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:
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!
It was
exactly two years ago that I spent, with my team, a whole week in San Martín Jilotepeque
(Chimaltenango, Guatemala) to paint an enormous jungle scene at the wall of the
patio of the school for children with special needs. It was a fun project and
it left me inspired to paint the outside wall too. That mural was created in
the beginning of this year, and sponsored by the Dutch Foundation Colour4Kids. While
I was painting this mural, we were in the process of planning the construction
of a second floor at the school. The roof was already there, it “just” needed a
ramp, walls, doors and a railing to convert it into a proper place for the
kids. Colour4Kids provided the funding and by the time I finished the mural in February
of 2024, I knew I would have to come back one day to paint the addition they
planned to put on top of the existing walls, as well as some touch ups, because
the mural would surely get damaged during the remodelling.
The
construction went as smooth as could be, well within the time limit and even
with a little money left over! But what surprised me most was that the murals were
still in perfect shape. The builders had gone out of their way to protect them.
I recently
went back to the school to continue the mural of the jungle above the ramp and do
some minor touch ups here and there.
For the outside, I had asked the director to hire a local painter to cover the new
cinderblock wall on top of the mural with some colour. I had a few coloured horizontal
lines in mind, nothing special, just something to cover up the grey.
To my great surprise, the director sent me a picture of the painting in progress,
asking me if they were doing okay. I was flabbergasted: not only had they
plastered the new wall, they had repeated the geometric design from the bottom
part of the mural, in the straightest of lines! It looked fantastic! I couldn’t
have done it better, especially since we’re talking about 3.5-5 meters up in
the air!
A week ago
I went to San Martín Jilotepeque for the last time this year, as a guest to the
inauguration of the expansion. It was a wonderful event with all the bells and
whistles. The patio was beautifully decorated, the children performed dances,
there was food and cake. What a nice project to be part of!
Upstairs
there’s still one grey wall left at an open corridor. Who knows, maybe next
year this could be a dining hall for the kids, with a gorgeous mural about
nutrition…???
1 November 2024,
All Souls' Day, an important day in Guatemala. People get together at cemeteries
to clean and decorate graves and tombs of loved ones, in order to celebrate life
with the dead. It’s a colourful occasion
with all the with flowers, wreaths and kites. Giant kites are worked on for
months and are then displayed and sometimes even flown to honour the dead and to
send messages to the spirits of loved ones. The children enjoy flying their own
colourful creations, cheering up the otherwise pretty grey and dull sky.
It was also
the day that I put the finishing touches to a mural project in the village of
El Hato, just outside Antigua, Guatemala. It’s the second mural at this school.
Two years ago, I painted a mural here, representing both youth and the community’s
floriculture. Recently, I was approached again by the director and teachers to
come back for yet another mural. The theme was the same: portraits of local
children (students from the school whose parents grow flowers) against a
backdrop of Guatemalan textiles and flowers grown in this village.
When I
finished, late in the afternoon on All Saints Day, it was already getting dark
and it had just started to rain. I couldn’t take any decent pictures of the
result. But I had to go back anyway, for the official opening of the mural, as
organised by principal Paty. The whole school got together and I received a big
thank you, some beautiful flowers from the mother of the kids I had painted, as
well as a beautiful piece of Guatemala fabric.
This mural
was generously sponsored by Colour4Kids, thanks so much!!
The mural Kids
& Dogs mural we painted in Parramos last week was just one part in something
that hopefully will become a substantial educational programme about (street)
dogs. People in Guatemala have of course always had animals. But more and more
rural communities are turning into urban centres and that requires a new attitude
towards pets and domestic animals. Parramos is one of those towns were dozens if
not hundreds of stray animals wander the streets, surviving on garbage, suffering
hard lives and forming a nuisance for its human habitants. A few local women
have taken on this huge task of taking care of them and are doing their best to
have as many of these stray animals spay and neutered. But they can’t do it
alone, neither is it just their responsibility.
With the
organization I volunteer for, Unidos Para los Aninales, we have developed an
activity book for children with lots of information and tips on how to take
care of your dog, especially aimed at a Guatemalan target group with limited resources.
But we can
do more. So I returned to Parramos to teach a workshop for eleven children age
7-11. Also participating in the workshop were Lupita, Griselda and another dog,
all three of them live at the Municipality of Parramos. The children learned
about who’s responsibility it is to take care of street dogs (everybody’s!),
why sterilization and vaccination is so important and what food is good for
dogs. The children got to classify some food samples (beneficial/poisonous) and
after the activity the “good” food was shared with the dogs who were
surprisingly uninterested!
Then it was
time to paint. Each participant made a poster with a cat or dog. Some of them
made two! It was such a fun morning, the kids didn’t want it to end. Of course,
each child received a copy of our activity book Cómo Cuidar a mi Chucho.
Hopefully to be repeated!
Many thanks
to Amada from Parramos for setting this up and helping during the workshop, and
the Municipality of Parramos for providing the space and PR. Especially thanks to Colour4Kids for sponsoring this project.
