BEYOND Festival January 7

Are you ready to make the world a more beautiful place? Do you have stories and feeling to share emerging from the January 8 tragedy?

Join us for a day of Community Arts Service and reflection on January 7 as part of the city wide BEYOND Festival. Review and comment on the mural design, help repair the wall, draw your ideas and write reflections.

January 7, 2012 

Location: Winsett Park, 316 N 4th Ave. 

Time: 1 - 4pm 

Contact: info@tucsonartsbrigade.org 

So what have we been up to? This fall we hosted a series of community design workshops at Howenstine High School, and gathered ideas at neighborhood meetings and events. There were 17 workshops, regular field trips and lots of discussions.

Some of the most interesting conversations revolved around what it means to bully, what it means to have power over – or control. “The goal of the bully is to get under your skin” offered one student, “then they get a reaction”. Many people spoke of the need to communicate more, get to know one another and depict images of people working together, brick by brick, to build community. We learned that place and community are critical to the story of Tucson so we have incorporated the history and folklore of the area surrounding the mural, 4th Avenue. Rose Taulton is the Community Outreach Coordinator for this project, and grew up on 4th Avenue. She describes in detail the people and places that make up life in this area.

A Detail of the fading mural to be restored.

Another hot topic has been youth voice and tagging. We had several conversations about civic responsibility and stewardship. It was pointed out that adults tag too, and we need solutions that are creative and reflect the identity of our community. We paired youth with adults, the adults listened and wrote, while the youth talked about the lack of places for free expression, being inundated by advertising, violence and apathy. The solutions they offered included working with the Tucson Arts Brigade on beautification projects.

Service Learning Students from throughout Tucson joined in a Nov. 9 Day of Service

On November 9th we hosted Americorp, Service Learning students from City High, Howenstine and Vail for a day of service to begin repairing the wall in preparation for the transformation of the Share the Bounty Mural into the Together We Thrive Mural. TAB painted the original mural in 1997. A campaign was launched to request that the Arts Brigade create a mural for the victims of January 8. The theme of the original mural matched the idea of individuals playing a vital role in building community over many generations. This spring we will begin painting the mural, with your ideas included.

On January 7, you can become a part of this mural.

If you would like to get more involved in this project weekly workshops resume on:

Tuesday Jan. 17, 2012 3:30 – 5pm

Howenstine Magnet High School 555 South Tucson Boulevard

ALL AGES Welcome Free, registration required.

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