Samantha Archer Fayet was my sister and she died in the 2004
Indian Ocean Tsunami. Sam and her daughter Ruby Rose were
amongst the 230,000 people that in died in fourteen countries.
In 2005 the Archer family founded the Sam and Ruby charity
www.samandruby.com to help children of the Phgang Nga.
Since the charity has helped with small projects in several
schools, such as: create computer classrooms & better
installations (toilets, kitchens), lockers, sport shoes, sponsoring
the education of a few very underprivileged children.
Sam says enjoy life, was born as a parallel project whose
objective is to continue with the job of at the same time helping
the charity and passing on, the vital optimism of my sister Sam.
Sam was a positive, cheerful, spontaneous, captivating, radical,
true friend to her friends and most of all she really ENJOYED LIFE!
The objective of Sam says enjoy life, is to transmit this message
of optimism and love in little daily actions, such as cooking.
That is why with Sam says enjoy life we have created a textile
cooking line (aprons, tea towels, oven gloves, plate mats for
humans and dogs). Printed with different episodes of Sam’s life
together with a selection of her sayings, that transmit her love of
life, her “joie de vivre”.
All profit of the sale of this line, will go to the Sam and Ruby charity
and who knows we may in the future even be able to help other
underprivileged children in different areas. Sam says enjoy life is
looking for sustainability, collaborative work and social benefit.
The aim of this partnership is that eventually everyone involved will
receive some kind of financial compensation for their efforts and
commitment and it will distribute it's tax-free profits to various different
charities. We would like to help existing charities supporting: children,
the aged, the disabled and the homeless. At present the bags and the
kitchen aprons, tea towels, oven gloves are made by 2 different
Foundations: Ared, which is a foundation that trains & reinserts women
in a trade when they come out of prison. Prisba is a Foundation that help
the aged in the St Pere neighborhood of Barcelona (where I live).
http://www.fundacioared.org/ & Fundacion Prisba http://www.solidaritatgentgran.org
For the moment Pablo & Carles both great comic artists, who
have also drawn their versions of Sam (that I still have not shown you).
http://pablotaladro.blogspot.com.es and
http://carlesgarciaod.blogspot.com.es
hand silk print our Products and I hope that in the near future to be able
set up a
silk printing work shop for the homeless and then be able to employ them to print
the products.
My dream would be that we can eventually turn Sam says enjoy life! into a
cooperative of
partnership. And set up little Sam says enjoy life's! all around.
However having everything made in each individual country by sustainable
foundations like we are currently doing in Spain.
I highly admire the John Lewis partnership.
I had been racking my brain for ages trying to find a way to raise money
for the charity and I knew I had to use Sam’s special energy, her charisma
would surely attract people. But how? Until I decided to use what she had
physically left behind, hours and hours of mini dv tapes filmed by Sam or
her husband Patrice. I have put together a series of little films and created
a Sam says you tube channel, Each little video tells a little story.
I first set off trying to find an artiste to draw Sam and her dog, but found it
very hard to like any drawing enough to use it as portraying Sam. So I came
up with the idea of Sam says enjoy life art project and commissioning different
visions of Sam seen through each artists artistic styles.
I worked for a good 18 years in the TV Commercial industry where directors
usually draw or have storyboards drawn up to work out every scene of
a commercial and do a shoot breakdown in order to film every scene. So I thought
it would be fun to work the other way round and from a film make a drawing with
positive caption phrases.
