By Alexander Lawrie
SCOTTISH artists have come together to lend their talents to raise cash to help some of the world’s poorest children.
The artists, including the world-renowned Jolomo, have each hand-painted an ostrich egg which will be auctioned off on Easter Monday to help the Mary’s Meals charity.
The eggs are displayed on the Iona House Gallery website, and each of the unusual eggs has a reserve price of just £50.
Donation
Painters Ronnie Ford, Louis McNally, Donald Provan, along with the award-winning artist John Lowrie Morrison, have all donated their work free of charge to support the kid’s charity.
Since 2001, Jolomo has annually given away up to 30 pieces of work to help with his favourite charities.
His ostrich egg donation features one of his famous west coast of Scotland cottage scenes.
Mary’s Meals is an international programme run by Scottish International Relief, and monies raised helps to run projects sustaining around 350,000 schoolchildren in 14 countries worldwide.
Silent auction
All the artists have embraced the fundraising project with enthusiasm and have produced a wide range of different eggs including mini landscapes, floating figures, animals and abstracts.
The gallery is running a silent auction until Easter Monday to give buyers an opportunity to view the eggs and hopefully maximise the funds raised for the charity.
The charity have said each ostrich egg is the equivalent to 24 chicken eggs, and if each egg sells for £150 it would help to feed and educate over 20 starving kids in Malawi for a whole year.
Mary’s Meals sets up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger would otherwise prevent children from receiving an education. The average cost to provide ‘Mary’s Meals’ is just £8.40 per child each year.
Highest bids
Anyone interested in donating to the charity or just to view the artwork is encouraged to visit the charity’s website, www.marysmeals.org
The highest bids for the arty eggs will be shown on the Iona gallery website or phone the gallery for bidding updates.
The auction will close 5pm, Monday 13 April 2009.
