ProjectArt: Changing Lives One Paintbrush at a Time
How One Man Who Was Expelled for Doodling is Bringing Art Back to Children
By Mae Velasco, HeroFuel® Reporter
Armored with nothing but a single bag of art supplies, Adarsh Alphons began the battle of a lifetime in a stuffy, borrowed office space on a hot, Harlem summer day. He set out on a mission to put paintbrushes — opportunities — into the hands of as many children as he could.
In a country that seemingly continues to devalue art and human expression, evident in the fact that nearly three in 10 public schools don’t have a full-time arts teacher because art programs are usually the first to go as a result of budget cuts, Alphons began his campaign against what he calls the national arts education crisis.
He knows art isn’t just recreation. Art is eye-opening, it is healing and it is empowering. Above all, art is life-changing.
Through his nonprofit called ProjectArt, which provides free art classes, he has changed the lives of almost a thousand kids. By the end of 2016, it will be at least 1,400.
And it all began with him getting expelled from doodling too much in class.
“I was a little kid. I think I was seven years old,” Alphons said.
Growing up in India had been a constant state of instability. His family moved from one part of the country to another, and with each different region came different dialects — more than 25 official languages, to be exact. It was hard for him to keep up.
“It became really tricky for me because I didn’t know the local language, and I couldn’t cope,” he said. “I didn’t know what the teachers were saying in class. I had a really hard time sort of focusing, so what I did was I just drew and painted.”
Naturally, his teachers weren’t very happy. His affinity for painting in math, science and English was not something they exactly celebrated, especially because he was attending a strict Catholic school.
He didn’t fit the mold. Pretty soon, the principal asked his parents to pick him up and for him to never come back. Alphons entered a new school with the same old habits. His new principal, who he described to HeroFuel® as someone who knew everything about everyone at her school, was quick to notice.
“Over there I got in trouble again, but she had a very different approach on it,” Alphons said.
She told him, it’s okay, Adarsh, keep drawing and painting, but keep studying, too. She encouraged him to draw on the walls of each class, to paint the whole school.
“I kept drawing more, studying more. My studies became better. I began to feel more validated. Things just took off. I felt like I wasn’t a crazy, outcast kid anymore,” he said.
Three years later, Nelson Mandela had been elected President of South Africa and was on route to visit India. Alphons, who was a big fan, had made a drawing of him based on a magazine cover. His father suggested he show it to his principal, who then suggested he tag along with her to one of Mandela’s visits. The rest is history.
“From being an outcast in school and being told I couldn’t be taught, to now presenting my handiwork to one of the greatest human beings who has ever lived, this would have never happened if I had stopped drawing,” Alphons said.
By the time he was 15, he had painted portraits for Mother Teresa and a Vatican painting for Pope John Paul II.
Fast forward to 2011, Alphons was an artist in New York, part of a for-pay children’s program that was steadily failing due to financial struggles.
“It literally stopped in the middle of the semester, locked its doors,” Alphons said.
He thought of the children and their families, the youth struggling in the streets and schools of Harlem, the kids he knew who could be saved by art, the same way he was.
Alphons called around, found an office space to use a few hours a day during the summer and got in touch with a few of the families he loved to work with.
About 10 kids showed up the first day, and though Alphons thought he only had one bag of art supplies to offer, he ended up giving those kids so much more. Friends rallied with him as fellow art teachers, parents supported his cause as volunteers and kids became students and budding artists.
“I was mortally terrified. I just made the most nonsensical solution in my life. But it felt right,” Alphons said, recalling the first few days, knowing he was struggling himself, having to wash dishes and make crepes on the Upper West Side in order to live.
“For at least the first two-and-a-half years, I didn’t know if it was going to work out at all. Even though it didn’t make sense financially, I had to wake up every day wanting to make it happen,” he said.
In the last five years, ProjectArt thrived on the passion and generosity of the people who believed in the power of art. People have donated their time, funds and resources, and kids have enjoyed free classes at public libraries. The same children who were jaded and who felt trapped by the cards circumstances in life dealt them were now showcasing their work proudly to their loved ones on gallery walls.
But the impact of ProjectArt doesn’t stop in New York city lines. The project will soon be expanding to Miami and Detroit, and more kids will have the ability to chase their dreams and discover the strength that lies within them.
“All of these things happened because someone said just because you draw, it doesn’t mean you’re crazy. Everyone just learns in different ways,” Alphons said.
Changing the tide in the national arts education crisis will take a mighty, unified force, but thanks to ProjectArt painting a bigger picture on education reform, it’s happening one brush stroke at a time. ProjectArt is truly a work of art and a masterpiece waiting to unfold.
To learn more about how you can help, visit their website here.
