Wow, me made our initial target, thanks to fabulous support and we've made the crate, most of the stuff for our rewards and are sorting the shipping and insurance. We still think it would be good for one of us to go over and draw a new picture and will continue with our campaign toward that end but, gee, we're grateful for what we've already received. Thank you every-one and if you are a new visitor here please read the story below and consider a pledge.

In 1997, Melbourne based pavement art group Chalk Circle (www.chalkcircle.com.au), Peter Voice, Ulla Taylor and myself, were commissioned to create a massive drawing celebrating Christchurch (ChCh) as the finale of “The Sidewalk Art Project”, NZ’s first pavement art festival. It featured on the front page of the Sat. edition of the major daily newspaper and after a couple of months it faded away as all good p.art does. This was the first time any of us had been to New Zealand and we’ve all been lucky enough to travel and work there many times since.

Peter was in ChCh in Oct. of 2010 just days after the first earthquake. He was shocked at the damage to this beautiful city and, despite the lack of fatalities, the profound fear and stress the event had brought to its people.

When the second, 2011, earthquake hit, we were stunned and deeply saddened. When we realised that virtually every landmark that we had featured in our work was either severely damaged or utterly destroyed, we decided to try and do something. We salvaged and recreated the image from old photos and printed out some digitally altered images which we then drew and painted over to create totally new works to commemorate the event and its aftermath. These works are “Christchurch In Crisis” (420 x 475mm unframed) by Peter Voice and “Remembering Christchurch” (420 x 550mm) by Bev Isaac.

We wish to give these works to the City of Christchurch on Feb. 22, the 2^nd Anniversary of the deadly quake. They have already been professionally mounted, framed (approx. 570 x 700mm total) and are ready to go but, simply put, we’re nearly broke at the moment and can’t afford the $800 or so to crate them up properly, insure and fly them over safely. Ideally, we would like to have one of the original artists accompany the works to Christchurch and, weather permitting, draw a new pavement art piece for the event. Should we exceed our target, we would aim for this but will be happy if we can just get them over there. It would be a way to say “thank you” for the hospitality and opportunities that we’ve enjoyed and let people of Christchurch know that we, and many other Australians, have not forgotten and still care.

All supporters will be acknowledged on the project page of the “Chalk Circle website, our personal facebook pages and should we exceed our target and raise enough money to send an artist over with the works to create a new Christchurch drawing, all $50 and above sponsors will be listed on the pavement beside the new drawing.

This has to be a short fund-raising campaign as the Anniversary of the quake is only about 6 weeks away. If it does not work, we will, sooner or later, one way or another, still make sure the works are given to the people of Christchurch.