Young Artists Leave Their Mark

Creating Series Of Murals

August 19, 2005
By MELISSA PIONZIO, Courant Staff Writer

Brittany Sims, 14, says her Sheldon-Charter Oak neighborhood is more than just some urban space full of apartment buildings and asphalt.

"This is what this part of Hartford is," said Brittany, explaining the images that she and other youngsters from the neighborhood have depicted in a series of murals. "It has some nice buildings, some good parts and bad parts. But we want people to realize that this is our neighborhood. It's not so bad."

Through a series of eight, 4-by-8 foot murals created during a summer employment program called Teen Teach, Brittany and a dozen other teenagers from Sheldon-Charter Oak have expressed how they see their neighborhood.

The program was offered by the Capitol Region Education Council (CREC), with financial support from Capital Workforce Partners and the Coalition to Strengthen the Sheldon/Charter Oak Neighborhood, Inc.

Dubbed "Through Our Eyes," the panels, which will eventually become a permanent exhibit in the neighborhood, have been a work in progress for the last six weeks. The teens met daily at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center on Van Block Avenue, where they worked to compile information, draw rough drafts and paint.

"That was hard. To take teens who didn't know each other and work together, to conceptualize what their neighborhood meant," said program director Betsy LeBorious of CREC. "I really hoped they would feel a sense of pride."

The teens began the project by taking photographs of their neighborhood. Accompanied by younger children, five groups of teens took pictures of places that were important to them. They photographed stores, apartment buildings, the Church of the Good Shepherd and Kinsella School, where many of them are students.

"It's cool," said Orlando Ocasio, 15, who had never painted something so big before. "I told them to put in Kinsella because I went there for pre-school through sixth grade."

With the help of Hartford artist Chet Kempczynski, who grew up in the Dutch Point neighborhood nearby, the teens learned the intricacies of creating murals. After sifting through more than 100 photos, they put together a collage with such labels as: This Is Where I Get Food and Juice; Where I Live; and Where We Be Chillin'.

Then they drew several sketches of the scene before transferring the images onto a grid board. Each grid represented a section of the scene. Then they reproduced each portion in pencil on the panels and painted them.

"I don't think they realized how big it was until they got to the boards," said Kempczynski. "It's pretty original in terms of concepts. It's their ideas and their images."

The first set of panels was done in black and white, followed by the next seven, which explode with vivid pink, blue, green and yellow hues. Cobalt-blue skies surround tall buildings, lots of trees and people walking in groups.

"The theme is going from old to new," said Kempczynski. "We are not focusing on the past. We are looking to the future."

Kempczynski said he wanted the children to create a beautiful piece of artwork that they could be proud of, and encouraged them to stay away from obvious themes like drugs and violence.

"I like it," 14-year-old Naomi Ruiz said of the artwork. "When you put it up on a building, you could picture where we live."

The panels were completed Thursday and will be installed as a permanent exhibit on Van Block Avenue Sept. 29.

For information on the program and the artwork created in this story, call CREC 860-247-2732.