Last year, I had such a great time painting a mural at
Mundus College (Annex South) in Amsterdam that I couldn’t wait to return. This
time, I worked in the centre annex of the school, which serves young people who
have often only recently arrived in the Netherlands. So many nationalities, so
many different faces!
What I love most about this school is its laid-back
atmosphere and the kindness with which people treat one another. That’s no
small feat given the challenges many of the students face. Listening in on some
classes, I found myself grateful I never had to consciously learn Dutch—it’s a
complex language! Still, many of the students pick it up quickly, especially
the colloquial expressions, complete with the right accent and intonation.
The mural itself was more challenging this time because of
its location. I worked in a stairway—the only connection between two parts of
the building. Every time the bell rang, signaling a new period or break, dozens
of students would squeeze past, often pausing to share their thoughts on the
artwork. Thankfully, their feedback was a 100% positive and encouraging: “Well
done, Miss! Nice job!”
I also had some help along the way. Due to the limited
space, I worked with two students at a time, taking turns. Each of them did an
excellent job.
The design, much like last year’s, depicts young people of
different nationalities in varying shades of grey—emphasizing that skin color
doesn’t matter—set against a backdrop of vibrant patterns and textile designs
from around the world. This time around they include an Islamic pattern,
African wax print, Mongolian tile design, and a mola from Panama, with two
traditional Dutch textile designs featured in the centre. Once again, I was
struck by how these patterns can be so distinct, yet share underlying
similarities.
After four days of work, the once grey and dull stairway was
transformed into a lively, welcoming space—an aesthetic upgrade that the
students themselves approved of. I hope this is the first of many more projects
to come at Mundus College!
Many thanks
to the student collaborators and staff of Mundus College. It was a pleasure to
work with you all!
Dogs are everywhere in Guatemala and often they're not living under the best of circumstances. But times are a-changing... More and more people have their dogs spayed and neutered and responsible pet ownership is becoming a thing. Even the government is stepping up with the Unidad de Bienestar Animal (Unit for Animal Welfare), where, for example, abuse can be reported. But there is still work to do, and where better to start than with kids! They tend to love animals and are often more perceptive than adults. Hence this mural at the After School Program from People in Guatemala (Centro de Apoyo Educativo y Vocacional, Unidos por la Salud y Educación de Guatemala) where 70 kids receive daily extra classes. Hopefully this mural will inspire young and old to love and respect animals, to care for them and to create a better world for all of us.
The text in the background is based on the definitions of animal rights as promoted by the Unidad de Bienestar Animal:
Every animal should live:
Free from hunger, thirst, and malnutrition
Free from fear and distress
Free from physical and thermal discomfort
Free from pain, injury, and disease
Free to express their natural behaviors
This mural was generously sponsored by Dr. Jim Bader, a US veterinarian with a long history in Guatemala! Dr. Jim has visited the country dozens of times, doing free surgeries and bringing much needed supplies to rescuers and animal welfare groups. Thank you Jim!
Back in San
Martín Jilotepeque, Guatemala! This time to paint a mural at the kindergarten,
just in time for the start of the new school year.It was yet another fun project to do, despite
the freezing cold in the mornings, when it was windy and shady with temperatures
as low as 11°C. In the afternoon, the wind would die
down and I’d be working in full sun, no escape and 35°C!
It was four
long days of painting, with a little help from Hayden and Doris, two kids who
have helped me before, as well as Gloria Velasco, the director of the school
and her family. The bottom of the stage wasn’t included in the original design,
but I’m glad I decided to paint it too, it looks much better this way. I would
have liked to paint the two metal posts in front of the mural too, but didn’t
have enough time. I bought paint and the teachers promised me to paint the
posts and the fence around the stage.
This mural
was sponsored by the Uno Más Foundation, directed by my friend Ana Maria
Ackermans. She sponsored the water mural from last year too, but she had never
been to San Martín Jilotepeque herself. So she gathered some friends, rented a
bus and came to see the mural, the town and some other projects. They also
visited the Escuelita de Educación Especial and the new bakery that is manned
by adolescents with cognitive disabilities. Of course we had lunch, delicious
as always, at my friend Cristy Velasco’s Full Moon Café. What a fun way to end
this project!
The week
I'd planned to paint the wall in the new dining room in San Martín Jilotepeque
turned out to be the week of the annual fair, honouring the patron saint, San
Martín. I had friends visiting from Spain, a good opportunity for them
to experience a real Guatemalan feria. San Martín Jilotepeque has around
100,000 inhabitants, mostly Mayas, and we were the only foreigners. Enormous
stages filled the square, the music was, as usual, louder than loud, and on top
of that, tons and TONS of fireworks. There was dancing, eating, and more
dancing, every night for a week until the wee hours.
Shortly
after we arrived we started with an activity for the students of this school
that offers special education for children with disabilities. My friends Gema
and Mariano had prepared several fun games, including a circuit where the
blindfolded children had to guess what was being presented to them using touch,
smell, and taste. I had created a memory game for the children using pictures of
animals from the jungle mural I had painted on the patio wall a few years ago.
Besides the usual rule of finding two matching cards, the children could also
try to find the animal from their card on the mural. I had also brought face
paint and was soon busy painting all the children's faces.
In the
afternoon, the "real" work began. Last year, the Dutch foundation
Colour4Kids financed the construction of 2 classrooms and a kitchen on the
second level. This year, a dining room was added. The construction was only
just finished; windows and a door are the only things missing. A lovely, long, white wall
awaited me. And although the constant street noise was overwhelming (all
traffic was being diverted through the school's street because of the
festivities), it was a relief to be able to work comfortably indoors. I didn't
have to worry about speeding cars, rain, or dust. Wonderful!
The second
day, November 11th, was the Big Day of the celebration, and the school was
closed. I worked happily all day by myself, despite the lack of sleep caused by
the incredibly loud fireworks going off every hour. On day three, a friend from
San Martín Jilotepeque, Cristy Velasco, came to help me, which was a relief, as
I was worried I wouldn't finish the mural within the four days I had planned.
The school had reopened, and the children were learning to bake cookies in the
kitchen next to the dining room. On day four, I had help from the entire staff,
plus Cristy, who came to help again for a few hours, and Hayden and Doris, two
children who love to paint and had helped me with the mural I painted in
January. We started early; by 7:30 a.m. we all had a brush in our hands, and lo
and behold, by 5:00 p.m. the mural was completely finished. Only, on the way
home, I realized I'd forgotten to paint the grains of rice! So, that still
needs to be done. Of course, rice cannot be missing on a mural about food in
Guatemala.
The dining
hall looks beautiful, and everyone was very pleased with the result. I
specifically created a design that wasn’t too infantile or too focused of food,
so the space can also be used for other activities. We went over the mural with
the teachers and came up with activities for the children, depending on their
level. They can name vegetables or fruits, count objects, recognize colours, or
find different shapes.
Next week,
the windows and door will be installed, and the festive official opening is on
November 25th. I certainly won't miss that!
This project is very dear to my heart and I think it’s my
most international mural I’ve ever created! The models are from Eritrea, Yemen,
Syria and Senegal. The students who helped paint the mural are from Russia, Yemen,
Eritrea, Afghanistan, Ghana and Ethiopia. The background designs are from Marocco,
Mexico, the Netherlands, Ghana and Ukraine. The location: Mundus College Zuid
in Amsterdam Buitenveldert, the Netherlands.
Mundus College offers special education to young people who
have often only recently arrived in the Netherlands. In so-called transition
classes they receive intensive language lessons and personal guidance to find
their place in Dutch education and society. The school has small classes and focuses
equally on cognitive and social-emotional development.
My good friend Suzanne van der Linden is coordinator and
teacher at the school and that’s how I found my wall… I first visited the
school back in April and was immediately taken by how relaxed and convivial the
school is. When I started painting, there was no real plan on how to proceed.
It was the end of the schoolyear; some of the students had to take exams and
there were plenty of other activities going on. I had already prepared a
detailed design, based on school photographer Cees Glastra van Loon’s portraits
of the students. Once I arrived at the school, I simply set up in the auditorium
and started prepping the wall. In no time I had three girls helping me, each of
them very talented! A few more students helped out for a few hours here and
there, but by far the most persistent and talented were Ranya and Afina, they
just couldn’t stop! I thought it interesting that it was mostly girls helping
out, although most of the students are male.
The people depicted in the mural are students too. I was a bit nervous about
using real students’ portraits, because you never know whether the portrait
will please the sitter, but they were all okay with the result. Quite proud
actually. It took us three days to complete the mural and it has been one of
the most enjoyable experiences painting a mural. The students enjoyed painting
so much, they were just glowing. Hopefully this was just the introduction to a
much bigger project in the future!
A big thanks to staff and students of MundusZuid for the
collaboration and good care! Many thanks to Selina Afowerki Brahane (Eritrea),
Kahled Al Fadli (Yemen), Zenap Zaynab Ashmed Abdi (Syria) and Dembah Bah
(Senegal) for lending their facefot this mural. And of course, a mega thank-you
to volunteer painters Ranya Qudais (Yemen), Afina Dzhalandrishuili (Russia), Rim
(Eritrea), Ramin (Afghanistan), Ewura Andoh (Ghana), Hanibal (Ethiopia) and
Suzanne van der Linden (Netherlands).
Back at
CasaSito! This is one of my favourite NGOs in Antigua Guatemala. For years now,
it has been supporting Guatemalan youth through partial scholarships,
psychosocial support, personal development workshops, and extracurricular
activities in the departments of Sacatepéquez, Alta Verapaz, and Quiché.
Back in 2015 I had the honour to paint two murals in some very rural areas in
Cobán. In February 2019 we painted a mural at the patio of the new CasaSito
headquarters in Panorama, Antigua (see video at bottom), followed in May by
another mural of a design that was the result of a series of workshops with the
participants of CasaSito’s art program. Later that month we painted with the
same students a community mural in San Cristobal El Alto.
Last year
CasaSito moved to a new location in Antigua, so I got the call... (Oh how I love
it when they move as soon as there are no longer any walls to paint!) The wall
at the new headquarters was even bigger and better… A little over 3 meters high
and 27 meters long. Hurray!
In the
middle of the wall, the art students and their teacher Fernando Azurdia had painted
a black tree that represents the organization, with small tiles with the names
of the main sponsors. Nice, but the wall could use something more. Alice Lee, the
founder of CasaSito, who is forever “retiring”, asked me to come up with a
design that reflects the goals of the organization and that is at the same time
space-enlarging, visually pleasing, soothing and relaxing. And to involve the
students in the whole process!
The Antigua branch of CasaSito has developed in different ways from the Cobán
office, while both continue to have the provision of scholarships as the main goal.
In Cobán the needs of the students are mostly about the lack of basic needs,
whereas the staff in Antigua noticed there was more need for emotional support.
Some of the issues the staff have been addressing are depression, conflicts
within the family, low self-esteem, anxiety, panic, and eating disorders. It
was the latter issues that Alice asked me to address in the design. But in a
constructive and positive way that represents support of mental wellbeing, in such
a manner that the students could identify with it. And all of it in a very subdued
gamma of six tints and tones of grey/blue/teal, a far cry from my usual
eyepopping choice of the brightest colours on the spectrum.
I decided
to use the “Matisse approach” and gave a presentation to the 17 participants of
the art program about the fabulous French painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954).
His colourful paintings still resonate with people today, even with young
people in Guatemala. But it was his famous cut outs I wanted to focus on, those
marvellous, brightly coloured shapes he started cutting out when, by the end of
World War II, well in his seventies, he was confined to his bed after having
surgery for bowel cancer. The cutouts are so simple but so poetic at the same
time. They are open to interpretation and seem to dance against their
backgrounds.
After the
presentation we talked about mental health and what factors help support mental
wellbeing. The students wrote them down and it was interesting to see how their
answers where different, although not contradictory to, the ideas the staff
has. Whereas staff member referred to states of mind like “inner peace”, “personal
freedom” and “personal growth”, the answers of the students were more practical:
Hang out with friends, listen to music, read a book, practice sport, be outside
in nature.
The next
step was to try to visualise these concepts into shapes, while avoiding
clichés, like a heart shape representing love. I had provided six different tones
of blue paper, so the colour palette was limited. I encouraged the students to
create shapes open to interpretation and to use form and lines to express their
emotions. For example, ragged hard lines to express anger versus smooth undulating
lines that might express smoothness, continuity etc.
When
finished, I asked each of the three groups of students to make a collage of
their cutouts on strips of white paper that represented the wall. I thought the
results were really good! There were some interesting concepts here and there
and plenty of beautiful shapes that I could work with.
I took
photos of the students results and isolated different shapes. I then made a collage
of it all in Photoshop, with the exact dimensions of the wall. The result is a
design that goes from left to right, from the entrance into the heart of the
building, from anger and frustration to peace and tranquillity.
A week
later it was time to start the actual painting. But first we needed to draw a
grid with chalk. I drew the baseline and explained how from that line we needed
levelled horizontal and vertical lines at a distance of 25cm. Not really
complicated, but if you put a bunch of adolescents together, you get a lot of
chatter and very little grid. Besides, the squares were getting bigger and
bigger, which beat the whole point of course. But after some erasing and a
second attempt, we managed to get the grid on the wall as well as some paint.
Since I had
little time to spare, the whole plan was for me to make the design and have the
students execute it, under the guidance of their art teacher, finishing it before
my departure from Guatemala. But there were some delays, so Alice and I decided
to give the painting a head start, starting early on Thursday while the
students would help in the afternoon. The painting went well and we got a lot
done. About a week later, I had already left by then, Fernando the art teacher
sent me a video of the result. It looked wonderful! It was strange, not to be
there for the grand finale, but wonderful at the same time too. Inciting youth
to create (or finish, in this case) their own murals has always been the aim of
my project MuralArte Guate.
Congratulations
to the students, Fernando, Alice and the rest of the staff! Looking forward to
come back!
Dogs (cats) and mural painting, that’s what makes my world
go round! So painting a mural about dogs was extra fun! This mural (5 x 3m) was
painted at Veterinary Clinic El Panorama in Antigua Guatemala. The clinic was
opened by fellow Unidos para los Animals volunteers Luis and Noreen and it is
the place we use often to spay/neuter free roaming animals from Antigua and
surroundings.
It's an educational mural meant for kids (and adults too, why
not!). I’ll print banners out of this design and use it during educational activities
we do at the place we go to with our mobile sterilization clinics.
If you’d like to help us sterilizing as many cats and dogs
in Guatemala as possible, please donate through this website:
