And Now a Word from our Sponsors...

Here some words from the main sponsors of the Chimachoy Community Mural:

"Thanks for the beautiful and detailed final report! For us it was a joy to follow this colourful project. And the result is great! You can be proud of yourself that you have achieved this despite all the pressure, bizarre weather conditions and other difficulties. Also thanks for the regular updates and beautiful pictures. Good luck with upcoming activities and projects."

"What a beautiful report you have written. (..) you can proudly look back on what you have achieved and hopefully many people will be able to enjoy it for a long time."

Looking for Sponsors!

With the third mural (Starry Night) done at the educational centre Brillo de Sol, a special school for special kids in Guatemala, we're looking for sponsors for murals in the remaining three classrooms! Each mural costs $250, but smaller donations are welcome too!
You can donate US $ or Euros using the "Donate" button on this page (through PayPal) of email me (carinsteen at yahoo.com) for deposits on a Dutch bank account. THANKS!

A Starry Night for the Universe!

One of my favourite projects in Guatemala is Brillo de Sol, a school for kids with special needs. I already had the pleasure to paint two murals there, now I just finished the third for the kids from The Universe (Grade 1 & 2). When Ilene Kradin offered to sponsor it (her second mural already! She also sponsored the one of the girl with rabbit and Luna the dog!), well, it was a done deal! I didn’t even have to make a design because the teacher, Ms. Jenny, had asked me if I could paint Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. Well, of course! It happens to me one of my favourite paintings and to be able to paint it on such a large scale (3.8 x 2.9m) was a joy!

Usually I only paint my own designs, but to pretend to be Van Gogh for a change was a great opportunity. I was looking forward to use Van Gogh’s rough brushstrokes and follow his swirls and curls. It’s not easy to paint someone else’s style, but it is also a great way to really get to know a piece of art and of course learn a lot.

Last Saturday, Ilene and I (besides sponsoring the mural she also offered to help!) started with a grid and than painted most of the sky. We made good progress, but by the end of the afternoon I was not quite satisfied and couldn’t tell exactly why. So it was good to leave it for a day and come back on Monday, today, to finish it.

 And this morning I realized what it was I didn’t like Vincent’s brush strokes! As much as I love them (in the original painting), they were too strong, too fierce, too imposing… So I decided to paint over them, blend colours, soften the whole image and make it lighter. Sorry Vincent! The result is much more tranquil and that is a good thing, because many of the kids in this classroom have concentration issues, so the last thing hey need is a crazy, frantic mural in their learning environment....

For the same reason, I also changed the Cyprus tree on the foreground. It was too dark and gloomy, too scary. Now it’s dancing in the wind with much lighter tones of purple, green and brown.

I sincerely apologize to Vincent van Gogh for making changes to his masterpiece. I hope he’d understand why. I can only say that the teacher and kids are happy and that’s what matters most to me.

Thanks a million to Ilene Kradin for sponsoring this and the previous mural, as well as for helping out!

And now that we’re back to the topic of sponsoring, the rest of the kids want a mural too! The Ocean kids (Grade 5 & &), The Forest (Grade 3 & 4) and The Scientists (Grade 7-8) all want to transform their wall. And you can help to do so! Sponsor a mural for only $250 and those kids will have a permanent work of art in their classroom… (Partial donations welcome too…)

Community Mural in Chimachoy DONE!!!

I’ve been looking forward for weeks to write this very last update on the community mural in Chimachoy, but now that the time is there, I’m actually at loss for words…

This mural has been the centre of my life for the last few months now. Starting with the $1000 grant I got from Te Pollination Project in March, I then had to find more funding (the lacking $1500) in order to realize the project, which was a little stressful. I had already handed over $400 to the community for wall repair and plastering, so there was no way I could drop out. Thankfully the rest of the funding came in and after a series of workshops with the students from both elementary and high school to define the themes and create images, we were ready to start painting by the end of June.

All in all, everything has worked out perfectly. Yes, the painting did take much longer than expected, there was some rain, a lot of extreme cold and heat. Even a hurricane that literally forced me to come off my ladder, but we managed it. The mural is now finished, all 65 meters of it!

It has taken more than a hundred hours in painting, about the same amount of time in designing, prepping the workshops and teaching, as well as about 25 hours in traveling. I will miss those weekly trips to Chimachoy but on the other hand, man, am I glad it’s done now!

Yesterday was a perfect last day. I was happy to have plenty of help from the high school kids as well as volunteers Jenneca Fevos and Marie Duca.  We had to finish painting the last 15 meters plus the titles of all the panels in three languages (Kaqchikel, Spanish and English) in just two days and we did! We were about to finish when it started raining at 4.30pm, but after a short break we were able to continue with the last titles and touchups.

A little emotional I got in the car, ready to go home. As we drove by the mural for the very last time, I was just thinking how grateful I was for so many things, one of them being the rickety pick-up truck I had hired for our transportation holding up during al those trips. (It wasn’t the best of cars, but its owner Carlos is very friendly and reliable but mostly because it was the cheapest option…). I shouldn’t have had that thought, because of course, right at that moment, the car stopped short. Dead as can be.

So there we were. The two volunteers were in the back of the pick-up truck, it was already getting dark, thick raindrops falling down and a motor that just didn’t want to start. I had already locked up the school so there wasn’t even a place to take shelter if the rain would start for real. And where do you get a mechanic, this late, at an hour distance from Antigua? But thankfully, with the help of some rough looking Chimachoy men, Carlos was able to fix whatever was wrong and twenty minutes later we were on our way, racing down the hills under rumbling skies. The huge traffic jam we got caught in was a bit of an anti-climax, but we made it and at 7.30pm I was finally home.

More on this project will surely follow, but for now I’m going to take a short break. I want to thank Jenneca and Marie for being there with me yesterday; Carlos for getting us there (and BACK!); the kids; the teachers; the people from Chimachoy who cheered us on and of course all the people and institutions that sponsored this project. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

Marvelous Murals in the Mountains

Nice write-up in Qué Pasa Magazine!!!!

“Near the imposing volcano of Acatenango, amongst the rolling hills and sprawling green fields, lies the village of Chimachoy, a small indigenous aldea of only 700 habitants. It is one of several villages dotted across the countryside of the San Andrés Itzapa region where the Kaqchiquel-speaking residents maintain and celebrate their Mayan roots and traditions. Many community members support their families through agriculture.

In Chimachoy, the two small community schools provide a standard education to local children according to the Guatemalan National Curriculum and try to foster creativity, critical-thinking and social consciousness in their students through extracurricular, sporting and cultural activities. As part of an initiative by the organization MuralArte Guate, the school Director – Laura Esperanza Vasquez de Back – and the staff of both schools are currently implementing an art program to help the children celebrate their roots and visualize the intriguing combination of tradition and modernity within their community.

This fascinating project – run by the Dutch artist Carin Steen, who has painted dozens of community murals across Central America and Europe – involves painting murals and running art workshops in different public spaces, communities and schools across Guatemala. The project is aimed not just at beautifying public spaces – but also using art to provoke dialogue and to transmit positive, constructive messages that benefit and honor the local community.
In Chimachoy, MuralArte is painting a giant mural in collaboration with the school kids and the community as a whole that will depict the culture and history of the community and the vision that its habitants have for their future.

The aim of this fantastic project is to bring the local community together to create a valuable collective work of art and to raise awareness of the importance of celebrating cultural heritage and fostering collective projects to strengthen communities.”

Community Mural in Chimachoy Week IV: Church and Birds

One more panel done, right in front of the church, with religion as a theme as requested by the community. Whereas the rest of the world deals with clashes between Hillary and Trump supporters; Muslims and Christians; Pokémon seekers and haters; Chimachoy is simply and evenly divided between Catholics and Evangelicals. So both had to be represented on the panel. Catholicism is no problem, of course, with its abundant symbols and imagery, but how do you depict Evangelicalism? Even their churches don’t really look like churches. So after long discussions with teachers and students, we decided on a Bible, although that can also refer to Catholicism, of course. But if anyone asks, the left side is “Evangelical”, the right is “Catholic” with the Maria from the church and in the middle the silhouette of the (yes, Catholic) church, as symbol for religion in general. Done!

The next panel is right at the corner and holds a plaque that mentions the sponsors who helped built the elementary school. There’s not really a central park in Chimachoy, but this is the biggest open space in town where people can get together, so a good spot for some civic symbols the Central Americans are so fond of. Before I moved here, I didn’t even know that things as a “National Animal” or “National Tree” existed. In the case of Guatemala, the national flower is the Monja Blanca orchid (dutifully painted last week on the Nature Panel) and the national bird is the quetzal. But rather than painting all these symbols together, I decided to paint a pair of lifelike quetzals, bigger than life, overlooking the main area. Approved by passersby.

It was a rather uneventful few days despite bitter cold and an occasional rain shower. I had little help from the students because one day they were out early and the other day there was no school at all. But that was okay, tons of details I had to deal with by myself anyway and I made good process. The only interruption was by a rather insistent old man I had never seen before and that while I think I know everybody  in Chimachoy by now. Rubber boots, wasted shirt about five sizes to big and an old-fashioned transistor radio hanging around his neck. He asked me if I could give him a few gallons of paint. (No.)

Whether I’m a Christian or Evangelical.

Being a little cranky, sweating on Maria’s face that didn’t turn out the way I wanted and having heard that question a zillion times already, I answered: “Neither.”

“But you have to embrace our Saviour!”

I answered that you could embrace Christ without being Christian or Evangelical, but apparently that was the wrong answer. Old Man said he would come back to read me some verses from the Bible. Hurray.

He did come back, but this time to ask where he could buy the paints I use. I explained him while he carefully wrote down the directions in a notebook. On the East of West side of the street? House number? Sigh…

Ten minutes later he came back and told me he wanted to use the paint to make a small portrait of his grandfather, because he had learned to paint when he was in high school, a long, long time ago. I told him he didn’t need gallons of paint to make a small portrait.

Oh.

Could I paint the portrait for him? For free?

No. No and no. As much as I’m for stimulating people to appreciate the arts, after finishing this mural, I’m done with freebies in Chimachoy for now.

Well, how much would I charge?

I answered $50, ridiculously little but I knew it would be way over his head and hopefully would blow him off, leaving me in peace to paint.

It did for a little while, but soon he was back carrying a big sack.

“Do you want to buy cauliflower?”

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like cauliflower.”

“Well that’s weird…”

After that he only came back one more time with his sack, this time asking if I could keep an eye on his cauliflower while he went on an errand. Yes, that I could do.

I guarded the cauliflower with my life but when Old Man came back, he picked up his sack and left, without even saying thank you or goodbye. And that was the last I saw of Old man, thank goodness…

So far 17 panels are painted (out of 26), 44 meter in total, with 12 designs. A whole street long! Next week we’ll turn around the corner for the last bit. Can we do 21 meters in just two days? With tons of help from the students, I bet we can!

(And if not I’ll be begging on my knees for more donations towards transportations, so let’s hope the weather Gods will be with us…)

Yet again, a big THANK YOU to following sponsors: The Pollination Project, Coulor4Kids Foundation, Uno Más Foundation, Diane Morton, Tessa de Goede, Willem Meijnckens, Evert-jan Velzing, Rosan Breman, Ineke en Jan de Smidt, Brenda Montoya…

Week III of Mural Painting in Chimachoy

Good to be back in Chimachoy after a break of a week due to bad weather and a sick doggie at home. I don’t think there’s anything more fun in this world than painting a huge outdoor wall! It’s not always easy and definitely tiresome, especially when you’re constantly surrounded by kids with there endless questions.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Painting…”

(…)

“What are you painting?”

“What does it look like I’m painting?”

“A bird…”

“Indeed…. So why are you asking?”

“…”

After the third day of painting I decided to a apply new set of rules: You can ask me anything, but I’ll only answer GOOD, intelligent questions…

It worked, in a way. The next set of questions was:

“Are you Catholic or Evangelical?”

“How many kids do you have?”

“What is your husband doing?”

Right. How do I explain that I practice yoga and meditation instead of attending church; I live all by myself and have no kids BY CHOICE; but have instead two dogs and two cats I happen to spend more on than on myself???

But as long as the kids don’t touch the mural (“Look! The paint is still wet!!!”- before wiping their stained finger off on the wall…) I bear with them because after all, they’re cute as hell.

Less intrusive than the kids are the adults who stand behind me watching me work and have conversations about me as if I can’t hear them. Usually about who I’m painting, often about the fact that I’m a very good painter (thanks!) and sometimes a more in-depth conversation about the techniques I use and why. For the second time these days I heard the director of the elementary school explain someone that the panel that depicts a woman in the mist is pained in a technique that’s called claroscuro. No, it’s not, quite the opposite, as my adult students should know by now, but who cares.

Anyway, it was fun again, besides a rain shower here and there and today the constant threat of  rumbling skies, but luckily no rain. I got quite a lot done, the kids were a great help and more than half is done now. Yeahaaaah!!!!

As the project is running a little longer than planned, more trips to Chimachoy are needed, so more donations for transportation are very welcome. For $40 you get a whole 10-hour day of painting…. (A bargain since the artist humbly decided to do this job for free). Thank you dear friend Brenda Montoya for your contribution!