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| The Power of Art on Hollywood Kids |
| Published on 04-15-2006 | Email To Friend Print Version
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[from Hollywood Indpendent]
Movers: Open art advocate is confident exposure to arts can inspire at-risk youth. Can the arts turn around the lives of disadvantaged youth the way it touches the lives of art lovers and collectors? Dylan Kendall thinks it can.
The Power of Art on Hollywood Youth
By ROSANNA MAH, The Independent Staff Writer
Movers: Open art advocate is confident exposure to arts can inspire at-risk youth.
Can the arts turn around the lives of disadvantaged children the way it touches the lives of art lovers and collectors? Dylan Kendall, a professional artist who was trained in England, thinks it can.
Kendall, whose new Hollywood nonprofit introducing art to at-risk youth will open this summer, believes in the power of the arts to inspire disadvantaged youth to turn their lives around for the better.
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“Basically these kids have gone through a lot of trauma, and I believe 100 percent that until that trauma is dealt with ... they have no future,” says Kendall, who also co-founded the Open Museum of Los Angeles.
That program is an alternative museum organization designed to involve community participants in the exhibition process and to create more accessible and inclusive museum exhibitions.
Earlier this year, she created Hollywood Arts, which with its 2,000-square-foot facility next to the historic Louis B. Mayer Building at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue.
Officials with the fledgling nonprofit located at 1671 N. Western Ave. hope that renovations will be completed in time for 10-week classes that are scheduled to begin late summer with dance, music, theater and ceramic classes to at-risk and homeless youth.
“It is the arts,” says Kendall, “that will provide one of the most immediate access points for this [turnaround] to happen.”
According to Kendall, courses will cater primarily to 14-to-21 year olds and that she is networking with area social service and community agencies to help youths find entry-level positions in the Los Angeles film and television industry.
The facility will include rooms for music, dance, theater, painting and ceramics classes as well as lessons in a 400-square-foot recording studio.
“We all interact with the arts everyday in our lives. When we are sad, we turn on a great song, we dance, we read a great book or we sketch. We have creative experiences all day long. To me it’s one of our fundamental survival mechanisms in life,” says the 36-year-old West Hollywood resident, explaining the philosophy of her organization. “
“First thing we do is get them emotionally balanced and healthy. We just get them to like themselves. That is the buzz word for me. The other thing is we teach them real life skills. We teach them how to communicate, think critically and constructively. These are skills they are going need to get a job and that will help them be better employees and become more functioning adults.”
Officials hope that individuals or corporate givers will pony up donations that range anywhere from a $5 paintbrush to buying a year’s worth of music, dance and drawing lessons for a group of 10 children at a whopping $16,000 price tag, according to their Web site. The nonprofit’s first fundraiser is slated to take place in May.
“These teenagers are in a pretty black space,” said Kendall. “They’ve had a lot of turbulent history, they come from abusive families or no families, and they don’t have the same opportunities that we take for granted and so this center becomes a place for them to access to creativity and find ways for them to build a community of friends, mentors and supporters.”
For more information, please visit the Hollywood Arts Web site at www.hollywood-arts.org or call (323) 683-8678. |
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