The publications provide useful advice, strategies, and resources for people considering a career in the nonprofit sector, and include the following titles:

The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers for First-time Job Seekers
This book is a free resource for emerging professionals pursuing their first position in the nonprofit sector. Whether you’re a current student, a recent graduate, or someone entering the workforce for the first time, this book is meant for you.

The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers for Sector Switchers
This book is a free resource for transitioning professionals pursuing new career options in the nonprofit sector. If you call yourself a mid-career transitioner, a re-careerer, an encore careerist, a bridger, or a sector switcher, this book is meant for you.

Service Corps to Social Impact Career – A Companion to The Idealist Guides to Nonprofit Careers
This Companion is for prospective, current, and former participants of a wide range of service corps who want to use their service experience as a building block to their next steps. Written by Amy Potthast of Idealist.org, the book’s sections are available as free PDFs.

From Serving Your Country to Serving Your Community – An Introductory Companion to The Idealist Guides to Nonprofit Careers
This booklet is for soldiers on active duty as well as veterans who are interested in transferring their talents from service in the armed forces into a social impact career in the nonprofit sector. Written by Steven Joiner of Idealist.org, the booklet is available as a free PDF.

A break from design…I finally got around to posting some more samples of my Gourd Birds on my Flickr photostream.

For some background on these creations, check out the previous post, Gourd Birds, written back at the start of this year.

Above: This painting, “Quiet Village”, a heart wrenching title in light of current affairs, is one of the many pieces of beautiful artwork by Haitian artists currently for sale via the Vassar Haiti Project. Tragically, many of the artists whose work is featured remain missing at this time.

The Vassar Haiti Project, now in it’s ninth year, helps Haitian artists and artisans to be self-sustaining, by introducing their work to a worldwide audience and enabling people to purchase their artwork online or in-person at art sales and auctions.

The project’s next art sale will be held on Sunday, January 31st, from 9am to 6pm at the Solomon Schechter School in Hartsdale NY. The event will feature 200 original Haitian paintings, unique gifts, silk scarves, jewelry, and iron sculpture .

Artwork can be viewed and purchased anytime through the project’s online gallery. Purchases will support the artists and their families, most of whom are based in Port-au-Prince and are currently suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake.

From the Vassar Haiti Project’s website:
Come support our artists, most of whom are based in Port-au-Prince and are suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake. The proceeds from this event will benefit both our education initiative as well as earthquake relief. Vassar Haiti Project members are currently involved in ongoing discussions about how we can best help our artists and galleries that have been gravely affected by the earthquake in Port-au-Prince. We are planning to establish a fund that will help displaced artists, artisans and their families. Art sales and donations alike will feed this fund.

Related:
Music more your thing? Check out Paste magazine’s Songs for Haiti campaign with 200+ artists. Donate to help Haiti and get great songs as a thank you!

Above: Wyclef Jean shares a brief message about helping his native Haiti, including a partnership between Starbucks and the Red Cross. For additional information, in particular his emotional call for an organized exodus from Port-au-Prince, visit his blog at wyclef.com.

Here’s a slideshow of some samples (click on any thumbnail):

Most of these sculptures depict shorebirds, as I’ve always had a particular fondness for this group of birds, their long-distance migrations, and the special parts of the world in which they briefly settle. My sentiments are shared by many others who have studied these wonderful birds. “The restlessness of shorebirds, their kinship with distance and swift seasons, the wistful signal of their voices down the long coastlines of the worlds, make them, for me, the the most affecting of wild creatures,” writes naturalist and author Peter Matthiessen in The Wind Birds.

Although I create these Gourds Birds for my own enjoyment and creative expression, I also sell them locally. When available, they can be purchased at Little’s Block of Shoppes, 1 West Main Street, Georgetown, MA.