Express Yourself

Some 50 people -- mostly children and their parents -- sat expectantly in the meeting room at the Sojourners Neighborhood Center. The object of their interest was hidden under a sheet.

After a brief ceremony came the long-awaited moment -- the unveiling of the mural created by the children in the center's summer program. From under the sheet emerged tenements, trees, stars, a polka-dotted butterfly, balloons, and a saxophone playing a rainbow -- along with a variety of other objects painted in bold colors across huge sheets of plywood.

The mural was the perfect climax to the summer program, whose theme was "Express Yourself. " It began as an idea with program director Rob Soley, who learned of a grant in honor of a former art supervisor of DC public schools, available from Bethesda, Maryland's Trinity Presbyterian Church.

With the grant, the center hired artist Linda DeGraf to guide and implement the project. The children saw a video about making murals, visited other murals in the city, and practiced drawing shadow pictures of themselves in preparation.

They talked about art as something that emerges from each person's mind and heart, and decided to make a mural that was entirely their own creation. No Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. No Bart Simpson or Batman. They set out to create a collage of all their own ideas, based on their observations of life in the neighborhood of Columbia Heights. They decided unanimously that they wanted this to be an upbeat depiction of life in the neighborhood that is their home -- no car crashes, no drug deals, no guns.

They brainstormed a long list of ideas, and then each child drew their contribution on paper. They formed into teams of four, and each team fit their various drawings together and transferred them onto one panel of the mural. Then these panels were fit together to create the whole picture.

TWO STICKY DAYS in August, the children painted. Donning large old shirts bought for 40 cents each from the local thrift store, they mixed colors, swept broad strokes on the wood, and then, noses to the canvas, lingered over the intricate details.

I asked Jeremiah Baker, 10, as he was putting the finishing touches on a soccer ball, why he had decided to participate in the project. "Because I thought it would be fun, " he said. "And is it?" I asked. "Yeah, " he said, grinning.

What emerged was indeed a work of art. Murmurs went around at the end of the second day as the children stepped back and examined their work -- things like, "We didn't think we could do it, but we did, " and "We did it because we worked together. " It was a day to be proud.

Even The Washington Post noted the accomplishment with a front-page article in the "District Weekly" section and color pictures. The day after the article came out, I saw Torrie Boozer, 11, who had appeared kneeling in front of her part of the mural. "How does it feel to be famous?" I asked her. She just beamed a broad smile.

The mural now hangs on the side of the Sojourners Neighborhood Center. And there it will stay -- as a perpetual reminder of the creativity and joy of the children of Columbia Heights.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.