In partnership with Arts Express Ottawa and Claudia Salguero Art, we have received a Paint It Up grant from Crime Prevention Ottawa to complete an outdoor mural at Charles H. Hulse Public School.
The students of Charles H. Hulse Public School, in collaboration with a team of students from Ridgemont High School, will complete a mural that demonstrates Peace, Love and Kindness. The mural will be representative of the diverse, multi-cultural community of Charles H. Hulse. It will show that our community members take care of each other and take responsibility for the health and future well-being of our planet. The mural will also include an Indigenous element, which will be developed in consultation with an Algonquin Elder.
On May 8 and 9, 2017, the fabulous Nancy Dean, from Arts Express Ottawa, went in to work with every class at Charles Hulse on our mural project. She presented the theme of Peace, Love and Kindness and asked each student to represent this theme in a drawing, setting out special challenges for each class on the theme.
In Nancy’s own words ….
“The intention was to introduce each of them to the mural project and to get their input as to what the student’s perspective was on the theme … Peace, Love and Kindness. I wanted to get individual views so that each student had a sense that what they believed was important was heard.”
Nancy provided me with a summary of some of the more common themes seen in the pictures that the students drew.
Peace, Love, Kindness and Ourselves – the students drew pictures of themselves:
• being with their families
• playing sports – soccer, basketball
• playing music – “I am kind to myself by being in a band”
• being with friends
• creating peace – “I’m from Iraq, I have a big heart for people and my country has war so I want to bring peace.”
Peace, Love, Kindness and our Community – the students drew pictures of themselves:
• giving things to others, for example flowers to someone
• helping friends get up when they fall down
• helping their neighbours, the poor and homeless in particular – “I am age 10 and I am from Nunavut and I drew this picture to raise awareness about homeless people. I want to give homeless people a home.”
One child drew a beautiful picture of a long line of people standing together side by side, hands in the air and smiling.
Peace, Love, Kindness and Nature – the students drew pictures of themselves:
• being kind to nature – “cleaning Nature and showing it love and kindness”
• watering trees and flowers
• sharing the messages “Don’t litter” and “Do not cut down trees”
• taking care of plants, nurturing gardens
What I particularly love about the below drawing is that on top of doing great work cleaning up the beach, you have one person worrying that they forgot one can in the water, and another person giving beautiful words of encouragement, “You guys are doing a good job.” There is so much love in this drawing.
Peace, Love, Kindness and the World – the students drew pictures of:
• the earth and people standing all around it hugging the world
• being friends, countries being friends, playing with each other
• being kind to nature
One child drew a beautiful peace sign with three important messages: it is good to be in nature, it is good to play with people, and it is good to be friends – represented by Syrian and Canadian children shaking hands.
It is our hope that when this mural is hung on the outside of Charles Hulse, the students and community members will feel that they are represented in the artwork, know that they are welcome in our community, and believe that our community wants to work together to make the world a better place.
Stay tuned for more updates on this beautiful project.
For more information on this mural, you can email Lindsey at worldchangingkids@gmail.com