Former super model and current artist/fashion designer Maria Snyder and I are sitting in Zylo, the restaurant in the W Hotel in Hoboken, N.J. surrounded by windows that frame the sweeping Manhattan skyline. Her black poncho, beaded in great detail, has a bold eye across the chest, a magnificent frock of her own design. Right away I know I am dealing with someone who is keen on “vision.”

We have met to discuss Eco Boys and Girls, a venture outside the realm of Snyder’s usual artistic outlets because it involves a short animated film and exhibit for children. It is set to premiere at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City in a splashy launch on April 24 commemorating Earth Week. It seems much of what Snyder creates is about peace-building, love, nature.

I marvel to her how we keep hearing of fashion industry altruism/advocacy that goes beyond good public relations –   i.e., Donna Karan’s Urban Zen, Diane von Furstenberg’s Vital Voices – and feels more like full-out passion.

“I think it’s a movement,” Snyder says. “You see one and then there’s another and another. The collective consciousness starts thinking like that, almost by osmosis.”

There is something special about using one’s artistic expression to bring uplifting messages in tandem with financial heft and a coterie of like-minded supporters and colleagues. In the case of Snyder, teaching children ages 3-9 the importance of caring for our planet is the mission of her latest project. She wants them to take ownership of it.

“Children today are just brought up that way,” Snyder says. “They do care. It’s great that it’s in their consciousness.”

Snyder plans to take that up a notch with five colorful characters – Ernie Earth, Lulu Love, Patsy Peace, Ray Recycle and Sammy Sun. She talks about them as proudly as a mother might talk about her offspring.

“Ernie Earth is a big globe, a big jovial, happy, robust, rotund globe,” Snyder says. “Lulu Love is just a delightful, adorable, big cuddly heart that glows. And she hugs. And Patsy Peace … has a vibration to her and she’s a meditator … Her little peace sign becomes like a little ball of energy. And Ray Recycle … is interested in … making things out of other things.”

As often happens to true artists, Snyder doesn’t even know where the notion came from to create these characters. She had never done animation. While hearts and other recurring themes in her art represent love and peace and she’s used recycled materials in much of her work, she hadn’t set out to address environmental concerns. These little folks just channeled through her.

“I was not thinking this was the direction I was going to go in,” Snyder says. “It was actually quite contrary to the direction I was in.”

But again, the most successful artists know when to indulge a rush of an idea and capture it on the page or the canvas. Further, they don’t concern themselves with who else might like it. Art is first and foremost for the creator.

“Well, I think that personally if I can create something beautiful that also has an intrinsic value to it and it’s positive in its intention, then you know, then I think I’ve done a pretty good job for me,” Snyder said. “If other people like it, then it makes it really wonderful to have those experiences.”

The Eco Boys and Girls do resonate with others. A lot. Snyder is building awareness through an endorsement from Friends of the United Nations, adding an education component that would incorporate the message into curriculums around America (she is not ready to disclose details), and a book and product through an entertainment company (again, details forthcoming).

For a woman who was “discovered” by Yves Saint Laurent while studying art history in Paris, all of this is quite an evolution. According to her Web site bio, during her modeling career she worked with legendary designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Valentino, Armani and Calvin Klein, with photographers such as Helmut Newton and Steven Meisel, and with one of the greatest fashion illustrators in history, Antonio Lopez. She then launched a fashion business, spurred on by her first jewelry exhibition courtesy of Diane von Furstenberg, and continuing with lines for Emilio Pucci and the Museum of Modern Art among many others.

In 2009, Snyder created art for hospitals and foundations around the world and was chosen as “one of a new generation of artists for peace” on the International Day of Women in Paris.

“[Modeling] was kind of like being in the middle of a land mine and a gold mine,” Snyder says. “And staying in a place that your heart’s clean and that you maintain that positivity in your personality is challenging.”

Snyder feels fortunate to have had a solid foundation to weather that, as she was brought up by an entrepreneurial family with an artistic spirit.

“[They] had very strong convictions and a tremendous integrity,” Snyder says. “You didn’t say anything in my family that you didn’t do. If you said it, then you had to do it. That was kind of a shock when I went out in the world on my own. You can say it and it doesn’t matter? Wow, that’s new.”

That philosophy of “say it, then do it” certainly came with a measure of pressure, but the Eco Boys and Girls have come to life in part because of it.

“You know, one thing I always trusted is the path, the inner … intuition,” she says.

It’s all part of the vision.

 

Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.