June 23 2011 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Artist Jennifer Dye Visscher, creator of ”The Feeding Edge” web site and co-creator of the “Hope and Apples” campaign to raise AS awareness, is today announcing a new fund raising initiative.
The fund-raiser will take place on September 30th, 2011, the date on which Ms. Visscher will end her year-long art project, “An Apple a Day to raise AS Awareness.” The project has been a fruitful one; Ms Visscher, or Jenna, as she is known to her friends, has created a new painting every single day since October 1, 2010, featuring some variation of an apple.
These beautiful, stylized apples graced the cover of this year’s Annual Report of the Spondylitis Association of America, became a popular meme during the run-up to World AS Day in May and were used as the emblem for the Australian Physiotherapy’s educational seminar series that went LIVE via global web-cast earlier this year. Her apples have been adopted all across the social media landscape as a symbol of the fight to raise Ankylosing Spondylitis awareness worldwide.
According to the CDC, Ankylosing Spondylitis may affect as many as 2.4 million Americans. It is said to affect nearly 33 million people worldwide.
The apple was chosen by Jenna as her inspirational theme for a number of reasons; not the least of which was the old saying, “An Apple a Day keeps the doctor away”, which continues to resonate in this day and age because of the apple’s anti-inflammatory properties and its recent super food classification. It also helps that the image of an apple is something Jenna could create over and over again with new and different styles, motifs and colors.
As of today, Jenna has created 300 apples over the past 10 months in every form from collage to pastel to acrylics, often with pop culture and historical references and motivational quotes as her inspiration. You can see a picture of today’s art-apple-a-day by visiting Jenna’s blog at: www.thefeedingedge.com
Jenna’s plans for the final day of her project, include a marathon 24 hour paint-a-thon. She and a team of volunteers will endeavor to paint as many art apples as possible in a 24 hour period to raise funds for Ankylosing Spondylitis education & research.
Please Reserve Your Apple Now!
Fittingly, this final project will take place in ‘the Big Apple’, New York City, and the entire marathon will be streamed to Jenna’s Facebook page so that people can post encouragement and cheer her on as she competes what has been an incredible 365 day commitment to raising AS awareness through the power of art.
Printable Document with Schedule, Donation Information, and How To Participate Virtually