North Idaho hearts hear battle cry
COEUR d’ALENE — The universe continues to connect Art Spirit Gallery and the people of North Idaho to Ukrainian artist Yaroslav Leonets.
Gallery owner Blair Williams reported Art Spirit has brought in $20,000 for Leonets, a young modern artist who is under siege of Russian attacks in Ukraine's capital of Kyiv.
Williams said that after the March 4 Press article about Leonets and his works on display in the Art Spirit — which is giving 100% of commissions and proceeds to Leonets — people immediately contacted the gallery and came in person, sometimes from hours away, to experience this connection to history and show their support.
"We’ve all been crying, and many people have come in," Williams said Tuesday.
She said people who don't even know each other have shared the bench in front of Leonets' works to cry and pray together.
"Saturday when the show opened, easily 100 of the people came in just because of the story," Williams said, "just to witness the pieces and be witness to that connection with that person through his art."
A local couple is underwriting the cost of taking Leonets' works and turning them into notecards and prints to provide even more revenue to help the artist and his family. The cards will be in the gallery this week, Williams said.
Leonets studied easel painting at Kharkiv Art College, the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts, and monumental painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv.
The next leg of the journey is delivering the money to Leonets. Venmo, a popular mobile payment service, does not work in Europe. Neither does PayPal, Williams said.
Corresponding with Leonets, Williams said he proposed having funds wired to his bank.
"I said, 'Sweetheart, I don’t think you have a bank anymore, and even if you do, I don’t know that it’s insured,'" she said.
Through a network of connections stretching to Romania, Williams and her contacts are working to find a way to get the money to Leonets and keep it safe for him.
"I think it’s so cool how many people are rallying around this one beautiful artist," Williams said. "We feel honored and fortunate to get to be this one man and this one family’s steward. We are pulling like crazy for him."
She let Leonets know she and her team pray for him and his family every day.
"He said, 'You’ll never know how much that means to me,'" Williams said.
He also shared his gratitude in social media correspondence with The Press.
"Thank you very much for your support and understanding," he wrote. "I am very pleased that you all supported me so much and I am very grateful to you for this. I will never forget this."
Leonets' paintings will be on display in Art Spirit Gallery at 415 Sherman Ave., Coeur d'Alene, through March 26.
