With Love
Manny Vega, American painter, illustrator, printmaker, muralist, mosaicist, and #BuildLove banner designer
When people ask me “what do you want to be?” their assumption is that I want to be successful. But first and foremost, I want to be effective. If I’ve been effective, then I’ll know I was successful.
And in this case, where I’ve invited kids to paint and print on a large scale with me, I’m helping them to leave their mark on their community, and leaving my mark right along with them. That makes me effective and that makes me successful.
I’ve been painting and making art my whole life, but there is something so unique, so special, about an opportunity like this one, to make something that gives people hope. We want this banner to tell everyone who comes to this country, whether they come here from Latin America, or Europe, or wherever, that we are all one country, one family, filled with love. But that love doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. We have to work at it. We have to pursue it with the same determination as everything else that we want. We have to join together and build it.
I hope the banner makes that message clear, and I hope it inspires at least one person who passes it to do something differently in their day, to build a little more love that day, whatever that means to them.
—Manny Vega
#BuildLove is a project of East Harlem Tutorial Program, which has supported students to graduate college and realize their best possible selves through our network of community after-school programs and schools. Sign up here to get the latest EHTP news.
