Executive Director Susan Rodgerson started Artists For Humanity in 1990 with a simple idea: create art with youth and sell it to local businesses.
By hiring, training and mentoring urban teens with creative drive, AFH engages teens who are at-risk in meaningful work and provides a platform for creative expression. Each of the studios (painting/murals, screen printing, photography, sculpture, fashion design, and urban media) creates saleable products whose high quality makes the social enterprise successful.
Some graduates of AFH have gone on to prestigious liberal arts and fine arts colleges like Brown, UCLA, UC Berkeley, the Cooper Union, MassArt, and RISD. Currently, three of the co-founders lead the organization, and five returned to AFH as staff.
But that’s not all that is happening at AFH. AFH’s commitment to sustainable urban development permeates its work. The EpiCenter, as AFH’s building is called, is a model of affordable green design (the only other Boston building to receive the US Green Building Council’s highest rating is Genzyme’s, built at more than $400 a square foot, while the EpiCenter was built for $183 a square foot). AFH youth were involved in the design and model-making to maximize natural light. Three alumni of the program went on to become architects.
By working in an environment abundant in natural light and where sustainability is an integral part of building operations and programming, youth learn about their connection to the earth. Building policies like recycling and manipulating window shades to keep cool teach youth to be aware of energy use and waste. Non-toxic materials are used as standard practice; the sculpture studio makes art from recycled materials; and the painting studio makes its own reusable panels for paintings.
Artist For Humanity’s annual fundraiser event, called “The Greatest Party on Earth,” celebrates Earth Day by sharing its year-round studio exploration of topics about sustainability with the general public. In preparing for the fundraiser, youth consider how art can teach us about our connection to earth.
Education Director Quyen Truong acknowledges the challenge of connecting youth to nature in an urban environment. She marvels, “What I find amazing is that the youth create art that depicts nature from their imagination, without ever having seen it themselves.” Camping trips and visiting the Boston Harbor Islands have proven especially significant as ways to allow urban youth to experience nature.
In the future, AFH imagines an entire campus, complete with community gardens, to increase job opportunities for youth and to provide green space in the community as a local means of connecting to the landscape.
Interested in supporting Artists For Humanity? Attend the Earth Day fundraiser on April 18th, visit AFH’s online store to shop for t-shirts and other products, rent a rotating monthly art exhibit for your office, or rent AFH’s green building as venue for your next event.
