questions.
