More than 260,000 children in 24 states and Washington DC have participated in our 29 Pieces Education: Artists Making a Kinder World Curriculum. More than 1600 teachers have been trained in our lessons.
The seeds of 29 Pieces were planted with a bullet, the bullet that murdered a man in front of Founder Karen Blessen's house.
A Pulitzer prize winning journalist and illustrator, Karen reacted to the tragedy by using the tools of her profession. The result was a piece, titled ONE BULLET, which she wrote and illustrated for the Dallas Morning News. The article explored the act of violence and traced the path of its impact on the victim's family, the killer's family, the law enforcement community as well as the community at large.
Karen soon realized that telling the story wasn't the end of her responsibility; it was the beginning. She had to act to help keep the narrative from repeating itself over and over.
Once again, she turned to a tool she knew-art-with hopes of using its power as a catalyst for peace. Engaging, involving and inspiring our community's youth to learn, share and live the lessons of peace became the unifying goal of the organization known as 29 Pieces.
Since its inception in 2005, 29 Pieces has grown in number and impact. Our workshops and classroom curricula have helped tens of thousands of students and adults develop their creativity and their love of peace. Our Dallas LOVE project used art to turn the city-of-hate perception upside down during the Kennedy assassination's 50th anniversary year. Our Piece 24 project united a coalition of business and community leaders as well as local schools to help artists create a 20-foot sculpture - a monument to peace that will have a permanent place within the community.
What all 29 Pieces efforts have in common is the use of art as the power source for beating swords into plowshares and planting new seeds of peace. It's not easy - it takes a lot of volunteers and supporters to make it work. But it is working. And while nothing we do will right the wrong of the murder that started this process, we can change what happens next.
29 Pieces was founded by Karen Blessen and Dr. Barbara Miller as a non-profit organization in 2005, and developed a number of major outreach programs.
1. The 29 Pieces Education: Artists Making a Kinder World Legacy Initiative makes our vast breadth of educational content available to all educators and organizations at no cost. Materials are available in English and Spanish. We provide 29 PIECES ORIGINAL CONTENT
Each of the 20 lesson packets include a thorough and colorful PowerPoint, an art gallery of lesson images, enrichment materials to accompany the lesson, a musical playlist that enhances the art making time.
We are very excited that 29 Pieces is working with the Art Education Department of Texas Tech University in integrating the 29 Pieces Education: Artists Making a Kinder World methodology into a segment of training for pre-service art educators at TTU.
2. CITY WIDE ART PROJECTS: such as the Dallas LOVE Project, the Dallas RESPECT Project, the American LOVE Project, Dallas Students Speak, and Dallas Teachers Speak
3. INTERFAITH WORKSHOPS: Adaptation of our Artists Making a Kinder World lessons for Interfaith audiences.
4. PUBLIC SCULPTURE: Methodology for creating student and professional collectives for creation of public sculpture projects, such as the Piece 24 Project.
5. THE LOVE PROJECT: 29 Pieces started with the Dallas LOVE Project in 2013 as a response to the moniker "City of Hate" that was given to Dallas after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Since then, we have taken the LOVE Project to Grand Prairie, TX, to Rogers, Arkansas, and nationally - via The American LOVE Project, in 2021 - 2022.
29 Pieces uses art to awaken, uplift, and give voice to the creative human spirit to make genuine, positive social change.
29 Pieces is expanding our reach through collaboration with university level education and art education departments. We are expanding the reach of our Artists Making a Kinder World curriculum to professors in higher education, pre-service educators and to the students they reach. 29 Pieces needs funding to adapt our programming, our training, our evaluation methods for this audience. We need to hire trainers, artists, evaluation and assessment experts, designers, program assistants, and social media experts to enable us to extend our reach with both in person and online workshops for not only K-12 educators and students, but also educators and pre-service educators in the university setting.
29 Pieces is committed to supporting and advocating for the equal rights of all people, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual identification or socioeconomic status. In all our work as an organization, we use art to awaken, uplift and give voice to the creative human spirit, which we know and proclaim to be in all people. Our mission as an organization includes people of all backgrounds, as each perspective is essential to our mission to make genuine, positive social change.
Specifically, we work to facilitate and support creative insights that heal and transform, and thus, lead to a more just society that lives up to our constitutionally stated ideals of democracy, freedom and equality. We work to see an end to acts of violence and discrimination against any group or individual and proclaim our commitment to act in solidarity with all groups and individuals who are also working to fulfill equal protection under the law and equal opportunities for all.
Organization name
29 Pieces
Causes
Education - K-12
Operating Budget
$100,000 - $249,999
Counties Served
Collin, Dallas, Tarrant
BIPOC Serving
Black or African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latinx, Native American
Address
6327 VICKERY BLVD