ABOUT IRIS ARTS
OUR MISSION
We connect art and digital media with the social fabric of our lives
by working with projects that have underlying social, spiritual, cultural value.
We produce & support projects that have social relevance or
contribute to a deeper understanding of cultural,
spiritual and civic involvement in the world.
Iris Arts & Education Group, a 501(c)3 organization, was founded by Jan Camp in 1992 to be a container for emerging visual artists to show and share their work.
Verona Fonte became Executive Director and Chair of the Board of Directors, in 1997. Verona added to Jan’s focus by working mainly in the emerging digital media arena. She began by assisting young people to become competent visual storytellers, using the internet as their distribution vehicle.
In more recent years, as education, access to production tools, and distribution of art and media have been transformed by the internet, the mission of IrisArts.org has expanded to include the production of digital medium projects for other nonprofit organizations in socially relevant areas. We donate our services, productions, training, and software to nonprofit organizations that we believe have to educate, informing and inspiring projects where heart, head, and the public good are aligned.
Iris's support includes organizational consultation, fiscal sponsorship, production of media, websites, and promotional materials to aid a partnering organization’s mission and objectives. These materials range from websites to short movies and include posters, postcards, and books. When approached by funded sources offering to pay us for services, we accept, as this is how we maintain our funding. But this is never the basis for our project selection.
All productions of Iris are available under the Creative Commons. The license designation for work we've produced is CC BY-NC-SA / Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike / This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and license their new creations under identical terms.
Iris also continues to work with well-known artists, creating short films with socially relevant narratives.
Our Namesake
The goddess Iris is the messenger of the Greek gods.
She represents a bridge connecting the human world and the divine.
and is imagined as the Rainbow.