Love My Neighbor Public Art Project Is Now An Award-Winning Program!

The Love My Neighbor Public Art Project in the long-undeserved “Scottsdale” neighborhood of the City of Carson was just selected as the winner of the coveted California Park and Recreation Society 2019 Award for Excellence in the important Creating Community category.

It is an amazing and authoritative recognition of the conceptual uniqueness and real world community impact of our program. 

The uniqueness of art’s power, the uniqueness of its application within the community in need and the uniqueness of our amazing collaborations are the keys to this success. 

The amazing principle collaborators in this project are noted California artist Alexey Steele, the creator of the project, The City of Carson Cultural Arts Commission, The City of Carson City Council, The City of Carson Human Services Department, The Board of Scottsdale Townhouses Association,  On Site Community Management, Bank of America's Community Outreach Volunteers of "Better Money Habits" Program, Carson Sheriff's Department Gang Diversion Team (GDT), The 501c(3) non profit Artward Initiative.

Congratulations to the entire amazing Team Carson on this accomplishment! 

Love My Neighbor at the Taste of Soul 2019 with Bank of America

Our awesome Love My Neighbor Day “Scottsdale” art tent was front and center at the remarkable TasteOfSoul 2019 celebration this past Saturday thanks to my awesome partners from Bank of America Better Money Habits community volunteer team. 

The Taste of Soul Marching band parade passing by our Love My Neighbor booth

350000 people attend this annual iconic LA celebration.  

So many things were super special about it.  Bank of America team of volunteers worked their hearts out from 5am setting it up and all throughout the LA heatwave day assisting kids with my art program and giving their parents free financial advice (of course regardless of where they bank) just as they always do in our Carson based program.  It’s an amazing and real dedicated effort by a corporate player to truly make itself part of the community.  

 

 

It was amazing as always to see how kids respond to an idea of thinking about their special neighbor after learning the stories of my special neighbor that I love to portray.  

As an artist it is a special privilege to see how portraying diversity of my special Carson neighbors affects the viewers and participants of Love My Neighbor project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another amazing part was that the long marginalized and neglected epicly troubled “Scottsdale” neighborhood in Carson that was given up on so many times throughout its 5 decades of policy failure history was now representing The City of Carson right next to the booth of Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors at the event that carries particularly special meaning for “Scottsdale’s” long time African American residents. We did it all with art.  Art is power. 

It was also great to see my good friend  Carson Councilmemeber Jawane Hilton stopping by the booth.

Love My Neighbor Day with Bank of America at the Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration in the City of Carson

The bucolic village at the foot of the mountain in the El Salvador jungle.  The incoming fire of rockets and mortar grenades.  The house hit and on fire.  The people running from it in horror.  This is the image by 13 year old Krystina depicting the story of her grandparents in our LoveMyNeighbor art tent at  the City of Carson Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration . The raw testimonial power of the image simply cannot leave any viewer indifferent.  The great communicative power of Art.

There were a number of works of a remarkably meaningful visual impact depicting personal family stories of children's’ great parents and great great parents which is the real world meaning of the strange word “heritage” that none of the kids knew the meaning of before.

I am deeply grateful to a remarkable group of Bank of America volunteers from Better Money Habits community outreach program who in the scorching heat worked with amazing dedication, non-stop and as long as needed.

Even inside my 20’ x 40’ tent it felt like broiling but Anh, Gwen, Maria, Sandy, Miguel and the whole team worked their hearts out tirelessly assisting me with kids and giving free financial advice to parents.

In our unique colaboration with the City of Carson and Bank of America we really developed a unique model when children  can experience art making in the professional setting, often for the first time in their lives.

There is no time to teach them how to make art in those setting, but it is an opportunity to give them an experience of being an artist. Once guided, the kids once and again show an amazing capacity for grasping the idea and purely on their own convert it into a viable and compelling visual image, producing content driven form which is a big thing to me in my own art.

Art is inherent in the way we, the humans, process the world.  Looking at amazingly powerful Krystina’s image proves it yet again.