April 2015 – Andrew Reach

This is the story of a young girl in the Holocaust who created her own world of a girl living a normal life in artwork she created to help block out the horror all around her and find an inner place of strength and hope. This is a story that needs to be told to as a wide of audience as possible. Not only that we not forget the holocaust but the cost it had on the human spirit and humanity and that ray of hope always in the human spirit like Nelly Toll; that inner strength to get us through the darkest of times. In my own way I have a similar experience. Art pulled me from the depths of despair in my dark times.

Alexandra Nicholis Coon, Executive Director of the Massillon Museum in Massillon Ohio, brought her story to the public in a moving interactive exhibition of her art. It won the 2014 Ohio Museum Award for best exhibition. The next step is for the exhibition to travel to reach a wider audience and to make a documentary film to reach an even wider audience. The project has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and matching funds need to be raised. Click here to contribute.

I am THRILLED to share with you a documentary film project of which I’ve had the honor to be a part for the past six years. Please take a moment to visit the link below to our IndeGoGo campaign, and view the trailer – I think you’ll find it powerful. Armed with only a small box of watercolor paints and her imagination, a young Nelly Toll transformed her grim reality into one of optimism and hope through art.
Several renowned artists from around the world have already come together in support of this project and would love to hear from you. Please visit the link below and share this story!
Alexandra Nicholas Coon
Executive Director Massillon Museum

http://igg.me/at/imaginingabetterworld