Transcriber: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic
Hi. I'm an artist and an entrepreneur,
and my life's been shaped and empowered by the creative process.
And I wanted to share that experience with young people
who don't have access to the arts – Urban kids from Boston.
So, in 1991, I had a... what I thought was a really simple idea,
and that is that I would find a group of kids,
and I would make large-scale collaborative paintings with them,
and sell them to corporations,
so their voice would be on the wall of corporate America.
And I found one school that would allow me to come.
Oh, sorry! The thing should be rolling.
These are the young people I work with and some of their creations.
So, I went to this one school and I found this principal
who allowed me to make a sample piece with a group of kids.
And what I found, were young people really hungry to have a voice in the world
and be part of something outside of their communities.
So we made a painting, 4 x 12 foot painting, about education.
And after the piece was completed, a group of five kids approached me
and told me that it was summer and they had nowhere to go and nothing to do,
and could they make another painting.
So they came to my studio.
They were waiting for me in the morning and I was driving home at night,
and my life was forever changed.
And so were theirs.
Four of those original five kids had been with Artist for Humanity
for almost twenty years now.
And they're also working to mentor their peers, the young peers.
But what was really interesting is they had no idea
that artists went to a building and made art and created stuff,
and they felt, suddenly felt really privileged.
You know, young people that come from underserved communities
or uninspiring schools, as we've heard from others today,
really don't have an opportunity for enrichment.
Well, these kids come to our place with, as John introduced,
the Platinum Leed Certified Building, which we designed,
and they have been in for almost six years.
It was actually designed by one of those original co-founders
who became an architect and worked on the team.
So we have 200 kids a year that come to our place
and are paid by the hour, plus commission,
to make fine art and provide design services to businesses.
This year we hope to earn 45% of our cash expenses
from revenue generated from the works that they do –
so, multi-studio, visual arts, organization.
Last year, we completed 726 projects successfully.
These are kids who have no training, no experience,
and they're mentored by young professional artists,
like those co-founders that I told you about.
And because they come every day,
and they're part of this amazing collegial and creative environment,
they make incredible progress.
And their progress drives them to work harder
and that working harder
just has this multiplier effect on their development.
It's an amazing experience for these kids.
I invite you all to come.
We've done projects...
We had an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, for example.
Some of the fine artists exhibited through leasing program:
photography, painting, sculpture –
it's also sold in galleries and in public places.
And we do really high-end, very sophisticated, complicated commissions.
One of our most exciting entrepreneurial ventures
is a line of furniture made from recycled junk mail
and magazines, which you'll see coming up.
And this was started as a client project,
but was really embraced by the kids,
and we now sell this furniture across the country,
in museum stores, the deCordova Museum, for example, and in galleries.
And young people are totally committed to this process
of inventing these new designs,
and continuing to grow this line.
We recently won a state-wide competition to design a bike rack for the city of Boston
and we created six amazing designs.
The kids did everything, from sketches to model building,
to presenting them to officials from the city.
And these are kids who are having a hard time passing math class,
but they were able to build,
to scale and now they work as part of the build environment of Boston.
These were recently installed at Brigham Circle.
So I think, you know, the lesson here is that kids need opportunities,
they need challenges,
and urban kids in particular need access to the creative process.
We've since gone on to design a series of bike racks
for Mayor Meninos Bike Week, which is really exciting,
and we're actually having an unveiling this week of some of those.
This is our facility, the epicenter.
Part of the plan here is to have exhibitions,
while we rent the space for events.
It's Platinum Leed Certified, we make our own solar energy,
and the kids get to feel the amazing empowerment of being
in a beautiful space that's environmentally sustainable,
where they can learn about sustainability.
You know, in the old days, kids worked in the fields after school,
and they felt valued by their families,
and, you know, these kids now feel by earning a wage,
being creative and being part of a community
like they're part of a culture and civic society,
and we're very proud of them.
Thank you.
(Applause)