GTU in the Community
Bringing GTU, At-Risk Youth Together through Art
Some students, immersed in theory, history, and doctrine, long for the practical. Abigail “Abby” King Kaiser found her way out of the ivory tower last summer by working with Youth Spirit Artworks (YSA) — an interfaith non-profit organization for East Bay homeless and at-risk youth.
During a project with YSA for a class on “liberation art,” King Kaiser, a Pacific School of Religion M.Div. student concentrating in Art and Religion, found herself watching teenagers plan colorful painted murals on street side benches along Berkeley’s litter-strewn Adeline Street. What were they doing? She learned that YSA’s mission is to empower and transform the lives of at-risk youth, and in so doing build community and organize for social change through commercial art job training and communicating helpful information through public art. This year’s project theme is healthy living. The goal of painted messages on public benches such as “Drink H20” and “Violence is not the key,” is promoting health for body, mind, and community.
YSA’s founder and Executive Director Sally Hindman, modeled YSA after the successful youth commercial arts program in New Orleans, YAYA, which received international recognition for the quality of art created by its youth. Hindman trained in this work with the late Doug Adams, former director of GTU’s Center for the Arts, Religion, and Education (CARE). As a CARE faculty member, she teaches Saints and Prophets: Liberation Art.
King Kaiser found YSA’s mission and its programs compelling. She met a youth who told her she had never worked at art before and that in the process she had changed from being very shy to discovering her artistic gifts and sharing them.
While YSA strives to transform youths, King Kaiser, whose own mission is to be a pastor and artist for a congregation, found that just being present at YSA transformed her. “We learn a lot in graduate school about ministry,” she says. “But in large part, I believe so much of ministry is about presence. Getting involved in a ministry or social organization puts theory to practice.”
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| Sally Hindman with YSA artists |
And get involved she did. Last summer King Kaiser took on a project with CARE in which she explored the mutual benefits to students, the GTU, and YSA in a partnership between CARE and YSA. What she proposes in a concept paper is that students in Art and Religion can get valuable practical experience in working with YSA as well as helping YSA staff and youth. “We learn so much, and we have the opportunity to give back. The gift of education is to be shared with others,” she says.
She’s referring not only to a partnership between CARE and YSA, but to potential partnerships between CARE and other organizations. The concept can extend to partnerships between other GTU areas and community organizations. The benefit to GTU? As the place where religion meets the world, these partnerships could fit well with GTU’s vision — preparing students to become leaders nurturing understanding, justice, and peace by pursuing new models for interreligious collaboration in teaching, research, ministry, and service.
King Kaiser ends her concept paper by paraphrasing the parable of the sower. She encourages CARE, YSA, and other community organizations to be, as partnerships, “fertile soil, free of obstacles and ready for cultivation.”