Inner Peace on a Wall

 

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!

Video of the result: 

Previous mural (explanation in Spanish):

My Pet's Life!

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:

https://www.unidosparalosanimales.org/

Feel free to visit the clinic! It’s in Panorama, Antigua, next to Alianza Francesa, open Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm.

 

@veterinariaelpanorama

 

A Mural to Protect a Water Source!

Off to San Martín Jilotepeque (Guatemala), yet again. This time to paint a mural on a brand-new wall at the outskirts of town. It was recently built to protect the well and public wash basins behind it, half way down a steep trail that leads to a creek. This well has been an important water source for many neighbours for over a century. But in the last few years, some nearby homeowners have been tapping into the well. The basin dried up, it fell in disarray and was completely destroyed when not too long ago a huge oak tree tumbled down, right on top of it. The once beautiful public well of San Nicolás turned into a ruin and a garbage dump.

A group of concerned citizens want to restore the well and bring back the water for the use of all, because there are still a lot of families in the area that have no running water in their homes.  They started by cleaning up the trash and planting trees in the beautiful, lush area. Next step was to build a retaining wall which was done with part of the materials and labour provided by the municipality. It will protect the place and will hopefully stop people from throwing their trash downhill. In order to make people aware about the well and incite them to protect the place, I was asked to design a mural for the 20-meter-long wall.

But that was not all that the project embarked. Telma Calan, former director of the school for children with special needs and member of the COCODE (Community Development Counsil) wanted to give a group of children who had recently participated in a drawing contest (organised by the public library) the chance to learn more about painting and thus asked me to involve them in the process.

Designing a mural that involves the participation of children is completely different from designing one I’ll be painting just by myself. It’s much more difficult in a way, because the design needs to allow to participants to work more or less independently even though they have no prior experience. There are several approaches, but in this case, I opted for a design of simple elements, all representing water, of which I first drew the outline and then had the kids colour them in. In the end, I traced all elements with black, and the result was pretty neat. Of course there was much more to it than just colouring some pictures. First, we primed the wall, then applied the background colour. Next we drew a grid with a spirit level, which is not as easy as it looks! At least not if you have to fill up 20 meters of wall with 25 x 25cm squares, all neatly levelled out. Then finally the real action, followed by some tedious touch ups and last but not least, varnishing all. Twice!

The conditions were tough! The sun was scorching, drying the paint even before putting it on the wall! Heavy traffic passed behind our backs, lifting up big clouds of sand and dust. The “water men” of the municipality were nice enough to drive by and hose down the dirt road, but still, each of us and everything we brought with us, was covered in a thick layer of dust. Every afternoon, a chill shadow covered the mural while the wind became stronger. The temperature dropped and from overheated we went to being cold in no time! But the kids did great and kept on painting!

Despite it being at the outskirts of town, it was clear that the people from the community appreciated the art work. Cars stopped, people cheered us on and even brought us drinks and snacks. And told us stories about the neighbourhood. Horrible stories, truly. The civil war in Guatemala seems so far away already, but for many people it has been a traumatic experience they will never get over. The road we were painting the mural at was controlled by the military during the eighties. The high school located on a hill right above the place we were working, still a school to this day, was at the time a place where people were held prison and being tortured. The road leads out of town, along many high cliffs. It became a popular place among the military to make bodies disappear. It was literally the road to nowhere. Very eerie. It was kind of surreal to hear people telling their experiences to each other right behind my back while I was painting happy pictures, surrounded by kids doing the same. I hope they listened too, because as hard as these stories are to listen to, they should not be forgotten.

Three days of hard, hard work and then the mural was done! Very dirty but also very well-watered and fed, we wrapped it all up. We did a little photo session, unfortunately with bad lighting for pics, and Telma and Doña Marta of the COCODE gave me and the kids a diploma and a gift. It was a wonderful experience and I hope the mural will indeed help to get the restauration of the water project of the ground. Despite being tired and ready for a break, we’re already planning the next mural in San Martín Jilotepeque!

This mural was sponsored by Dutch foundation Uno Más. Thank you very much!
Also many thanks to: Telma Calan for organising it all; Doña Martha for all the support; the wonderful painters Doris Álvarez, Vicky Cumatzil, Hayden Álvarez, Gaby Chávez and Luís López. Thanks to my friend Cristy Velasco for the delicious treats and much needed (unsweetened) coffee! Thanks to Hyden and Doris’ mum for the delicious lunch; the “Water Men” for keeping us cool; and the traffic police for lending us their cones. Thanks to the entire community of San Martín Jilotepeque for your kind words and support! I hope you’ll treasure your precious water source!