Artist And Philanthropist Creates Art to Raise Money for 501c3 Organizations And Donates Pairs of Ceramic '9/11 Twin Towers' to Museums Across Country to Stimulate Dialogue About Unity Through Art

ST. PETERSBURG, FL, February 07, 2013 (Press-News.org) With charitable giving down and need at an all time high, 501c3 organizations are going to love this new fundraising idea.

Artist and philanthropist Richard Sean Manning and his business partner Laura Manning, co-founded The Manning Arts as a platform to help 501c3 organizations raise money for worthy causes through an online gallery of original art.

Traveling between substantial art studios in St Petersburg, Florida and Lockport, New York the artist gains inspiration to paint with acrylic paint and ink on museum quality paper.

He has completed over 1800 works of unity art so far, on his way to fulfilling his commitment of painting one original for each of the 3000 victims who perished on 9/11.

Even though his art was inspired by this tragic event, it is diverse in color and content, raises social awareness, and for the most part is considered to be happy art.

Laura Manning manages the back end of the business, photographing and documenting each work of art and maintaining the online art gallery.

She works with 501c3 organizations who register online to participate in The Manning Arts innovative fundraising initiative that has the potential of raising over $400 million for worthy causes.

'It sounds like a lot of money, but then you do the math," states Laura Manning, "and you realize that each original is available in a numbered series of 550 fine quality giclee prints, in 3 sizes each, representing 1650 options per original, for a total of almost 5 million works of art."

Each charity is assigned a unique URL that links them to The Manning Arts online art gallery, which they can upload to their website and share with their supporters.

The success of this fundraiser is based on getting the word out to loyal supporters to click on the link and purchase a work of art for their home, office or as a gift.

Included in every purchase is a 66% tax deductible, charitable contribution from the supporter to the charity that originates the order.

At point of sale, funds are split by PayPal using an adapted payment integration that instantly deposits 66% of the proceeds of the order into the charity PayPal account.

The remaining 34% is deposited to The Manning Arts PayPal account and covers the cost of fulfilling the order including handling and shipping directly to the supporter. It's as simple as that!

This memorial to 9/11 all started when Richard Sean Manning, who is also an accomplished ceramic artist, crafted two abstract ceramic towers that were fired in a wood burning Anagama kiln at Bowling Green State University.

The firing lasted for 10 days with extreme heat blazing throughout 24 hours each day for 7 days, and was cooled for 3 days.

The ceramic towers that presented themselves upon opening the kiln were glazed in ash and had morphed into an eerie, yet beautiful resemblance of the 9/11 Twin Towers.

From that moment, the artist was inspired to create pairs of '9/11 Twin Towers' to donate to museums across the country in memory of all those who lost their lives on that fateful date now woven into the fabric of American history.

The first permanent exhibit of a pair of '9/11 Twin Towers' was installed at the Great Explorations Children's Museum in St Petersburg, Florida to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Cognizant of the need to provide funding for the upkeep of his donated '9/11 Twin Towers', as well as to introduce 9/11 curriculum based programming into museums, lead the artist to start painting Unity Art.

He painted an original series for Great Ex along with a number of original ceramic wall plaques, and hung more than 100 works of unity art to help launch the museum's fundraiser. To support the museum please visit http://www.TheManningArts.org/GreatEx and purchase a work of art.

"My aim is to help open a dialogue about unity through art, between educators and students who were not even born on 9/11/01, and to give pause for a moment of silence for all of us to never forget what happened on that fateful day." says Richard Sean Manning.

To register your 501c3 organization to participate in this unique fundraiser or to inquire about receiving a donation of a one of a kind pair of '9/11 Twin Towers' as a permanent exhibit at your museum, please visit http://www.TheManningArts.org.