Toronto Star
December 24, 2008
Youth Tap Artistic Side to Express Concern
Project Pays Teens $10 an Hour to Paint Murals That Will Be Displayed on Buses as Moving Art
Debra Black Staff Reporter
Jim Bravo, a 35-year-old artist, has a passion for painting. He loves nothing more than doing large-scale murals, portraits or landscapes. In fact, Bravo makes his living painting murals across the city. “Toronto is becoming more hip to the fact we have all these large blank walls.”
It’s this love of transforming walls into art – like that of Mexican artist Diego Rivera – that Bravo shares with Toronto teens in a project called AFC Youth X Press.
He has brought together a group of 12 teens from the Warden and St. Clair Aves. area to create a mural on the environment, which will be displayed on a TTC bus in January.
It’s part of a project created by Julie Frost, executive director of the non-profit agency Arts for Children and Youth. Founded in 1995, its mandate is to provide arts programming to neighbourhoods in Toronto where resources are limited.
AFC Youth X Press began this fall with a goal of creating murals painted by disadvantaged teens that would be displayed on buses as a moving venue for public art. The murals will be donated to community centres or social service agencies for permanent display.
Frost sees it as a way to give youth a “constructive and creative” means to voice their concerns. “They are marginalized because of their socio-economic status … not enough recognition is given for the creativity and talent they have.”
About 60 kids across the GTA are currently involved, including the dozen Bravo teaches at Warden Woods Community Centre. Similar mural projects are underway at Smithfield Middle School in North Etobicoke and at a housing project in the Victoria Park and Eglinton Aves. area. All the teens working on the murals are paid $10 an hour for their efforts.
Bravo’s kids chose the environment as their theme.
“They used the dilapidated streets in their neighbourhood,” he said. “One half of the mural was the dirty version of their neighbourhood and the other was what it could look like.”
He shared tips on colour theory, perspective and technique. Then he handed over the reins.
The final product was “really nice,” said a proud Erica Smith, 14, a Grade 9 student at Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School. Smith loves the fact the teens could express their feelings through their artwork, and the idea that people from her neighbourhood and around the city will eventually see her work on the Warden 69 bus.
For Adrian Sterling, a 15-year-old in Grade 10 at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute, the project was not only a chance to make money but also to nurture his artistic talent. He loves to draw and the project has helped refine his skills.
As for the mural itself, Sterling and the others hope Torontonians will think about what they are seeing and ask themselves: What can they do to help clean up the environment?
For more information on the AFC Youth X Press program go to www.afcy.ca
