Organization Purpose

The purpose of this organization is to promote art as a tool to achieve peace on both a personal and political level.

We hope to inspire individuals to explore art as a personal tool for healing. We also want to create an increase in funding for art as a tool for social change. By developing relationships with artists and social activists using art, we plan to document and promote the power of art.

Our Mission

Promote art as a tool for personal and social change.

Documentary Project

Project Synopsis:

Based on the premise that art transcends intractable barriers, Finding Peace Through Art will document the process and outcome of collaborative art projects between Israelis and Palestinians. Going beyond the goal of inspiration to provide actual guidance, Finding Peace Through Art will explore the intricacies of spiritual evolution. This documentary will speak to the concerns of people from diverse walks of life, crossing cultures and economic barriers by relying on the universality of truth telling. Finding Peace Through Art will be a no-holds-barred testimonial.

To inform this documentary, Michele will use her own experience of finding peace through art as she recovered from childhood sexual abuse. Prior to finding peace within, Michele's efforts towards social justice were handicapped by the war within herself. Having founded three Berkeley-based companies, one of which was the highly regarded non-profit ASAP, employing area at-risk youth, she still felt quite unsettled. Then Michele followed a foreign impulse. Judgmental of art and artists, but failed by her old methods of self-expression, she found herself craving brushes and colors. Michele was completely surprised to see the world burst open: colors, sounds and textures became luminous. Along with this sensory shift, her relationships and self-perception shifted. Although the work was far from over, something extraordinary had happened. Overtime, she noticed that the world seemed to offer more choices. She had more flexibility and greater potential for joy. Peace.

What if the Palestinians and Israelis could join in artistic ventures? Would the same residual riches follow? Can art be useful to non-artists?

After several years of intensive healing through art, it is now time to go back out into the world doing the social justice work she began so many years ago. Believing that the process of the individual is tantamount and parallel to broader change in the world, Michele continues to expand her understanding of the healing process. Having observed and documented her own metamorphosis over the past four years, Michele is an ideal subject and guide for the next phases of her own evolution through art. And now it is her intention to turn her lens towards the experiences of others on their paths. Returning to Israel for the first time in 30 years, the geographical setting of the early abuse she suffered at the hands of her diplomat step-father from 1969-1973, Michele will observe and document Palestinians and Israeli's serving as allies to heal from the terror in their daily lives.