By Shelby Hodge 

ARM GIVES CROATIAN ARTISTS A HAND

 The artists of war-torn Sarajevo were the focal point of an unusual fund-raiser Monday evening which drew more than 250 to the Contemporary Arts Museum.

 The event, sponsored by the Houston-based Artist Rescue Mission (ARM) raised funds to provide art supplies, cameras, film and personal necessities for artists in the troubled region.

 ARM was founded by sculptor Gertrude Barnstone and artist Dan Allison, a past U.S. Information Agency lecturer in the former Yugoslavia. The purpose of the non-profit organization is to assist artists who live in areas of conflict by providing them with materials with which to express their point of view and by aiding in finding venues for exhibition outside their regional crisis.

 Also active in the initial formation and continuing efforts of ARM were teacher Karen Bertonaschi and businessman Douglas Levendecker.

 The evening, charged with a palpable energy, featured a performance by Croatian-born concert pianist Dalia Golubich. She is in Houston studying for her doctorate in piano performance with John Perry at Rice University. Gallery owner Barbara Davis, one of many moved by the warm spirit of the evening, described the performance as creating a "magical unity between the audience and the pianist."

 To assist in the fund-raising, several local artists decorated wine bottles from the former Yugoslav region, which were offered for sale for $25 each. Some guests donated $100 for their artistic party souvenirs.

 Among artists contributing their talents to the event were Jesus Bautista Moroles, Carla Poindexter, Jim Martin, Andy Mann, Ibsen Espana, Perry House, Sharon Kopriva and Joe Mancuso.

 Guests filling the CAM space included Louis and Margaret Skidmore, Carolyn Farb, Dean Dalton, Cameron Armstrong, Dr. Alton and Emily Steiner, Chris Gongolar, Bill and Lennie Burke, and Café Noche's Bill Sadler, who provided cocktail food for the reception which preceded the concert. 

Houston Chronicle/Art Notes By Patricia C. Johnson 

ARTISTS GATHER SUPPLIES, SUPPORT FOR SARAJEVO 

A piano concert Monday evening at the Contemporary Arts Museum will be the first fund-raising event sponsored by Artist Rescue Mission, a nonprofit group formed just 10 weeks ago to address the problems of artists in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 Spearheaded by artists Gertrude Barnstone and Dan Allison, A.R.M. will supply art materials and personal necessities to artists in areas of conflict.

 I remember reading about Susan Sontag's production of Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo," Barnstone said. "The spirit of these people, doing a play in that bombed-out place, and others literally risking their lives to see it, to me seemed so hopeful.

 "I was very moved. And I wanted to do something to help."

 Allison's work has been featured in biennial exhibitions in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, since 1987, when he won first prize. He knows the country and has friends among its artists and dealers. Still, his initial response was skepticism.

 I didn't know what I could do," he said. "But the basic idea is to let the artists know someone cares."

 Using proceeds from the concert, A.R.M. will purchase and deliver a variety of supplies to artists in Sarajevo. Plans call for a second trip to the war-torn city to collect artworks for an exhibition in the United States.

 "I'll be working with friends I've made and the networks artists have established," Allison said. "We'll follow their recommendations in distributing the packages and follow-through."

 "We'd like the artists to keep a log, too. The idea is to set up an organization that would be like giving Henry Moore a microphone during the London blitzkrieg."

 Packages for individual artists will be about the size of an attaché case, Allison said. Each will contain working items such as notebooks, pastels, a camera and film plus personal items such as scissors, toothpaste, a flashlight and batteries.

 A.R.M. is proceeding one step at a time. With sufficient response, however, the project could broaden its scope to assist artists in other crisis-torn areas, from Haiti to South Central Los Angeles.

 Pianist Dalia Golubich, a native of Croatia, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Contemporary Arts Museum, 5216 Montrose Blvd. Tickets are $35. Sponsors may also underwrite $100 packages for artists. For further information, call Barnstone at 528-0397 or Allison at 224-7960. 

HOUSTON CHRONICLE/ART NOTES Sunday, October 30, 1994 By Patricia C. Johnson

 ARTIST AID ARRIVES AT LAST

 After months of organizing and then maneuvering through a country at war, the supplies collected by the Artist Rescue Mission in Houston finally reached artists in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, earlier this month.

 It has been five months since the nonprofit ARM organized a benefit concert to collect such goods as art supplies, cameras and toothpaste for artists in the war-torn country once known as Yugoslavia. It has been almost three months since the group's co-director, Dan Allison, arrived in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, with 24 boxes of supplies -- which he could not deliver amid the hostilities.

 The day I arrived, the United Nations closed the Blue Road (from Ljubljana) and would not allow deliveries to any group in Sarajevo," Allison said. "So I got together with Oslobodenje News Agency, which publishes a daily newspaper in Sarajevo, and with the PTT (the phone company) to try to deliver the supplies.

 "I was supposed to be there for two weeks. Instead I was there for six. I was finally able to leave the supplies with the artists' group known as the Sarajevo Trio, who have delivered them and explained our aim to the artists there."

 The individual packages for artists are about the size of an attaché case, Allison said. Each contains working materials -- notebooks, pastels, a camera and film -- plus personal items such as scissors and a flashlight.

 "We'd also like the artists to keep a log," he said. "The idea is to set up documentation, like giving Henry Moore a microphone during the London blitz."

 Plans call for a second trip to the city next spring to collect artworks for a U.S. exhibition. 

Houston Chronicle Lifestyle & Entertainment Section

 Thursday, June 8, 1995

 By Barbara Karkabi

 FAXED SARAJEVO IMAGES FULL OF EMOTION

 The images from Sarajevo artists are faxes, but no less powerful than the originals in the emotion and human drama they portray.

 In one corner of the Davis/McClain Gallery, drawings by an 11-year-old boy show everything from his dreams of life the way it once was and could be again, to his version of United Nations peace-keeping trucks in Bosnia.

 Nearby is a redesign of a Roy Lichtenstein piece by the Sarajevo Design Trio; in it, a young woman in tears is sobbing: "What's the way to save Sarajevo -- it should have begun! But it's hopeless!"

 Use of the fax machine gives a global-village feel to Bridges: An Exhibition of Works and Images From Houston/Sarajevo, on display at Davis/McClain Gallery in Pennzoil Place, 711 Louisiana, through June 17. The cross-cultural exhibit was organized by the Artist Rescue Mission, a nonprofit organization founded 18 months ago by Houston artist Dan Allison and Gertrude Barnstone. ARM is dedicated to helping artists in areas of conflict get their voices heard. So far the group has concentrated on assisting Sarajevo artists through several projects.

 "Our feeling from the beginning was if we could get the people in Sarajevo to tell their own stories, we would get a much clearer image of what was happening there," says Allison.

 Some of the older artists in their 70s have told us that they went through the same creative process in World War II. They told us if they can keep on creating, they can make it through," he says. "The arts are so important in their lives that it is important to keep on working. Even when they don't have food, they continue to try and work."

 After Allison and Barnstone conceived the idea of mounting an exhibit of Sarajevo artists, they ran into one stumbling block after another. First and foremost was how to get the work out of the besieged city. Eventually, as Allison writes in the catalog, technology -- in the form of a fax -- provided a "bridge" to reach their Sarajevo friends.

 "Why don't we send them the money and have them fax the damn things?" Allison recalls an ARM board member suggesting. And so they did.

 They asked the International Peace Center in Sarajevo to send 10 images from five or six artists. Ultimately, 33 artists sent some 20 images each.

 As the faxes of artwork, photographs and graphics streamed in, Allison had them enhanced on a [sic] the original fax.

 Allison believed it was important to present the exhibit in a "respectful," museumlike setting. ARM members have tried to do that, combining the faxed art with quotes about art as well as works by three Houston artists -- Benito Huerta, Sharon Kopriva and Jim Martin.

 Some of the Sarajevo artists sent only images. Others added words, like Edin Numankadick: "I am fighting to live in the town where I was born, with all my friends and my family because there is only one homeland continue to work even the (sic) conditions are very difficult, of course war changed my understanding of values in the life."

 On the opening night of the exhibit, Houstonians talked to the Sarajevo artists during an hourlong telephone press conference.

 "They broke curfew, as they are not supposed to gather in groups," Allison says. "It was night here and morning there, and they came in loud and clear. We heard: 'Hello, Houston. How is O.J. Simpson?' in this heavy Slavic accent."

 During the call they discussed everything from art to the current state of affairs in Sarajevo (worsening once again). Allison interviewed an artist named Amila who has created her own country in which the "absolute ruler" is art. A Bosnian professor now living in Houston recognized one of the artists as a former student and took the phone for a while. Allison promised to send pictures of the exhibit and of downtown Houston to the artists.

 The Bridges exhibit is ARM's third project. The group has managed to raise $11,000 over the past year and sent $6,000 [worth] of art supplies and other essentials to Bosnia. Allison spent a hair-raising six weeks in the former Yugoslavia attempting to deliver the supplies to Sarajevo; eventually he had to leave them at a drop-off point close to the city. So far the Bridges exhibit has raised $2,500 through sale of the faxed artworks for $50 each, says Allison.

 "This is not a show for art criticism. It's a show about people wanting to continue to create and how important their work and culture are to them under the most dire circumstances," says Allison, who is at the gallery 3-6 p.m. daily.

 "It's not about money. Spiritually, they see they have poked a hole in the web that surrounds them. It's a small point of light, but to them it's a flood because it hasn't happened before."