See Beautiful Grant Applicant: Paint Love

The feature below is brought to you by Paint Love, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about our giving initiatives, please click here.
 
To learn more about the featured organization, please visit their website here.

PAINT LOVE’S MISSION + WORK

Paint Love brings extraordinary arts programming to youth facing trauma. Since 2014, we have served over 11,000 young people, working with over 45 community partners in the Atlanta area, over 65 local artists, and thousands of volunteers. Art is our vehicle, but the soul of our work is showing children that their voice matters, their ideas are important, and their actions can make a difference in shaping the future.

VISION + EQUITY

Paint Love envisions a world where all young people have access to creative opportunities and resources that empower them to imagine and create a future not limited by adverse experiences.  And yet, we recognize that the ability to imagine a future at all is something many of the children we serve do not have the luxury of. 

While Adverse Childhood Experiences (also known as ACEs)  impact over 35 million youth of all colors, it is Black children, who in addition to the arts, have the least access to quality education, housing, community and health resources. In Atlanta, our home, and a city with a bold history of civil rights leadership, 76% of Black children live in high- poverty areas, compared to 6% of white children (2019 Annie E. Casey Foundation report). It is also Black and brown children who are being disproportionately impacted by school closures, and falling behind academically.

The fight for equity is personal to us. Paint Love’s vision is inherently tied up in the fight for equity because poverty and trauma are both deeply steeped in issues of race and accessibility. Art is a powerful tool in this work because creativity is about honoring identity and empowering expression, imagination and voice- and these things are essential for both dreaming up big ideas and thinking outside pre-existing structures to bring them to life.

WHAT IS TRAUMA?

Trauma is the outcome of a negative event (or prolonged state of being) that overwhelms one’s coping skills. It can be caused by lots of different things and an experience that results in trauma for one person may not have the same impact on someone else with a similar experience. Many of the children we serve have experienced incredibly tough life circumstances such as neglect, trafficking, or homelessness. But trauma extends beyond  abuse. Trauma can be caused by illness, loss, witnessing an event, racism, oppression, warfare, transiency, and poverty.

THE PANDEMIC

The isolation, loss, and fear of the pandemic compounded with the rise of racially-charged social change has also had a profound effect on youth. Our audience of children and communities caring for children coping with toxic stress and trauma has grown more than we ever could have imagined.

IMAGINATION + TRAUMA

Bessel Van der Kolk, an expert on trauma, writes: “trauma robs people of the imagination they need to create something better.” It sends bodies into survival mode.

To the growing mind, trauma reshapes brain development - creating difficulty in regulation because the lower brain is focused on survival. The amygdala fires and continually sends the body into Fight, Flight or Freeze mode. Imagination is incredibly important in disrupting this pattern.

Imagination is how we build and interpret the world. Our culture, experiences, and environment all shape our imagination. The words we say to ourselves, the beliefs (whether true or untrue) we carry, the media we ingest all shape it and thus shape our ability to see a different path forward- both personally and in our communities.

WHY IT MATTERS

Paint Love programs bring opportunities for developing imagination that help young people dream up a more beautiful future, creative thinking skills that can help them bring that future to life, experience the joy of messy art projects and working collaboratively, and exposure to a diverse array of professional artists that expose them to new skills, new ways of thinking, and even new potential career paths. In the face of the world forever changed by the pandemic and continually shifting in the search for justice and peace, there is a never before seen focus on creative ways to support kids and help them see hope and create a better path forward. Paint Love provides resources to empower kids and communities tackling these big challenge- including emotional regulation techniques,  movement and many forms of expression.

Art provides an invaluable tool in this mission and is itself essential in the movement of social change. Whether it is protest signs or window displays, stories shared on social media or addressing a national platform, dance or music created from pain or joy, creative expression can expose reality, shift viewpoints, motivate movement, and enact change. There has never been social change throughout history that did not depend on dreamers and creative minds to imagine a new way of being, artists to illuminate the path so that others could see the possibilities of a different future, and bold creators to build systems and usher in a new era of existing.

END NOTE
Understanding trauma, and knowing some of the ways it can manifest (like behavioral issues), helps us strive to follow some best practices for serving kids. Individuals are more than their trauma, and the kids we serve are still just kids. It’s helpful to understand the ways trauma and stress can impact developing brains, but it’s even more important to remember that the kids we serve want the same things any other kid wants — to be loved, seen, and accepted for who they are, and to have fun. 

Submitted by Laura Shaw

Executive Director, Paint Love