a few saturdays ago the refuge hosted a graffiti art workshop at joshua station, our friends near downtown denver who provide transformational housing for struggling families. it was a perfect spot for our gathering and sam trujillo, who works for milehigh ministries (the umbrella organization for joshua station), did an amazing job facilitating a wild and crazy afternoon. we had 30 participants, about 1/2 from the refuge, 1/2 from joshua station, with a wide range of ages (from 8 to 69 years old!) and backgrounds (the best part). the common thread that wove us together was a desire to express ourselves in ways that some of us aren’t used to, to connect with our artistic side, our story. sam used a great combination of videos, conversation, and all kinds of mediums to help people connect. one tool he used was a template for an “i am” poem that people could use to add to their piece. you can check out the template here if you want to give it a try on your own.

you can check out a gallery of pictures from the afternoon here

and some other blog posts with some highlights: here and here

we definitely hope to offer more experiences like this in the future so people of all ages, backgrounds & spiritual journeys can have an opportunity to express themselves through art. thanks, sam!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 11:21 am and is filed under community, identity, kathy, the refuge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.