True Colors Mural Project and Realm Charter School Presents:
FRESH START: True Color’s Interactive Mural at REALM School
True Colors Mural Project officially launched our Kickstarter campaign! Kickstarter is the largest website devoted to funding exciting and new creative projects, to raise funds for its newest mural project, entitled “Fresh Start”, at the Realm Charter School.
Kickstarter is a new inspiring way to fund various creative projects by providing sponsors with artistic incentives. Artists, Illustrators, Filmmakers, and many more have used this website to support projects like producing graphic novels, films, murals, and other forms of public related art.
The True Colors Mural Projects Kickstarter will offer sketches, blow up paintings, art cards, and shirts from previous murals as incentives for sponsorship, with prices ranges from $1-$500 dollars. The money from Kickstarter will be used to help buy supplies for the production of the mural that will be completed in June of 2012.
Juana Alicia Araiza, Director of TCMP, is working alongside Victor Diaz, Founder of Realm Charter School, to create a collaborative mural between the REALM middle and high school students and the students of Berkeley City College.
Realm Charter School is located in West Berkeley, and is designed to be a project-based, technology-rich learning environment that promotes critical and socially responsive perspectives. Students at Realm learn to think about the world as a set of interconnected systems that can be affected through rigorous studies and action, while learning to navigate and create complex information networks, virtual worlds, and immersive learning environments by utilizing emerging technologies. Through culturally relevant instruction and curricula, students will recognize and own their ability to shape our world and to better humanity. For more information, visit http://www.realmcharterschool.org/
The True Colors Mural Project supports the development of young artist activists for the improvement of the urban environment through the creation of public murals. The purpose of the murals is to both educate urban dwellers and beautify the urban environment with messages and images that support ecological sustainability, conservation and restoration. The project recruits, engages and employs under-served, at risk youth from Berkeley and the greater East Bay, in vital community environmental mural arts projects. True Colors trains young artists to design and create community murals with social and environmental justice themes. Recent mural projects include “Visions of Peace and Justice” at Inkworks Press, “Vivir Sin Fronteras/Living Without Borders” at Mi Tierra Foods Market in West Berkeley and “Collective Consciousness” at the PGE-YMCA Teen Center in downtown Berkeley. When completed, the Realm Charter School mural will be the 7th contribution TCMP has made to educating the streets and halls of Berkeley.
To support and donate to our campaign, please visit: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/juanaalicia/fresh-start-true-colors-interactive-mural-at-realm?ref=recently_launched
Support us in making Fresh Start get started!
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*Save the date – the Y Teen Center Mural inauguration will be on June 4*
4/26 – True Colors Murals in the Berkeley Times
The current True Colors Mural Project was featured in the Berkeley Times, Berkeley’s print only newspaper. The article details the murals upcoming efforts for Earth Day (tours on Thursday, April 28), the history and fundamentals of the class, and the environmentally conscience theme of this years mural.
This article can be found in the April 21, 2011 issue of the Berkeley Times. Below is a snippet of the article:
“Another breathtaking mural is emerging in Berkeley — this one, in the stairwell of the newly opened AMP Teen Center. And on Saturday as part of the City of Berkeley’s Earth Day celebrations [sic*], True Colors Mural Program, a group of artists from Berkeley City College, will be conducting ‘behind the curtain’ tours of the half painted mural for citizens and any one interested… Led by Juana Alicia Araiza of Berkeley City College, this mural is actually the being created as part of a popular class that she is teaching at the college. Last semester, students researched and designed the mural, which is now being painted on a west-facing wall of a stair well by this semester group of students — only five students enrolled for both sessions.”
*Tours will be held in conjunction with Peralta Colleges, not the City of Berkeley, on Thursday April 28, not on Saturday.
4/26 – True Colors Mural Naming Contest – You Can Win!
Deadline: May 5, 2011
Please submit the following information to truecolorsmurals@gmail.com.
- PROPOSED TITLE OF MURAL The name must be catchy, original and relevant to the vision and goals of True Colors mural project.
- BRIEF DESCRIPTION about the name in your submission.
- YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION in the case your name is chosen.
• You can submit as many names and descriptions as you wish.
• We reserve the right to disregard/ignore/revoke any submission.
• All submissions must be sent before Cinco de Mayo, May 5, 2011 at 11:59 PM•If someone submits a duplicate name, and that name is chosen, only the first person who submitted the name will be elected as the winner.
Awards:
- The author of the chosen name will receive a FREE blown up color poster of the mural
- The author will receive recognition and credit for having the chosen name selected.
- The author will receive a $50 Gift Certificate for BLICK Art store, Berkeley.
- The author will receive additional painting supplies.
- The author will receive a free True Color Mural shirt.
The True Colors Mural Project is sponsored by Berkeley City College and Earth Island Institute.
4/26 – Peralta College Celebrates Earth Day!
As environmental issues become the forefront of current issues, this topic is growing to be more relevant across disciplines. Environmental issues and justice are a present theme in our current mural at the YMCA Teen Center, a new building that also encompasses environmentally sustainable principles. Earth Day was officially on April 22, but Peralta Colleges will celebrate the day on Thursday, April 28 by holding an event to teach and inform students as well as community members about the environment and sustainability.
Details below and at SustainablePeralta.org.
“This Earth Day, the Peralta Colleges will salute the environment by doing what we do best at Peralta: teaching. On Thursday, April 28 Peralta is celebrating Earth Day by inviting faculty across the district and across all disciplines to dedicate their classroom teaching that day to themes relating to environmental sustainability, and if possible, opening their classrooms to class visitors.
In addition to this district-wide environmental teach-in, at Laney College from 11:30 to 2, we will have a Sustainable Peralta Culinary Cook-Off (where YOU will be one of the judges), live music, a mini farmers market, seed-planting, community partners with information tables, a community garden work party and estuary clean-up day. Come on down!
It’s possible for every one of us, no matter what classes we teach, to incorporate an ecological perspective in our subjects, whether it’s Psychology, Sociology & Art or Nursing, Accounting & Computer Science.
There are already numerous instructors in all across our district teaching green. But, we need to keep on shifting the conversation until it’s a part of the way we and our students think daily. Teaching any theme of environmental sustainability can immediately make our classes more relevant and more fresh. It can also open our students’ minds to think more broadly.
There are numerous resources at our disposal. Many of our colleagues are already knowledgeable about how to integrate concepts of environmental sustainability into our disciplines. There are well-produced documentaries and web-accessible videos available to every Peralta instructor. See the resources tab above to find out more.
Again, this Earth Day we hope you’ll join us in putting a green lens on what Peralta does best: teaching.”
