Art With a Heart brings hope

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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The last time Randi Pupkin walked into a court of law, she sent a signal to herself that her days as a lawyer were ending. She carried her legal papers in a child’s Dr. Seuss binder. It was her transition from a life of construction litigation to the world of art, and children, and damaged places where the two rarely connect.

Pupkin started Art With a Heart eight years ago. It’s a nonprofit organization that conducts more than a thousand classes and reaches close to 10,000 people a year. And it’s Pupkin’s attempt not only to plant some flowers of artistic creativity, but to bring a sense of caring to such places as group homes for emotionally troubled kids, community shelters, schools, hospitals, the House of Ruth shelter for battered women and their children, and senior centers.  

“Like that one,” Pupkin was saying the other day.

She sat in her Art With a Heart offices, on Clipper Mill Road, and pointed to a photograph of an old woman with Alzheimer’s. The woman was engrossed in a little sculpture she was creating.

“She felt pride,” Pupkin said. “Alzheimer’s patients find joy in the moment. This woman couldn’t remember five minutes ago. But, for that moment, she had joy. The moment is timeless if they’re engaged. And they always feel really proud.”

Next to the old woman was a photo of a young man. “He’s designing a cover for a book on his life,” Pupkin said. The design was a cross with angel wings on it. 

Pupkin sat there surrounded by works of art: paintings, sculpture, pottery, quilts, furniture. All were produced through Art With a Heart, whose staff and volunteers devote about 12,000 hours a year around the Baltimore area.

A graduate of Milford Mill High School, Lynchburg College and the University of Baltimore Law School, Pupkin, 45, had a pretty good life going for her before that final march into a courtroom with Dr. Seuss under her arm. Successful law practice, marriage to a dentist, couple of kids.

“But I’m sitting at my desk one day,” she said, “and I’m thinking, ‘This is chapter 5 of my life story. And it’s gonna be the same at chapter 25. Arguing for documents. Struggles in the courtroom.’ I thought, this is not the journey I want to take.

“I’ve always loved art. I thought, if I could change my life story, why not change it for something I love?”

She started researching social service agencies, group homes, schools, trying to figure out what needs weren’t being met. It felt like jumping off a mountain, she says. She knew nothing about grants, about nonprofits — or about the depths of people’s problems.

She discovered huge numbers of kids who weren’t living with their families. She went to a group home in West Baltimore that was located “next door to a burned-out row house.” At another stop, she remembers a 14-year-old boy misbehaving.

“He had no hope,” she says. “Fourteen years old, and it was gone. You could see it in his face. He didn’t care if he died or went to jail.” She thought art would bring a sense of joy, of creativity, of peacefulness to troubled lives. But she also thought: “Art is only the vehicle.”

“What we’re really bringing,” she said, “is caring and nurturing to people who have so many negative forces in their lives. They need people who care. People they can rely on to be there, and bring structure and rules and expectations. And we’re bringing consistency. So many of these people need that.

“And you watch a class of eight boys, and they’re working on art and not throwing things, or standing on a street corner. They’re engaged. They feel good about themselves. And you see them compliment each other and, when class is over, you see them hug the teacher. It’s just lovely.”

Once a week, 24 teachers and their assistants range across the area, going to sites that have contracted with Art With a Heart.

“Extraordinary people,” says Pupkin, “who are trying so hard to change things.”

For the last two years, Art With a Heart has also offered a summer job program aimed at teenagers. They meet five days a week for four hours and produce “marketable works of art,” says Pupkin, and learn about the work world. They are paid a daily stipend.

Last year, the 45 participating youngsters sold more than $3,400 in merchandise at Artscape.

That’s not only art with a heart — it’s art with a profit.      

SEE THE LATEST ON THIS STORY

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56 days ago: Family health center is lifesaver in Cherry Hill

57 days ago: Where have all the children gone?

58 days ago: All the news fit to print in the checkout line

63 days ago: A blow to the malls

65 days ago: Where do all the years go?

68 days ago: Long shadows longer after civil rights era

70 days ago: Will food prices follow slight decrease in gas?

71 days ago: Parched economic times? Not for bottled-water buyers

72 days ago: New arena a long, long way from the old Coliseum

75 days ago: Artist’s success becomes portrait of perseverance