Birdnanigans

This is a mural that was designed and painted with Arts Street youth for the inaugural year of the 40 West Art District’s West Colfax Artfest in 2015. As part of the Youth Employment Academy, Arts Street uses the power of creativity to help youth in breaking the cycle of generational poverty in Denver communities by gaining personal and economic stability through education, arts and technology and employment training. Most of the youth training is through real-world, client-based art and design projects. While I was working at Arts Street full time, we applied for and won this project as one of the youth training opportunities. The only requirements were that it had to include a hummingbird somewhere so we ran with that and gave them lots of dancing hummingbirds in a playful retro style that references an era when West Colfax was in its prime.

*Designed and painted with the help of teaching artist Chelsea Romaniello, and Arts Street youth Jim Salazar, Desiree Lawrence, and Daphne Newman.