Art connection.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

There are galleries for art. Then there are galleries for art from the heart.

Curt and Cathy Bradner are opening one of the latter in their unassuming 900-square-foot house in southwest Eugene.

In the front room and part of another hang the paintings of artists who are refugees whose art benefits refugees.

The collaboration raises awareness of refugee issues and cash for refugees to build low-cost, low-tech water filters for families, and other projects in refugee camps.

"The world is full of beautiful art," says Curt Bradner, 50. "Our art comes with a story, and it comes with the knowledge that you are going to help a community when you buy it."

Art-Exiled, as the Bradners call their effort, had its beginnings six years ago when the couple's tandem bicycle journey rolled them into Thailand and turned into a deep affection for the Mae Tao Clinic, a medical program and orphanage for Burmese refugees run by Dr. Cynthia Maung.

"We had no experience in this whatsoever. I had never heard of Burma when we got to Asia," Curt Bradner says.

"We fell in love with the population. We stayed three months," Cathy Bradner says.

They soon met Maung Maung Tinn, a refugee working in the Mae Tao orphanage who also painted in his spare time. Cathy Bradner began buying his paintings and promoting them among her friends.

Tinn, whose popularity continues to grow around the world, turned his profits into supplies for the clinic and food for the orphanage.

In the meantime, Curt Bradner, who designed and built tools for bicycle manufacturers before selling his Colorado-based company, began teaching refugees how to repair bicycles. It was a good first effort at a cottage industry, but overhead costs for parts hampered its success, he says.

After they returned to the United States, the couple continued buying art from refugees from Burma (now Myanmar) living in the Thai camps. They made several return visits to Thailand and linked up with the nonprofit Potters for Peace project to teach pottery to young artists among the 25,000 refugees in one camp.

"Nobody did pottery. They were weavers and traded for pottery. This was a whole new concept for them," Curt Bradner says.

The breakthrough came after a teacher from Potters for Peace began teaching refugees how to make low-cost water filters. The porous ceramic basin fits atop a plastic bucket. When river water is poured into the filter basin, what comes out in the bucket is 99.88 percent free of water-born disease agents, according to the group's Web site.

Potters for Peace designed the filter for use in Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch and teaches its manufacture to local people in underdeveloped areas around the world.

Having witnessed firsthand the lack of safe drinking water in the refugee camps in Thailand, the Bradners recognized the filters as a viable cottage industry for refugees.

The filters are made from clay and rice husks, cost about $10 to produce, filter enough drinking water for eight people each day, and last about three years, Curt Bradner says.

After getting lessons from Potters for Peace in 2003, refugee potters in the Thai camp set to work.

When the tsunami struck last year, they began turning out 40 filters a day for shipment to the affected areas. Since then, they have produced 2,500 filters.

To turn art into aid, Art-Exiled buys art from refugee artists, recently reaching out to African refugees. Profits from the resale then go back to the artists' refugee community for projects such as the water filters, orphanages and medical clinics, Cathy Bradner says.

"We pay them fair market value. They usually either teach art or pass the money to their medical clinic or some other service," she says.

Some refugee artists, such as Nay Thit, are able to sell enough of their work that they can afford to leave the refugee camp with their families and work in countries that will accept them as political refugees. Thit, for example, now works in Norway with a computer graphics firm, Cathy Bradner says.

Not all refugee artists are a good fit for Art-Exiled, she adds. Some choose not to turn their profits to benefit their community. In those cases, Art-Exiled chooses not to buy their art.

"We learned the best effect we could have is to identify individuals who had the opportunity to change things in their own society," Curt Bradner says.

While Art-Exiled sells most of its paintings on the Internet, the Bradners believe the Eugene area is a place where people will connect to the art and the heart of refugee issues through private appointments and shows at their gallery.

"We want to share what we do with the Eugene community to get them interested in this," Curt Bradner says. "It's not just buying art. It's about supporting people who are less fortunate."

ART-EXILED

What: A collection of paintings by refugees being sold by a nonprofit group to raise money for the artists' refugee communities.

Where: Gallery at 1973 Pierce St., Eugene

When: By private appointment

More information: Phone [phone], send email to [e-mail] or visit the Web at www.art-exiled.org.

CAPTION(S):

Cathy and Curt Bradner have opened a gallery in their home. "Our art comes with a story," Curt Bradner says, "and it comes with the knowledge that you are going to help a community when you buy it." Brian Davies / The Register-Guard "It's not just buying art. It's about supporting people who are less fortunate." CURT BRADNER ART-EXILED "Three Ships," Chu Cil, Myanmar "Umbrella Painter," Nay Thit, Myanmar "Walking the Plank," Kyaw Hein, Myanmar