THE STORY OF ART BARS…

Art Historian Erika Fowler-Decatur founded Ithaca Fine Chocolates with her husband, Michael Decatur. The couple, originally from Endwell, NY, moved from San Francisco, CA, to Ithaca, NY, in March 2001, to raise their son near family. Fowler-Decatur, a former museum director and art history instructor, intended to start her own art gallery in Ithaca. That plan evolved into Art Bars late one night while she was contemplating the issue of how to provide contemporary artists with broader exposure.

THE ART BARS MISSION

- To bring together and share two of the world’s greatest gifts: fine art and fine chocolate.

- To inspire people with the luxuries of exquisite chocolate and art in the midst of their hectic lives—as Picasso said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday living.”

- To promote and support contemporary artists by distributing images of their works to a wide audience of potential art buyers.

- To directly fund both local and global art education programs with a portion of proceeds.

- To foster a recognition of the importance and potential of art in education and society.

- To make the greatest possible social impact while leaving the smallest possible environmental footprint.

EXQUISITE CHOCOLATE

We work with a Swiss chocolatier to create Art Bars because for the Swiss, making chocolate is truly an art. In superior chocolate, as in art, there can be neither compromises nor short cuts. Only the finest ingredients are used.

Our chocolate is slowly blended, or conched, (without the use of soy lecithin or chemical emulsifiers) for 78 hours, which provides Art Bars with their extraordinarily creamy consistency. The chocolate is sweetened with whole, unrefined cane sugar, which translates into a deeply rich, almost caramel character. Making chocolate with whole cane sugar requires extra work, but patience and devotion to quality are what make our chocolates so exquisite.

FAIR TRADE

Ithaca Fine Chocolates is proud to be the first U.S. chocolate company to offer fair trade certified chocolates, and we continue to offer ONLY organic and fair trade certified chocolates. Our cocoa beans are carefully selected from the El Ceibo Cocoa Coop in Bolivia. Fair trade fosters self-reliance in small-scale cocoa farmers, which effectively raises their living standards. Practices include:

-guaranteeing consistent and equitable prices to farmers despite the volatile cocoa market.

-improving social conditions in producers’ communities by enabling them to afford basic health care and education.

-ensuring no forced child labor.

-promoting sustainable, shade-grown farming techniques that safeguard the livelihood of the producers.

-helping to establish and support farmer-owned, democratic cooperatives.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

The cocoa beans used in Art Bars are cultivated using sustainable, shade-grown, organic practices that help to protect the health of the earth’s ecosystem. The outer wrapper, art cards, display boxes and gift boxes are all made from recycled paper.

ART AND ART EDUCATION

Each Art Bar contains a collectible card that features one of twenty-four artworks, changed annually, from a diverse group of adult and child artists. In addition, a minimum of 10% of profits from sales is donated to local and global art education organizations (The Community School of Music & Arts [www.csma-ithaca.org] and the International Child Art Foundation [www.icaf.org]). Art adds an important human dimension to our lives. It teaches us about ourselves, our culture and the culture of others like no other subject can. Furthermore, art education fosters creative problem solving skills in children, whom we hope may lead our complex world to a more peaceful future…