My friend Rocky De Anda, of Galleria de Raza, recommended I propose a project to the Mission Cultural Council, so I did. I had been looking for a way to interact with the community and still produce my own work. So I offered my leadership facilitation skillz to a handful of after school programs around the mission. After working through trust, leadership, and self awareness games activities, I had the kids write or draw the things they valued and feared most in their lives. Promoting, organizing, and scheduling my renegade art-related leadership program proved to be much more difficult than anticipated. Once I got the chance to run these sessions, I frequently found myself in a room of uninhibited kids 7-14 years old spazzing out on some of the more creative vulgar language I have ever heard. The best experience I had was with The Beacon after school program’s Power Eyes group. These girls had they’re group leader present and had a pre-existing foundation together. In the end I found the images of them working together to be the message I wanted to convey most so that’s how I ended up with this product. Now that I have one experience with community-engaged and public art project, I look forward to the chance of doing another with greater foresight. Check out the whole together we can cross hot lava! set of pictures on Drew Bennett’s Flickr

12:00 am  •  1 October 2007  •  1 note