Community artists put ‘Hope’ on canvas to help homeless in Anaheim
ANAHEIM — Nearly 100 volunteers armed with acrylics and paint brushes dispersed throughout the Muzeo’s Carnegie Plaza early Saturday morning, Jan. 26, to paint “Hope” onto canvases as part of the museum and city of Anaheim’s first Community Art Day.
City spokeswoman Erin Ryan said the event, a partnership with The Salvation Army, came out of a desire to have art to display at Anaheim’s temporary homeless shelters.
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“These are places where people have access to services or are getting resources that they didn’t have readily before,” Ryan said. “We are trying to make this transition out of homelessness onto a pathway of recovery, employment and housing stability as comfortable and easy as possible. Part of that is having murals and art because that adds to this process.”
The theme of the event was “Hope.” Capt. Nesan Kistan, divisional secretary for the Salvation Army’s Orange County branch, described hope as the “foundation” for people to find purpose and face their futures.
“Art actually helps people to look at what can be — it gives them that opportunity to open their minds to possibly see what lies on the other side of the horizon,” Kistan said. “Some people will come in very full of despair and hopelessness. The challenges that they have been weighed under seem overwhelming. But here, we see art which is like a key which opens and unlocks the doors to people’s hearts and souls.”
Artwork created Saturday primarily will be placed at a temporary homeless shelter run by The Salvation Army which is scheduled to open Thursday. Additional pieces may be allocated to the Bridges at Kraemer Place Homeless Shelter, which is operated by the nonprofit Mercy House.
Anaheim city councilman Stephen Faessel, who is a Muzeo board member and whose district the new shelter will be housed in, said he was pleased with the turnout of the community.
“Here, everybody is coming together,” he said. “The amount of positive energy here, I’m fascinated by the children, the moms, the dads. Everybody here is here working. We have kids painting, grandmas painting, moms painting. It’s wonderful. This is community with a capital C.”
Nimmi Nagemthiram, 69, of Anaheim, came to Community Art Day with friend and co-worker Polly Murata, 59, of Yorba Linda. Nagemthiram said she considers herself more “right-brained,” than artistic, but felt the event was a good opportunity to do something “creative” and give back to the community.
“I think it’s so great,” Murata added. “It’s collaboration and everyone can be a part of that. It doesn’t have to be some billionaire philanthropist that only has the means to change things, but it can be any person that wants to care.”
Jannel Vargas, 25, from Santa Ana, created a painting depicting an angel holding a heart, which she said she associates with the concept of hope.
“There’s this one poem, ‘Hope is the Thing with Feathers’ by Emily Dickinson,” Vargas said. “I guess in a sense of hope, what I believe a lot, is the first verse of the poem. ‘Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.’
“I guess it’s like, just, that little glimmer that you continue to pursue.”