Summer of artistic apprenticeship brings two new local murals created by young artists

(First two photos courtesy Urban Art Works)

That’s one of two new local murals created by youth artists who were part of this year’s Mural Apprentice Program with Urban Art Works, It’s been installed at Southwest Youth and Family Services headquarters in North Delridge.UAW’s Laura Wetter explained via email:

This is the third mural Urban ArtWorks has completed at this facility in Delridge. For this year’s mural at SWYFS, nine youth apprentices with the Mural Apprentice Program completed the program; and one previous graduate and member of our advanced Base Crew program worked as a Teaching Assistant with a professional Teaching Artist. The mural (is) located at the top of the stairs, creating a welcoming environment.

Youth designed the mural with an intention of inspiring others, and creating calming and peaceful imagery. People and flowers are placed along a path that winds up a mountain, symbolizing the process of reaching a goal and a better future. Hopeful messages in diverse languages emanate from the top of the mountain in a rainbow of colors. Translated messages and languages include: “Dream Big” in Khmer, “You Are Enough,” in Spanish, “We Are One” in Somali, “Trust the Process” in Mandarin, “Breathe” in Arabic, “Gratitude & Love” in Amharic, and “You Are Not Alone” in English.

We found out about the SWYFS mural while covering the recent unveiling of another Mural Apprentice Program creation, this one installed at the Technology Access Foundation‘s Bethaday Community Learning Space in White Center.

The students who created this mural worked primarily in Burien over the summer, learning other skills in addition to working with art.

The mural, designed collaboratively, was meant to exude community spirit.

The summer program, for which participants received a stipend, also had cohorts at two locations in Shoreline, The Delridge program had partial support from a West Seattle Garden Tour grant.

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