The Hold Up Hold On! Project 2019-2020

February 2020 painting session, Hold Up Hold On!

Hold Up Hold On! is a year-long public art. youth empowerment and mental health awareness project focused on building youth resilience and community engagement. Thanks to the KFW for funding me, and Berea middle and high schools as well as the Berea Arts Council for helping make it happen! Please see the slide shows below, documenting the project August 2019-June 2020.

Summary of HUHO!:
Photography and creative writing: Capturing the raw materials for our multi-paneled mural. We seek participants, primarily girls and teens, who are willing to have their hands photographed holding empowering objects, or objects that have strong meaning for them. We also need creative writing to begin layer one of our mural panels — prose, poetry, music lyrics, writing that inspires youth. (Fall 2019)

Tracing and drawing: Hand photographs will be chosen for composition and variety, opened in Photoshop, simplified and projected onto individual mural panels. A team of three-four senior high school and college aged young women assisted with this from September 2019 to March 2020.

Painting: Between January-March of 2020, several photography and preliminary painting sessions were held at Berea Community School, Foley Middle School, and Madison South High Schools.

Installation: The plan was to have Berea school administrators help secure venues for temporary and then a permanent installation in a public area where youth gather by June 2020. COVID-19 stalled those plans, but now I am working with the Berea Arts Council to secure a place to permanently install the HUHO! panels in downtown Berea, which have been exhibited in the arts council gallery windows since May of 2020.

PRELIMINARY DRAWING AND PAINTING, August-September 2019