What happens when you take youth from southwest Detroit, 100 cans of aerosol, a sanctioned outdoor canvas for painting, positive youth development, and knowledgeable, excited adults to facilitate a summer’s worth of memories?  GrafikJam!  Expressions, a program of Young Nation, recently developed and carried out an exciting and innovative program for youth at risk for the physical and legal risks associated with involvement in aerosol art in the southwest Detroit community.  The Skillman Foundation’s Good Neighborhoods Initiative provided the necessary funding to carry out this program last fall.

Young Nation identified and recruited young people who were involved or interested in aerosol art for participation in this program.  To start, each youth completed an enrollment form with a parent or guardian.  This helped to explain the program in more detail to the youth and the adult.  Then each week for 8 weeks (and then two more weeks beyond the program’s anticipated end) GrafikJam created opportunities for youth to participate with their peers in hands-on learning, instruction, self-expression, and creation of urban art.  Youth in the program had access to a sanctioned canvas of garages at Woodmere between Falcon and Avis in the southwest Detroit community.  This area is called ‘The Alley’.  Each session of the program began with instruction and discussion.  Various urban art and design topics were focused on and basic art principles that apply beyond the immediate project were emphasized.  This helped to introduce the participants to the wider world of art through the door that graffit-style art opened.  Using urban art as a starting point and a medium youth learned about basic drawing techniques as well as touched on such fundamental competencies as shape and form, the elements of design, creativity, color and composition, context, and energy and movement as well as explore concepts of community responsibility.

Youth in the program also participated in the clean up and maintenance of the area where the activities occurred.  This was intended to help to foster a sense of responsibility for the immediate area where they benefit through the program.  Additional service took place outside the immediate area of the program with the purpose of encouraging the same sense of responsibility for other locations in the greater community.  Together they worked to clean areas and removed non-permissive graffiti.

The space used for painting in The Alley is donated by homeowners with garages that would prefer to see youth creating art than the typical gang graffiti and obscenities that existed before the project began.  During the course of the program the space available for creating art was increased.  With help from the neighbors, the sanctioned canvas space in The Alley was increased through the installation of several wood panels which became available for painting alongside the garages.  This contribution lived beyond the period of GrafikJam.  It still stands as a reminder of the important role of community buy-in for the success of The Alley.