STORIES IN FLIGHT

Doyers Street, Chinatown, Manhattan 2024

People move in New York City: hustling, dreaming, surviving, building. We pass hundreds of individuals in the streets, each with a life story as rich as our own…

Usually it’s pigeons that flutter into my NYC scenes, but Doyers Street is in Chinatown. So for this mural, the birds are swallows, which often appear in Chinese culture, symbolizing the coming of spring, good fortune and happiness. In this design, their bodies are abstracted, but their distinctive tails remain. They echo New Yorkers in constant motion, traveling swiftly, alongside one another, past each other, briefly meeting, then parting, barely a thought as they pass. 

Then there are moments like this past week of painting, where we spend several hours alongside strangers, and we discover individuals traveling a similar path. Sometimes we realize we have bumped into them before, and there is delight in discovering those commonalities. We meet, and then we part, wishing each other well until our paths cross again…

Here’s a link to NTD TV news coverage. Brief English summary: NTD News describes the community’s four-day process of artists and volunteers painting the mural “Stories in Flight.” Doyers Street is one of the oldest streets in Chinatown NY. Because it is so narrow and curved, in the past it was a gathering place for gangs. Times have changed, and it is now a prosperous place for community businesses. The mural is part of an initiative by Chinatown Business Improvement District and NYC Dept of Transportation to attract visitors to the area to support Chinatown’s small businesses and beautify the neighborhood. Community leader Wellington Chen said that Chinatown has more than 240 pedestrian streets, but there is no official square where people can gather. Doyers Street has already become a new landmark, giving the community a place to meet and celebrate festivities together.

^{Commissioned by Chinatown District Management Association.
Assisting Artist: Abby Walsh. Additional art assistance from Plushie Rios, Andrea Amanda, Yukiko Izumi, Talisa Almonte.}

Teaching Mural Artist

Through nonprofits like Thrive Collective, Groundswell, and Creative Art Works, I make murals with teens and young adults. A few are comfortable drawing, most are not. Collaboration and connection are the most important components in group projects. In the concept phase, we get to know each other. We warm up with silly drawing games, allow our neighbors to add to our sketches. We practice letting go.

Many people dread drawing. But everyone has ideas—ideas of who they are, observations about the world, thoughts they want to share. I tell students to make chicken scratch drawings with stick figures, diagrams with written notes. I gather their concepts and stitch them into a mural design. The most magical point is when students recognize their concepts in the mural. What a thrill to understand you have something worth sharing with the rest of the world. How meaningful it is to feel seen.

Haven Values

Mott Haven Academy, Bronx 2023

Mott Haven Academy is a Bronx charter school for pre-K to grade 8. Its building showcases an impressive mural of a bird and its aura, stretching across an entire facade. However, areas at ground level had peeled away. The school invited Thrive to guide 7th and 8th graders in creating a new mural for this lower section. We asked students to tell us what is important to them as a community. They shared their school’s core values, expressed pride in their neighborhood and wanted to portray Mott Haven through NYC elements: subways, buses, music, dance, Black Lives Matter, kings and queens, basketball, city skyline. The husky is their mascot.

^{Thrive Collective. Project manager: Plushie Rios. Assisting artists: Yukiko Izumi, Kenneth Tooley, Marissa Molina, Christian Penn.}

We Are Part of this Universe

IS 62 Ditmas, Brooklyn 2023

“Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, it’s the only home we’ve ever known.”
—Carl Sagan

A small and talented crew of Brooklyn middle schoolers contemplated humans’ effect on the planet and environment. We took inspiration from quotes and referenced home by including NYC and Brooklyn landmarks. One 7th grader commented, “When you’re connected to nature, you’re connected to yourself.” We painted the images on polytab canvases, which were later installed on four pillars in the cafeteria—one pillar was dedicated to land, another to air, another to water, and the final one to the universe.

“We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson

^{Groundswell. Assisting artist: Dakotah West.}

SOAR

Lexington School for the Deaf, Queens 2023

The hands on the tree spell SOAR, an acronym for Safe, Open-minded, Accountable, Respectful—values promoted in Lexington’s curriculum. Murals were painted by 20 students in three classes. “What is important to you?” I asked an art class of eight high schoolers. “Friends,” was the first response. The school is a major hub in the Deaf community, but class sizes are small, which fosters strong camaraderie. The students love their school, represented by blue jays. “Communication,” is also very important—sign language, body language, facial expression.

^{Thrive Collective. Assisting artists: Loreto Oreckinto, Plushie Rios, Cas Savage}

At Home

Woodside NYCHA, Queens 2022

As an artist in the City Canvas program, I was assigned to create artwork for Woodside NYCHA houses. (See Pix11 news on this public art project) Fellow artists and I were also tasked with leading workshops, where community members had an opportunity to be creative. Workshop attendees helped conceptualize the artwork, which was printed on vinyl, then installed on one of the many long-standing scaffolds in their development. My piece explored the idea of home. Students from neighboring William Cullen Bryant high school were asked to describe home. Among the answers: where I sleep, difficult and hard, my family, where I can be by myself, where I think.

^{Art Bridge / City Canvas}

Design Your Future

South Bronx Community Charter High School, Bronx 2021

Seniors of South Bronx Community Charter High School partnered with Thrive Collective to create a mural celebrating their new building. We explored Afrofuturism, imagining a tomorrow built on the foundation of today.

The mural is divided in two by a column. The left side shows the vibrant present-day Bronx: buildings along the Grand Concourse, Yankee stadium, a tiger representing the Zoo, homelessness is acknowledged with the crumbling building. The right side shows the future: a phoenix, symbol of resilience, takes flight into a world filled with futuristic buildings and flying transportation. At the center of the mural is the new school, a launch pad for the student springing into the future. He is receiving the ball being passed on to him from the present, represented by Kevin, a student and a leader in the SBCCHS community who tragically passed away in 2020. The fire of the Bronx sun is reiterated in the basketball, the phoenix, and the crown. That fire—energy and passion—is carried throughout students’ journeys, from the Bronx to the beyond.

^{Thrive Collective. In collaboration w/ Fermin Mendoza. Assisting artists: Jodi Dareal, Lourdes Rojo, Emily Gooden.}

D Is 4 Diversity

PS/MS 279 2022

^{Thrive Collective. Assisting artists: Arantxa Rodriguez, Pips, Emily Gooden}

Faith, Hope, Love

Coney Island Gospel Assembly 2022

Thrive Collective is currently operating out of Coney Island Gospel Assembly. To wrap up last year’s mural season, Thrive artists were invited to paint their individual interpretations of “Faith, Hope, Love” on a couple semitrailers stationed in the church parking lot. It was a fun opportunity for us to experiment and practice new skills such as spray painting.

^{Thrive Collective.}