What is The Kalon Project?
Kalon by definition means “beauty that is more than skin deep.” That idea is exactly what we want to portray with this audio and visual art exhibition.
We have discovered 22 amazing stories of people from around our community that has given us hope, admiration, and love. We now feel compelled to share those stories with the world.
The Kalon Project will dive deep and share the struggles and darkness that these people have gone through and how it has made these beautiful souls who they are today.
We want to present an art exhibit, like no other. One that showcases these 22 inspirational stories in a new light! At the end of 22 weeks, we will share 22 stories in a large art exhibition. Our community will come together and be able to view this compilation of all these very different and painful journeys that all end with perseverance. They’ll share their story with you on how they overcame these difficulties in life to only become stronger in the end.
The topics that people will share their stories on include: overcoming depression, the life of a cancer survivor, attempted suicide, life after rape, divorce, battling a drug and alcohol addiction, having a miscarriage, dealing with anxiety and self love, bullying, homosexuality, domestic abuse, being a parent to a transgender child, living with a life-altering disease, life with an eating disorder, growing up with a parent that’s different than other parents, raising a child with disability, guiding a body positive movement, life as a veteran, and the loss of a loved one including, a parent losing their child to cancer, a fiancé tragically passing away two-months before their wedding, a sister losing her brother to suicide, and a daughter losing her parent at a young and influential age.
Did you know that from ages 10-24 the second leading cause of death is suicide? And that 20 veterans commit suicide EVERY day? It breaks our hearts to report 15-20 percent of all women with a verified pregnancy will end up having a miscarriage. And that 1.3 million women are raped in the U.S. each year.
We want our community to come together to view and share the experiences of these very different and painful journeys that all end with perseverance and how they became stronger in the end.
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Founder of The Kalon Project, Jillian Gunlicks is mom to 8-year-old, Rylin, and a Sioux Falls native who is an advocate for change.
As of late, Jillian has felt extremely compelled to do something greater that will have a profound impact on those within the Sioux Falls community, and hopefully one day, beyond. Enter the initial idea of The Kalon Project. Jillian is someone who has triumphed over her own hardships and felt compelled to share her story, along with the other 21 amazing stories, in hopes to help others see they are not alone with whatever they are dealing with.
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Being a local artist, it was obvious that she would use art as a medium to share these stories. Jillian had the inspiration, but was unsure where to start. She describes that she had this perpetual intuition to reach out to co-founder of The Kalon Project, Chelsea Tracy.
Chelsea Tracy is a young Sioux Falls entrepreneur. Owner of Chelsea’s Boutique, Style by Chelsea, and co-owner of Conversation Piece, Chelsea has a passion for empowering women and making a difference within the community. Also feeling called to do something bigger, Chelsea and Jillian got together where Jillian shared the idea of The Kalon Project and Chelsea was immediately on board.
Wondering why 22 stories? The angel number for 22 says it reminds you to listen to your intuition and to follow your heart. Both of which will guide you in the direction of your life purpose and your highest possible path. Intuition is ultimately what led Jillian and Chelsea to one another so it only made sense to them that they choose the number 22.
Both women hope this project will make a heartfelt difference in the lives of men and women of all ages, races and religions. Our hope is to inspire and bring to fruition the light that is in each and every one of us.
What We Need & What You Get
We are looking to raise a minimum of $15,000 for The Kalon Project. However, the more we raise, the more we can do with this project. We have dreams of taking this project to high schools, coffee shops, businesses or any other place across the country that this type of inspiration needs to be seen. Inspiration that is filled with love, light and hope
What the minimum of $15,000 is going towards:
Audio
- We want you to be completely immersed into each of these 22 stories. Along with viewing each of these beautiful souls portraits, (photograph, paint or charcoal) you’ll plug in and be able to hear each amazing story told in their own voice, a song that resonated with them during their trials, or a poem or song they have written on their own.
- To allow you to listen to this, we will need to create an app that everyone who attends can download on their phone the night of the event. Part of your donation will go towards the development of creating this app as well the cost to provide headphones to everyone attending the exhibit.
Print/Visual
- Just like the audio piece of this project, the visual component of The Kalon Project is of utter importance. Jillian will be doing a charcoal print or portrait painting, or we will have a local photographer capture each of the 22 people after they have shared their story, which will be displayed and revealed the night of the exhibit. To ensure we present this to you in the most beautiful way possible, part of your donation will help fund the cost of materials for creating and framing these pieces of art. Items such as canvases, brushes, paints as well as covering the cost of the artists time to create the artwork.
Venue
- We want the space we share these impactful 22 stories and display the final artwork that goes along with them be in a place where we feel as if they can be received in a profound way. In a place where people can feel comfortable, and get the full Kalon Project experience. The Museum Of Visual Materials in Sioux Falls will allow us to do just that. Part of your donation will go towards covering the cost of the renting out this beautiful space.
Behind the Scenes
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The Kalon Project is something that we hope to take beyond the South Dakota state lines and we want to capture the essence of this project and all the work is going to be put into it. Part of your donation will allow us to hire a professional videographer to capture all the moments leading up to the final project, as well as the night of the reveal. We want to capture interviews and the small moments during those interviews as well as the live paintings and the reactions of the storytellers hearing their story and seeing their artwork for the first time. Moments like these will allow us to show what The Kalon Project truly is.
These are the things that $15,000 will allow us to do.
We see The Kalon Project becoming a traveling exhibition. We want to bring this project to high schools, middle schools, colleges, businesses, coffee shops and even one day, sold out stadiums. We also see this project turning into an interactive book. A book of the end product complete with stories, images, and an audiobook of the raw interview recordings. We would also love to see The Kalon Project inspiring people around the country by having inspiration filled billboards, bus stop seats, and any other type of medium that will spread inspiration in a moment where someone may truly need it.
We would LOVE to see The Kalon Project be so much bigger and anything over $15,000 will help us to move towards the end goal of having this be a project that takes off worldwide.
And we need you along for the ride.
And of course, we don’t want you to be the only one giving! To say thank you for believing in our project, we want to give back to YOU! - Be sure to check out our amazing perks!
The Impact
I think we can all agree that what the world needs now is LOVE. We need the people in this community and across the world to know that they are not alone with anything they may be going through. We want this to be an inspiring exhibit that is filled with love, light, and hope. We want these 22 stories to be the voices for anyone out there who feel voiceless.
With your help, we can do just that.
Other Ways You Can Help
Maybe The Kalon Project isn’t something you are financially able to support right now, but there are still plenty of other ways you can help!
Help us spread the word about The Kalon Project!
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekalonproject22/
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekalonproject/
Share our Kalon Project video: https://youtu.be/C7fPYcRCWSw
Share our website: TheKalonProject.com
Share our Indiegogo page
