2014 recreatenewsletter

8/10/2019 2014 ReCreateNewsletter

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This past year has been lled withmany creative endeavours. It hasbeen great to witness the RE-createyouth artists taking ownership overthe studio and the community thatis forming here. In June we had an

Outdoor Pizza Fundraiser Evening(thanks to Tineke and Marcel Vander-hoeven), which many youth volun-teered at. The evening was a greatsuccess and a lot of fun for the youthas well as those who came out toenjoy the food and live music.

We have been busy creating art,exhibiting and throwing creative artevents, giving our youth many oppor-tunities to share their work with thecommunity. In April we put up a fullshow of artwork about our favouritesong lyrics at the Freeway Coffee-house. At the opening of “The LyricsShow” a few youth had the oppor-tunity to sing and play music. A fewweeks later we showcased art madefrom alteredbooks at theHamilton PublicLibrary. We par-ticipated in theSteel City BikeFestival in June,with a number ofyouth artists sub-mitting pieces

to a larger Bike Art show at theBaltimore House.Throughout Julyand August ouryouth createdsubmissionsfor The Living

Rock’s ‘Arts of August’ showcase.In August, we received a $500 pop-upgrant from The Laidlaw Foundation,a grant designed to bring summerfun to people who usually are exclud-ed from it because of poverty. Wedecided to host a barbeque with a tie-dye t-shirt making station, an eventdreamt up by one of the youth ayear ago. The youth worked hard thewhole day of the event, making food,

setting up, taking photos, and leadingthe tie-dye station. It was a lot of fun,and over 25 youth came and tookpart in the event, dying 50 t-shirts bythe end of the night!

This summer began the rst of athree-year research project that looksat youth resilience, done in partner-ship with the Resilience ResearchCentre at Dalhousie University. Wesuccessfully proled 6 youth, spend-ing the whole day with them to nd

out where in the city they felt theybelonged, or didn’t belong. There willbe more opportunities for our youth togrow and learn in the coming months,as we have received another Laidlawgrant to run a 9 month program, “The

Sights and Sounds of Where WeBelong,” that will let youth respondto the above-mentioned researchthrough song, audio and visual art.Keep your eyes on our Facebookpage (REcreate Meghan) this springfor the announcement about when‘Sights and Sounds’ is coming to an

Art Crawl near you!

Supercrawl is a large arts and music

festival that happens every Septem-ber in Hamilton, a spin-off on themonthly art crawls that have played apart in revitalizing Hamilton’s down-town core. For the past two yearswe’ve engaged the public on thestreet throughout the festival, andthis year was no exception. KristinaJidkova and Natalie Vanderveen, Re-deemer University College students,came up with a collaborative sculp-ture based on the theme “RE-createYour Hamilton.” They created the sky-

line of Hamilton out of chicken wireand then invited the public to writetheir dreams, hopes and prayers forHamilton on strips of fabric. Thesestrips were then woven into theskyline, turning barren chicken wire

life in thestudio

a newsletter for friends and supporters of RE-create | December 2013

R E - c r e a t e i s a p r o g r a m o f

S h a l e m M e n t a l H e a l t h N e t w o r k

a newsletter for friends and supporters of RE-create | November 2014

R E - c r e a t e i s a p r o g r a m o f

S h a l e m M e n t a l H e a l t h N e t w o r k



resilience is aliveand thriving! Brett Klassen, RE-create Summer Student

“Resilient” is not a word that peoplereadily associate with at-risk youth.However, this summer I was hired asRE-create’s summer student and sawrst hand that it is one of the mostaccurate words to describe at-riskyouth. Through pregnancy, school, job-searching, parenting, working, talkingtheir friends out of suicide or w hateverhappens to be pressing at them thatday, these youth show incrediblestrength while working toward healthylives.

As part of RE-create’s partnershipwith the Resilience Research Centre,Meghan and I lmed 6 youth for 6-8hours each as they shared and invited

us into spaces and places they felt theybelonged or did not belong in the city ofHamilton. The footage for each youthwas then edited down to 15-20 minutevideos, which the youth then watchedand offered their reections. We arevery thankful for their willingness to beopen and vulnerable and allow us aglimpse into their lives.

It is to this research that the youth will

be responding with our new ‘Sightsand Sounds of Where We Belong’

project, thanks to a Laidlaw Foundationgrant. For this project the youth willbe combining visual and sound artto show the community, communityleaders and politicians where they feelunwelcome or welcome. This grantallows me the opportunity to extend myrole at RE-create as I will be teachinghow to create music and sound artusing sounds from the spaces we arefocusing on. I will be able to use my

expertise as a sound and eld reartist. Already during studio time

been teaching a few youth how tmake use of the digital audio prowe have on laptops at the studioyouth and I are very excited to crpieces that speak to their view ofcity and affect positive change.

Brett Klassen is currently attending Mc

in the Humanities program and will con

be involved with RE-create in its “Sigh

Sounds of Where We Belong” Project.

buttons - a gateway tocreativity Twice a week I get to walk around downtown Hamilton talkingto youth about all the creative opportunities offered at RE-Create. I must confess that it is not always easy to convinceyouth who are complete strangers to come and try somethingnew, but I have an ace up my sleeve. It is our custom buttonpress. I tell the youth about the drawing supplies, the canvas,and all the other interesting projects but nothing sparks a newyouth’s interest like the possibility of getting to make a custombutton. During outreach walks I wear a name tag button thatI made in the studio, and I point to it and say “You can makeyour own buttons!” It is always a great feeling to see theseyouth make their way to the studio an hour later, asking tolearn to make buttons.

Even someone who has never considered themselves a visualartist can draw or collage a cool button. Some youth have eventaken photos of their family and created beautiful tributes totheir family and heritage. Buttons also foster generosity. I’ve

heard youth say they want to make a button for their frieteacher, dad, or sister.

The most beautiful part of the button maker is that thecreativity doesn’t stop there. A youth might tell me on outhat they don’t do art, but they come anyways to make sbuttons. They do that for about a week and the whole timthey get to see other youth working on paintings, sculptuand collages, and before you know it this youth “who dodo art” is staring at some really big creative projects, gettheir hands dirty with paint, plaster, and paste, creating town original masterpiece. In the end they found out thatwere more of an artist then they had given themselves cfor, and it all started with alittle custom button.

Since January 2014 Randy

Neudorf has been RE-

create’s outreach worker.

He comes with years of

experience working with at-

risk youth and as an artist.

spot light on a youth artist Tiff is a youth artist who has been coming regularly to studiotime since February. She rst found out about RE-createwhen she met Meghan doing outreach at Notre Dame youthshelter, and nally came after Meghan pestered her contin-ually to come. She kept coming back to studio time becauseshe “liked doing art, socializing and making people laugh,”and it was a place where people were friendly. Tiff is knownn the studio for her deadpan humour, and for lling in thesign-in sheet in with all kinds of ridiculous names.

The aspects of RE-create that she likes the most are makingart, the people she gets to spend time with in the studio, andthat the studio is a place where she can really be herself. Sheexpresses how art making and her time at RE-create hashad a positive effect on her life in that it has “shown peopleand myself what I’m capable of doing and accomplishing.”She says that when she makes art in the studio it gives her

a chance to be herself, and that she really likes how no one judges her, or the art that she makes, while she’s at RE-cre-ate.

She describes RE-create as “a place where you can be your-

self, where you can

put your whole life,

past, present and

future, on canvasand paper. It’s also a

place where you can

make new friends

or acquaintances.”

We’re grateful for

the lightness that Tiff

brings to the studio,

with her humour,

reection and mean-

ing-lled art pieces.

into a colorful tapestry.

Once again this fall we have embarkedon a joint art project with Hamilton Dis-trict Christian High School’s (HDCH)senior art class. The youth at RE-cre-ate work collaboratively with HDCHto come up with a theme to work on,and then all make artwork that hangstogether in the nal exhibit duringNovember’s Art Crawl (November 14).Throughout the project HDCH studentscome down to visit RE-create, andRE-create youth go up to HDCH towork in the art room at the school. As

in previous years we anticipate thatthis nal exhibit will be excellent, andinspire cross-cultural friendships andconnections.

It has also been a pleasure to forgemore community at RE-create throughconversations over coffee and art-mak-ing, celebrating birthdays and mealsshared together. This year we cele-brated Thanksgiving in the studio witha Swiss Chalet feast and lots of appleand pumpkin pie. We took a moment towrite down what we were thankful for,and to relax together in the studio for

an evening. It was a great chance foryouth new to the studio to experienceour hospitality and generosity, and alsoa chance for more seasoned youth tofeel at homein the space.We hope todo more ofthese meals,in addition tothe communitybuilding thathappens each

time the studiodoors are open.

handle with care Randy Neudorf, RE-create Youth Outreach Worker

Every year a number of youth organ-izations contribute to a summer art

exhibit called Arts of August, submit-ting pieces based on themes of Love,Equality, Culture and Peace. A numberof RE-create youth rose to the chal-

lenge. We were working in plasterand created mummied sculpturesof our hands. Some youth createdpeace symbols, and others sculpt-ed hands doing sign language. Oneyouth named Marie took this project to“heart.” She created a hand holding arealistic medical heart. Both the handand the heart were sculpted and paint-ed separately and then the heart wasgently tted into the plaster hand. Thehand was stark white and the heartwas blood red with veins and arteriespainted in a stark black. Weeks andweeks were spent working to get thispiece done in time for the show. With

honest candour Marie revealed thatshe hasn’t always taken good care ofherself and she has done some thingsthat were very harmful. She is mov-

ing past that darkness and made thissculpture to remind herself that sheneeds to handle her heart with care,that she needs to learn to love andtake care of herself. It is a risky thingfor an artist to expose their life story intheir work but the resulting piece wasspectacular. The Arts of August judgesmust have agreed because theyawarded Marie rst place in the LoveCategory. Thank you so much Mariefor having a brave and bold heart fortelling your story and expressing sucha profound truth. Everyone needs tohandle their own hearts and the heartsof those around them with great care.

Meghan Schuurman

Studio Coordinator



how you can helppartner with us to impact the lives ofstreet-involved youth

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I would like to give:

$150 $100 $50 $25 OtherI can make this donation on a

monthly yearly one time basis.

I would like to donate items such as:gift certicates to art supply stores, foodvouchers, furniture for the new studiospace, etc.

Please make cheques payable to RE-create Outreach Art Studio.

RE-create is a program of Shalem Mental Health Network.

All donations over $10 will receive a chari table receipt.

BN 13056 6011 RR0001

Mail to:

RE-create | 1 Young Street Suite 512 | Hamilton, ON L8N 1T8

Or donate online at www.shalemnetwork.org

artistic director

RE-create is a special,almost magical space. Thisuniqueness comes from

more than the fact that one enters thestudio not through door 126 or 128 JamesStreet North, but rather through the door inbetween, 126 ½, something akin to Plat-form 9 ¾. The doorway is not always easilynoticed by those walking by but for thosewho know the door, they know that it leadsto another world - a creative, safe and invit-ing space. To all who enter an invitation toimagine is extended. RE-create is a spacebrimming with creativity and potential. Itis not that those of us at RE-create are

nished masterpieces, all nicely polishedand perfect. Rather, we are all works inprogress with unnished edges. We are acommunity of people-in-progress connect-ed by a desire to create, to imagine and toshare our stories.

In the studio not all stories are spoken:rather in the art and in our very presencewe provide opportunity for stories to be re-leased in ways that escape words. RE-cre-ate is a place where shared stories are hon-oured. It is a place where people can comeand rediscover that their worthiness livesinside their story. It is in the sharing of ourlives, our stories, that we co-create storiesand gain a sense of belonging and com-munity. Threads of narrative swirl aroundthe studio, some pieces shared by many,others by just one or two people and other

threads offer new possibilities to someowho was feeling without hope.

Together we open up space, discover psibilities and plant seeds for new narratpossibilities – that there can be a new safe place to live, clarity to see that therelationship we are in is not healthy, anability to see ourselves returning to schan ability to volunteer at a soup truck, tpotential to create. It is in the sharing o

our stories that lives become intertwineWe celebrate the graduation of youth frhigh school, we welcome a new life bora youth, we celebrate the wedding of ostudio coordinator, we celebrate a new we support one another in our pain andanxieties and we encourage people to adding to their stories. Together we co-ate our stories, weaving in hope, possibties and always, endless imagination.

Betty J.B. Brouwer

Thank you! RE-create is thankful for the generosity of ourmany volunteers, local agencies and fundersboth corporate and personal who enableRE-create to offer the depth of programmingthat it does. Once again we would like to thank

Turkstra Lumber for inviting us to participate in

their Friday Charity Barbeques held throughoutthe summer. The proceeds from the BBQs goesdirectly to RE-create programming and supplies.We also are thankful to Tieneke and MarcelVanderhoeven for opening their place and pizzaovens for our Pizza Fundraising Evening. Weappreciate the partnership we have with ArtForms that provides us with a great studio spacefrom which to operate creative art-making. Weappreciate the support we receive from funders,such as World Vision Canadian Programs, Laid-law Grants, as well as the many individuals andcorporate donors that continue to support all thecreative endeavours that take place at RE-cre-ate. It certainly takes a community of supportersto be able to run RE-create!

2014 recreatenewsletter

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