YOUTH IN RURAL International COMMUNITIES
One of the most amazing facts of community mural work is the connection the wall makes to the youth on the very first brush stroke. Kids love giant murals. They just do. Adults love giant murals. They just do. Maybe it is something about colouring on the wall when you are not supposed to, I am not sure: but to this day after all those steps and all that scaffold climbing, I still reach to the wall like a child would. I tilt my head and I look up and I smile. Then I pick up my paint and I am free. The girl is the photo was a shy girl, she had left her family in South Africa and she was having challenges finding her way. She approached me so quietly and with her eager smile we became very close friends. The troubles she was having melted into the paint and we found how to tangle the spaghetti issues that were worrying her. Through this meeting on a very hot tarmac in a school playground in Australia, she found a path to untangle her life and find a way to ask for what she needed. Yea, we all carry tangled spaghetti in our brains…troubles that seem to knotted to find a way. I think she untangled as much for me as I did for her. I will never forget her smile and her hug when the Mural was done.
ARTIST MICHELLE LOUGHERY 