A local charity making and selling jewelry for a cause has found its design star.
Chantal Beaulne, a recent graduate of Holy Trinity Academy, put her computer to work and crafted the winning entry in her age category for the Kids 4 Kids Pendant design contest.
Beaulne said she was instantly inspired to be a part of the competition when she heard about it from her high school art teacher.
“I went home and opened up Photoshop and just tinkered around with some sketches and drawings I happened to have lying around and I came up with some stuff,” she recalled.
The design contest was put on by the local Not 4 Sale charity geared towards liberating girls from the Asian sex slave trade currently active in Cambodia and Thailand. The local group is raising funds for the construction of a Cambodian safe house through the sale of pendants at the ongoing Market Square events in Okotoks. They are held each month at Olde Towne Plaza in downtown Okotoks as part of the First Saturdays Festival of Arts and Culture.
Beaulne, 18, topped her age class (12-17) by having the best selling pendant over the contest period.
“The one that won first place was a bird on a blue background with a coffee stain around it,” Beaulne said. “There are three geese flying above the bird which I think is a swallow.”
Because birds and flight are common symbols of freedom Beaulne deemed them appropriate for a charitable initiative aimed at releasing girls from a life of servitude. The young artist had an additional pendant design selected for production by Not 4 Sale as well. This one she admitted tackles the cause’s subject manner in a more literal manner.
“It’s a whole bunch of little black figures standing in a row,” Beaulne explained. “They are all holding hands except for one near the end which is a smaller figure drawn in red. It’s a little girl holding a teddy bear and she’s got like a little price tag on her foot.”
Beaulne is actively involved in art having worked previously in several mediums including charcoals, pastels and acrylics. These days the young lady, who is also an accomplished competitive fencer, said she prefers to create images on a computer equipped with Photoshop software.
“It’s very easy to use, and you can colour everything the way you want,” she said. “Digital is the future.”
Beaulne was far from the only student inspired to lend their creativity to the pendant design contest. Not 4 Sale facilitator Joy-Lynn Stickel said the charity was delighted by the response.
“We had almost 1,000 entries from kids in the area around here.” she said.
From those submissions, 25 pendant designs in Beaulne’s age class and four from the elementary school age group were selected by Not 4 Sale volunteers to go into production and made available for purchase.
“They said it was one of the hardest things ever,” she said of the selection process. “There were so many good entries and you could see the kids really put their hearts into it.”
Stickel explained the best part of all the children’s hard work was what it has done for her organization.
“The Kids 4 Kids contest has generated over $12,000 towards the safe house,” she said.
Construction of the Cambodian safe house should be completed by the end of the year.
For more on the pendants and the local effort to aid victims of the Asian sex slave trade check out www.not4sale.ca
