Carpinteria Youth Express Their Creativity with Mural Project

Carpinteria’s youth bridges positivity through art as the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center once again held its 13th annual Teen Mural Project and Collaborative Mural Painting this summer for local youth, ages 11-19. 

This ambitious project is broken into two parts: a collaborative one-day event where young artists create one large mural together, and another where each teen takes home one square panel to create on and bring back a month later to be a part of a larger grid. Both murals are on display at the Arts Center’s Koch Courtyard year-round. This year’s Teen Mural Project theme was “Community: With A Little Help From My Friends.” 

Janey Cohen, one of the main organizers of these events, explained some of the project’s background. Initially, Carpinteria artist John Wullbrandt and community members Marybeth and Geri Carty picked up the project from Carp Cares for Youth in 2012, hoping to engage young teens in Carpinteria in the arts. Cohen, a valued member of the Arts Center program committee, which organizes education programs, joined the team in 2014. 

“My primary role is to organize with a group of people the classes that we offer in the fall, spring, and summer. I am also involved in the summer camp program and anything that has to do with education. We have a program of inclusivity that we’re working on, where we’re hoping to get people of different abilities involved,” Cohen said. 

“The Teen Mural falls under our free education programs that we offer. We have sponsors for this program, so we don’t have to charge anything for this. The City of Carpinteria, Carpinteria Beautiful, Carpinteria Women’s Club, and Megan Isaac (Slingshot Studio Artist) provide funds, so we are able to buy materials and provide free lunch on the in-person painting day for the kids. We generally have about 45 participants in this program yearly (including both the in-person event and take-home panel project),” she added.

The Teen Mural Project and Collaborative Mural Painting is a space to encourage young people to pursue the arts and whichever topics interest them. “I hope that we are nurturing the young artists and that some of them are going to grow up and become the future artists of our community. I hope they’re feeling inspired and that art is accessible to them,” Cohen said. “For me, the most special part of this project is that we ask them to write an artist statement. I don’t know how many of the artists who contribute to this realize that every single day, people stop by the Arts Center and spend 20-30 minutes standing in front of the mural, admiring it, reading the statements, and thinking about how profound these pieces of work really are. It’s quite a significant piece of artwork in our community, and I love that.”

In July, the teen participants brought back their finished panels for the Teen Mural Project and spoke with the organizers about their creative process. Cohen said that with these pieces, “there is an undercurrent of awareness that there has been heartbreak in our community due to the ICE raids, and yet, every single panel that addresses that has addressed it in some sort of positive way. … You can read their statements when visiting the mural, and the statements mention how we’re a strong community, and we need to support people with love.” 

Cohen believes that, “young people have a way of seeing the positive and embracing things with love instead of anger and hatred, and it’s so inspiring.”

In terms of this year’s theme, Cohen said, “We’ve been doing this for a number of years, and I was looking back at the names of the themes, and three or four different times, the theme has reflected on a Beatles tune, like ‘In My Life’ and ‘Imagine.’ I guess we all really liked the Beatles.” For this year’s Fab Four–inspired theme, “the idea of ‘Community’ came up, but the subtitle of ‘With a Little Help From My Friends,’ was attached afterwards. We loved the idea of ‘Community’ because it’s a broad brushstroke: it can go anywhere. We knew that young people could run with that and take it in any direction they wanted to.” 

“Amaya, age 14, collaged the Coastal View News onto her piece, painted blue over it, and then painted butterflies to represent migrants calling to support the migrants in our community. I was so moved by reading about that,” Cohen said. “Emma, age 13, is another one; she’s finally found her home in the theater and created a piece about that. She spent so much effort painting that panel with different scenes of the theater. I think that’s a beautiful expression of community that not everybody finds, and that she found it at 13 is wonderful. Another one I thought was interesting was titled ‘Our Beach,’ by Nolan, age 14. It’s a beautiful painting of the beach. This young man explained that this is the beach his family goes to. For him, his family is his community, and that’s a beautiful expression of community as well.”

Cohen said that the Arts Center Teen Mural team’s “whole approach to art is so important, and it is their philosophy of supporting the young artists that has kept this mural going.” The Teen Mural board includes Wubrandt, who has been involved since the Teen Mural Project’s inception, local mom Anna Bradley, and Lana Ziegler, Program Coordinator.

The official unveiling of the Teen Mural Project is on September 28 from 2-3:30 p.m., and the student artists are invited to celebrate their work. Merchandise with the mural on it will be sold at the event, and everyone is welcome to come support the art center. The Arts Center (865 Linden Avenue, Carpinteria) welcomes everyone to stop by before then as well, since both murals are completed and are on display. To learn more about the Lynda Fairly Arts Center Teen Mural Project and Collaborative Mural Painting, visit carpinteriaartscenter.org/pro/teenmural.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated to correct the age of the artist Nolan, who is 14 years old, not 4 as originally reported.