Week 5: The Art In You

I had the honor of being a guest speaker and teacher to a group of young movers, makers and shakers of the Lawrence Heights community last night at The Barbara Flum Library for Her Buddah Belly. Her Buddha Belly is a non-profit, 8-week creative course with bellydance founder and instructor, Jaiceyea Smith. The project is funded by Toronto Arts Council and Art Starts in order to push and support community-focused initiatives in Toronto. Each week there is a guest speaker varying from different forms of creatvity and expression.

Several weeks prior, Janelle Newbold, a talented Toronto painter, and I were were both given the task to come up with exercises that would help the girls tap into their inner artist and express themselves. I taught the girls the definition of curating and gave them a fun exercise of collagaing. The girls had a blast cutting out different magazine images, adding stickers and glitter to their collages while Janelle introduced self-portraits and helped the girls convey their beauty through markers and paper. We both had an amazing time and realized that more art focused programs should be apparent in this every day society filled with an intense amount of social media and a lack luster of creativity. This exercise not only inspired the girls but myself. I learned to go back to the basics for a while, no photoshopping for mood boards, no polyvere for collages but instead old magazines, glue sticks and a pair of lime green scissors. In a quest to help the kids find their inner creativty, they also helped to re-inspire mine.

The girls are not only taught creative aspects of expression but have been learning bellydancing. Please come support their show on June 18th from 6pm- 11pm at Artscape Young Place!