By Julia Park
Teens gathered on a recent Wednesday afternoon in a small two-room art studio in South Seattle. The creative energy was tangible as they edited photos, broke out spontaneous moves on the dance floor and cracked jokes.
Before heading home, everyone gathered in the dance studio for a short pep talk and a reminder to stay safe as the weather gets colder.
These high school students are intern leaders at The Good Foot Arts Collective, an organization that seeks to help young people prevent violence in their community through arts education.
A five minute drive away, in the CULTURED studio, young people also gather to create art. Students can chat on giant fluffy bean bags rolled to the middle of the dance studio or go downstairs to the music production rooms, where they can rap, sing, record and mix audio.
The Good Foot and CULTURED are two nonprofit organizations giving South Seattle youth access to mentorship, community and safe spaces to talk about their mental health, in part, through the creation of art.
Creative Director Louie and Executive Director May Praseuth co-founded The Good Foot Arts Collective to bring the arts community together in 2005. Formerly a competitive B-boy or breaker, Louie has competed worldwide, worked with artists like Salt N Pepa, and has been featured in commercials for companies like Subaru, T-Mobile and Sony. His wife, May, has been a teaching artist in visual and mixed media art and hip-hop dance for over 15 years.
Staff and peer advocates with Good Foot Arts Collective partner with schools, including Franklin High School and Rainier Beach High School, to lead a curriculum called Creative Leaders Affirming Youth (CLAY) in health classes. Students learn how to respond to domestic violence through lessons on warning signs, sexual-assault education, gender stereotypes and other topics.
Students interested in getting more involved with the organization can sign up for Youth Collective and work on violence-prevention projects throughout the year. In a campaign called “NO Excuses,” the students led the design and development of educational flipbooks featuring language and characters relatable to their peers.
The best programs don’t feel like programs, though everything is planned strategically, Louie said. Creating a safe space for youth and building relationships with them is key.
“We don’t see people as programs or projects to fix or save,” Louie said. “It’s more like we really want to invite people to kind of partake and walk with them in life.”
“They make sure you prioritize mental health over everything, which is really good because it’s not really talked about,” said Youth Collective scholar Eden.
“It gives us a space to be able to speak up about the things that we go through and make it relatable for other people to feel less alone,” added Tomie, another scholar.
Program leaders asked that the students’ last names be withheld to protect their privacy.
For Mike Davis, founder of the Christian youth ministry CULTURED, reaching out to young people through art means cultivating a space for them to encounter God’s love.
Davis is also a music artist under the name Red.Culture. Growing up, he didn’t have the creative space to process challenges he was going through, he said. He wanted to give youth a way to tell their stories and process their emotions through art.
“It’s not just, ‘Hey, you know, sit here and tell me about your day’ or just regurgitate what happened to you when you were 12, you know, stuff like that,” Davis said. “This is just a way that they can creatively engage that space and repurpose that pain.”
Youth can also participate in monthly CULTURED nights hosted at their South Seattle studio, and use the space to work on projects after school.
The COVID-19 pandemic reduced the number of students coming to the CULTURED studio, Davis said. According to Steve Bury, president of the Rainier Valley-based nonprofit Urban Impact, the pandemic, limited funding and other factors have shuttered several youth programs run by churches and Christian organizations in recent years.
To address the drop in engagement, CULTURED is working on making their programs more mobile and accessible. Part of this means bringing their studio work to schools, including South Shore Middle School and Why Not You Academy, a charter school in Des Moines.
At Why Not You Academy, CULTURED is working with students to produce a music album. The idea behind the project, called PAINt, is that you can’t paint without pain, Davis said. Students are singing, recording, engineering audio, promoting the project on social media and working on other skills.
Rather than waiting for kids to come to you, you have to be out in the community, Davis said.
“For me, it wraps up into one phrase, you know,” Davis said. “Be present. And so that’s really where we’re going.”