With bubble tea in one hand and acrylic paint in the other, teens painted a mural on May 9-10 at the Bryant Street Community Center, which has been rebranded as a teen space.
The mural covers mirrors on two walls: One mirror has a paintings of CDs, a piano keyboard, a paintbrush and the words “Palo Alto teen center” on it, while the other has a scenic painting of flowers on a hill and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.
According to scenic artist and former TAC facilitator Cayla Ray-Perry, the mural is temporary.
“The paint doesn’t stick permanently to the mirror because it is basically glass,” Ray-Perry said. “In six months or so, we’ll come through with water and rags and scrape the paint right off. There’s an idea floating around that it’ll be an ongoing changeover, and new temporary murals will be put up in the future. But the long term goal is to get rid of the mirrors and have something more permanent that the teens help design.”
Ray-Perry said that the decision for the members of TAC to plan and draft the mural was deliberate.
“This space is specifically for teens,” Ray-Perry said. “One goal that we facilitators of the Teen Arts Council have is to make sure that the teens feel like they have ownership over their spaces and their programming. Instead of hiring an adult to come in and paint a picture that they think the teens would like, we’ve decided to have the teens paint it themselves. … They [members of TAC] had their own brainstorming session. They did the drawings themselves. The mural and its design was done by the teens.”
According to junior Ava Lin, TAC secretary, the mural also contains a few meaningful details.
“Behind the words Teen Center, there’s a brush stroke that leads into the [painting of a] brush,” Lin said. “It captures how this teen center is being created into a space where people can express their artistic side. It’s like the paint brush underlines the teen center thing. … The Golden Gate Bridge helps capture what this area is about, especially since it’s such an iconic building in this area. If anyone were to come in here and see the Golden Gate Bridge, they would be able to recognize it and understand the communal vibe we have here in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and the Bay Area.”
Future TAC co-president Charlotte Liu, a Paly junior, said that designing the mural was a collaborative effort.
“We [members of TAC] were initially tasked by Cayla to paint something for the teen center,” Liu said. “We were given eight squares of blank paper so we could sketch our ideas. We had a two week period of brainstorming on paper. When we got everyone’s ideas, they were compiled onto paper, transferred to digital and then cleaned up. Afterwards, we printed out and copied the design onto the mirrors.”
Liu said that painting the mural was a relaxing experience.
“It’s testing season so things are a little bit stressful, but it was nice to have a break from them and force yourself to focus on drawing and not thinking about APs and whatnot,” Liu said. “I haven’t had much opportunity to paint or do art these past few months, so this is a really nice opportunity to de-stress.”
Visitors can see this mural when the Bryant Street Community Center holds its grand opening June 3.
