i and welcome to live that five twenty five this is sure so thank you for that introduction career and i'm really excited to be on the air today talking about these projects so i guess i could i could tell a story of how i members of the wharf when residents association because over the years there have been so many complaints about the the white walls and the just not really any visual stimulation and the common areas and so they form the arts council to kind of figure out what what would people want to see and how would they get the resources to make it happen so donna who's the the resident  who form the art council she met was during craft who's the directors of the cia to kind of get some ideas where can we get funding to make this happen so sick she suggested pairing up with an artist from the community would come in and you workshops with residents to make are together inspired by nature war flame is right on the edge of the rail yard it's it's in a very industrial part of town residents really want to see more nature in their lives so we're going to be doing nature inspired art and and yeah and we were lucky enough to receive the grant and so now we're starting to make things happen the art hof is going to be kind of the kickoff for this project i'll be doing demos all weekend of the the technique called shadow printing that i developed for the use in this project  so that residents can kind of get a feel for it get an idea what are these workshops going to look like and then i guess i'll stop there i think that was a lot of information yeah i actually i would love to at their towers for almost three years and when i first got there it was kind of quiet conduct a tower through which was kind of nice but i really want to get more involved in the in the apartment setting and i got involved with the resident advisor board first and that is a group that each of the burlington housing authority buildings representation when they talk about policies more and put the bit more working together to make it a better living situation for all of us and take a towers and then reaching out to the other burlington buildings as well for those who development there's all kinds of different situation living situations and decker towers where i live is a combination of folks with disabilities and senior housing home project we actually start out with a few folks and people are getting interested so i think our community is getting closer together  that i just you know i came across playing around in my studio a couple years ago i don't think it's it's a completely original technique i think a lot of people have been drawn to the way that you can trace shadows and create beautiful artwork  so i i came back to it when i was doing this project was where flame trying to figure out what kind of workshops can we do together because it feels like a very accessible way to me a beautiful artwork you don't need to feel like you have to be trained as an artist to me to make a painting inspired by the nature right outside your door  it's i use an overhead projector i think i should probably try and illustrate this with my website so i have overhead projector and i place plants that i gather just you know i go for words walk sometimes but even right outside my studio building right outside where flamed i found really nice nice source material i lay the plant on the projector and and there's a mirror which reflects it and then a lens that magnifies it so the shadow projects onto the wall of whatever i put onto the projector and then that i'm kind of like visual this is hard to explain it hopefully this is making sense  and then there's like a piece of paper on the wall or a canvas leaning up against a wall or something on an easel that the shadow is being captured on and then trace it with a pen or a brush an ink pay me colored pencil whatever is the material that like appeals to you and then once you trace that shadow of the plant onto the paper or the canvas that can be the jumping off point for a drawing or a painting  so i was doing this last week in those that are making sessions that david was talking about at decker towers i was i was just tracing a whole bunch of shadows and with pencil and then handing them off and some residents took them back to their room to color on their own time we had at least one person calling right there many other people doing just freestyle paintings which return out really well  of like relaxation in the room and comfort and being there in them and absolutely found the when you were giving people something to work in like coloring like the bringing the different leaves and the print out winds up on the board people are taken that in coloring in their own ideas and people are getting excited and that's what we were hoping that people with the this fall like way and how sick and then affect the residents are why why if i could be a fun i guess of course it sounds fine but like what's important having well one it is definitely an eye opener for the community  building how many different people are involved in are excited about our and even the folks that come to dillon it you know they get really excited and it's something that's going to help diskettes fire and then we'll have all kinds of people look and what we have to offer yeah do you have anything to add kylie oh yeah it's it's something that i talked about with donna when we were putting together the grant proposal for this project is that you know so many people when they come into the building be it the be it the visiting nurses or the mental health services or even the police they are coming there when residents are in crisis and they're seeing only one side of these people and so was with the project making camus's to permanently installed their walls they're going to be having an open house next spring to show off what they created where they can invite the same people who usually call when they are experiencing difficulty and help they're actually inviting them to show off like these really beautiful sides of themselves and their abilities and what and you know the the way that they've made this project happen by forming the arts coun forget about like if if the if you're only going to provide services you might forget that these people have a lot to offer to as well to the community and i wonder if you have any big things well i feel like i'm learning a lot just about how how to make stuff happen with you know not a lot of resources and how to figure out what are the resources that are there like when i've seen the residents in action at their at their meetings like you know they're out there they're planning so much like their planning skills their organizational skills communication with each other making sure that like no once feelings are h t there's there's a lot of really important skills that i mean i'm personally still developing as an artist so i feel like i'm learning a lot there and no i agree when we have these events and people are so many differences but they do support each other in the yards and nobody makes fun of anybody and i can encompass so many different things the train painting and drawing and photography it just blows my mind how many different where different people come from we have folks from many different continents different folks that live in the buildings and the biggest way that they do communicate is through our pictures we have several folks that come to our drop and then don't speak any english and they sit down and they smile and name everyone kind of passing on their back and that's a big plus get everyone involved in our community i mean people living you're building a secretary ours we have about a hundred and sixty residents a lot of people live and for the folks with a lot of differences but we find that our strength is is  e the residence and i just wonder do you personally feel like the work that you are part of is making a lasting impact and carries i think so i first started you know over two years ago getting involved with the other buildings and now we've developed a pretty good system within our own building and we're trying to reach out to other buildings and try to get everybody to work together i mean the housing situation is something that's not going to go away right away and it does take a lot of money a lot of effort and through kylie and career and hopefully together with the limited resources we learn to adapt and maybe develop skills that we can kind of haiti as a seller in and develop you know you know learn something new and to live i mean i think burlington does a pretty good pretty good effort so far but did just so many people lay off worry about money with illness i mean people are  that live i live with a lot of those folks never intended to be in a situation where there are limited income and things happen in their life and so which is best we can i know owe a lot about your and know that you have a personal you can really relate to that fame and i wonder if you feel feel like speaking to that well i don't know i mean i just i went from a situation where i motivation well the people around me motivate me i mean there's so many good people all the energy growth room and he said the difference is we all have had for him to make a very strong bond and we have kind of a broad focus so we called arson activism the poetry show so pretty much anything we want to talk about that falls under those three terms we'll talk about and my favorite thing is when we're interviewing guests krynn actually was my guest last month and it's i don't know t v is like i kind of stumbled into it i did inform the poetry show i was asked to be a co host after i had already been established for several months so so lost the train  h it's fun to talk with people and like it's a cool medium for hearing stories on t v like you know when you sit down for a formal interview with someone you might hear a part of their story that would have taken you like forever to get you just you  know and small talk and like casual meetings so we got to hear last month on the poetry show we got to your current whole story about how she got into working with affordable housing and storytelling projects just really interesting and i've known  a while and never knew all that another another project i'm part of is a friend of mine connor does drawing nights he started doing it this past winter very similar to what is happening at decker towers right now with the they aren't making events people just come with some paper and pencils or pens whatever project they're working on or just want to do it all and we spend usually about three or four hours together drawing and socializing and we'll have music yesterday we had a special musical guest edward burke did a workshop and demo showing us all about his lawyer phones which he makes of a folk instrument that a local artist who lives and works in the south and he makes these longer phones and is a chance for some new people to get exposed to his instrument and how to play and we did some sing a longs and so it was kind of fun for everybody edward got to practice his his workshop and we got to experience and then we all get together afterwards so those are the kind of things that are really exciting to me i guess as an artist is i mean my my independent our practice is really important but i like the way that are can be used to bring people together you know through through the medium of of of workshops and just drop in drawing sessions or using the t v as a medium to interview and get stories out learned people drawing and painting the stories of how they got them paul stories of where there are where they where their favorite kind of things it's kind of activism and sort of way because the stories for get out there and hopefully can help other people in other situations that's actually was one of my questions i asked like why is this correlations between our interactive activism and when there have any thoughts about that well i mean i think for me my are a lot of my are is like inspired by nature and beautiful colors and like time spent in the woods and  it's you wouldn't look at it and think like this is political art but over the last couple of years i'm i work in a studio with several other artists and oftentimes members of my studio will get really involved the political project and use the studio as the workshop for creating the signs or the or the public art or whatever it is that is going to aid in their demonstration or their fight for this or that  i had a lot i spent a lot of time amongst that type of art that's more directly political and and spend a lot of time thinking about like how does my art fit in with this and and kind of started to see that just the choice of whatever you want to depict like that's a political choice you're making you're saying like this is so important enough to me that i want to you know create this big representation or publish this book or or what ever is and bring this thing into the world and bring people's attention to it you know so for me like i might be making very kind of happy like joyous nature inspired artworks and that's because i think that stuff is important and i want to have a place for it and then the i guess when it becomes more activism is is when you find more direct ways to draw people into that world and ways you know to like with the war flame project on identified me as the artist because because it's colorful and beautiful and is going to be you know a bright spot in their building which is something that they really wanted well i think two or three times you notice different errors when there was a lot of trouble or the spare word in the world different art forms that come out of both the print different song arrows of different music different color of the same thing is happening and i think more and more people are realizing that we need to get together  really were pretty confident with a tight yeah well i think that actually came out of my first experience with this group are making sessions like that which was several years ago i spent some time in the psychiatric ward at uva am and for panic attacks and other things like that and though the way i set up up there is everyone gets a room and then in the middle of all the rooms there's there's two common rooms one is like where you eat and the other one is basically just an art room like a big table and chairs and a ton of supplies  i found so much value like that was the most healing part of the whole experience for me was just being in the art room with the when it was unstructured and we could just do whatever we wanted and getting to know other people who were also going to like really hard times in their mental health and you know kind of being able to feel inspired by what i was seeing come out of them you know being like oh this person's also going to something really hard and they're making something really beautiful and like you know so maybe i can do that too you know maybe we're all going to be ok together and there are also times that were more structured activities like an art therapist would come in and it just it never had the same like feel it didn't have the same feel to it where this is about us this is about the patients they felt you know it's more about like this project that the art therapist is bringing to us which might have its value in some settings but for me what i really needed was to get get to know other people who are going through hard times and like be able to see ourselves in a really positive light wow that's really a powerful thing for sharing that well are hard to come up and i think