Love for Uvalde Memorial Tile Painting Event

We are a team of 6 Ceramic Tile Artists who are hosting a Memorial Tile Painting Event - free of charge - for victims' families, students, teachers, medical personnel and the citizens of Uvalde impacted by the senseless shooting massacre at Robb Elementary this past May.

Students and their families will be able to memorialize and honor lives lost and lives forever impacted by the unimaginable events of that day using the simple power of a paintbrush and their imagination.

We will provide a minimum of 2500 6X6 inch clay art tiles plus all supplies required to paint, overglaze, fire, and complete the project. Messages of love, healing, peace, remembrance and honor will forever be captured and kiln-fired for permanence on these tiles.

Multiple sites have graciously agreed to host the event simultaneously. The completed tiles will be returned to Uvalde to be installed in a place of honor in the city.

Please continue reading for details regarding our gift to Robb Elementary and the City of Uvalde...

On October 22nd & 23rd, 2022, our teams of ceramic clay tile artists will be in Uvalde to facilitate the painting sites. We will provide all supplies required for the public to complete a FREE Legacy Tile Painting activity at three different locations in Uvalde.

This painting event will allow the citizens of Uvalde to memorialize, honor and remember their loved ones lost in the senseless act of gun violence. Guests will be encouraged to join in, sit, relax, and paint a tile expressing their heartfelt messages and feelings for the victims, their families, Robb Elementary students and the community of Uvalde.

Upon completion of more than 2000 clay tiles gifted to the occasion, the tiles will be returned to city leaders for oversight and safekeeping to be installed as they see fit for a permanent mural display. The tiles are intended to be shown together in a patchwork mural of individual messages of love and reverence. A public building, school wall or park site will be the intended destination for many years of relfection and visitation to the installation site. The tiles will be painted with true, kiln-fired ceramic glazes that will never fade nor degrade and the finished surface is ultra glossy, vibrant and releases tagging and graffiti.

This idea is born from experience . Five years ago, on October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Route 91 Harvest Festival Concert, a mass shooting took 58 lives and wounded over 500 others. The chaotic mayhem that gripped the metropolitan area throughout the night destroyed countless lives and changed our city forever.

A local landscape architect had the vision to create a pop-up memorial site of significance in a place of prominence so that the community could gather, grieve, share their emotions and stories and honor those lost. That simple concept became a remarkable, substantial garden built on donated land from the City of Las Vegas in the downtown arts district.

It became a permanent site of 58 individual trees, one for each life lost, walking paths, waterfalls, windchimes, sculptures, totems and a centerpiece of a large, mature Tree of Life display in a large raised heart-shaped garden bed.

Victims, families, first responders, health care professionals, and concerned citizens painted thousands of clay art tiles. The tiles are displayed in our "Healing Garden" and adorn the concrete heart, walled surfaces, and fencelines. October 1, 2022, marks five years since the Route 91 massacre.

Shortly after the shootings in Las Vegas, our pottery-painting studio, ALL FIRED UP, was contacted to donate tiles and assist with the painting project for the garden. We were honored and immediately went to work laying the groundwork for success.

Our extensive expertise in large-scale events at elementary schools and church sites equipped us with the tools to process through hundreds and hundreds of guests all wanting to be a part of painting a tile for installation in the Healing Garden. The shooting occurred on a Sunday night, and we held our first painting event the following Friday night in the Healing Garden. This downtown site became a makeshift art studio where nearly 800 tiles were painted in a 6-hour event intended to last only a couple of hours.

The public painted at tables and chairs and on the ground. When the rental company came for the lights and chairs and tables, people painted on the streets, the curbs, under streetlights and parking lots, on pallets they found and overturned trash cans. It was complete chaos from an events execution standpoint, but it was simply a beautiful evening of love, patience, peace, community, creativity and artistic expressions of emotions and reverence.

It was our absolute honor to process these messages of love and memorium for those lost and those battling for their lives in local hospitals. Our studio has been in business since 1998 as a small "mom and pops" micro storefront, and this was the most significant work we had ever done in our entire history.

As we moved through the following weeks and months, we hosted painting sites for the public, first responders, medical teams and anyone that wanted to participate. Victims' families participated at studios like ours all over the United States, and their tiles were mailed to Las Vegas. We belong to a magnificent national association for the ceramics industry that connects us to peers all over the country with studios like ours. The support from our peers and the long-distance caretaking of that artwork ensured all the tiles made it to Vegas in time for installation downtown at the Healing Garden. The site has become a permanent destination in the downtown landscape and serves many visitors daily from near and far.

ALL FIRED UP, Las Vegas, has secured most raw materials for the UVALDE project. We solicited donations from our excellent industry suppliers who understand the significant impact memorial tiles can have on a community in pain. Over 2000 pieces of tile are coming to Uvalde for the citizens and school children to paint.

This funding request is to cover travel expenses, firing expenses, materials not yet donated, and incidentals for the artists traveling to Uvalde to facilitate the experience. Funds raised here will also be used to support studios handling detailing, glazing, firing, processing, and delivering tile back to Uvalde.

Airfares, hotels, rental cars, gas, meals and delivery charges for getting supplies into Uvalde are just a few items that are needed.

We are all donating our time and talent. We are leaving our studios on a weekend, which means additional expenses to keep our businesses up and going without us. We are all willing to pay that price out of pocket.

Glazing and firing the tiles afterward is an expense taken on by the San Antonio area studios. This Go-Fund-Me will help them with that expense.

The students and teachers shot at Robb Elementary, their families, their teachers, and students who survived the shooting at Robb Elementary, along with the community at large, will never be the same. We have an opportunity to make a difference. We need your help. Please consider helping us make a difference in lives for generations to come.

Please visit Love for Uvalde for a better understanding and photography of the upcoming project.

Visit our website, All Fired Up Las Vegas Healing Garden, for further information about that project and inspirational images of the Route 91 memorial site with the tile art installed throughout it.

We thank you in advance for your consideration and support . As ceramic artists, we love what we do and are uniquely qualified to bring healing art therapy and community beautification all in one significant package. We humbly ask for your generosity and support for Uvalde and our small businesses as we make this dream a reality.

Sincerely, Gail Schomisch and Jackie Burrow, Co-Owners, All Fired Up Pottery Las Vegas, Nevada