By Jackie Pollack
Children’s artwork, promoting diversity and positivity, has been proudly displayed all around the village shop windows of Irvington thanks to a student art campaign called “Irvington Is Everyone.”
The project is the work of community members Arlene Burgos, Michael Hanna, Catherine Sun, Jacob Styburski, Douglas McClure, and Beth Ryan.
Burgos said, “When you give little kids these four words: positive, welcoming, diversity, and inclusion, some of their pictures were happy, some of them said ‘Irvington let’s be anti-racist,’ and some said ‘Black lives matter.’ A lot of them had the theme of multicultural groups of people. I think that it’s interesting that we put something out there without being super specific, and you see the interpretation across the board.”
These colorful and lively pictures of three to 14-year-old artists are on display at over 25 businesses, including Geordane’s, Brrzaar, and Tony’s Pizzeria.
The group’s culminating event took place last Saturday, October 10, where many members of the community participated in a gallery walk from Astor Street to Broadway to look at all the artwork and messages created by the young people.
“Irvington Is Everyone” aims to begin the exploration of some difficult concepts in an age-appropriate way.
Main Street School’s art teacher Ms. Nina Rossi is especially fond of this project and has asked her students to create artwork based around these themes as well.
After seeing ”Irvington Is Everyone” painted on the rock at the high school, both Hanna and Burgos emphasized that the project’s slogan is not a substitute for the Black Lives Matter movement. Rather, it is a way of making children more aware of current issues from an age appropriate standpoint.
Hanna said, “Hopefully a project like ours helps students to start thinking about it at a younger age. So when they start getting into middle school and high school, they’ve already tangled with these ideas and have thought about how to treat each other.”
Though “Irvington Is Everyone” is geared towards young children, Hanna and Burgos encourage high school students to reach out with ideas for future projects.
“We really envisioned it as a really compact project with a focus on the younger children and their relationship in terms of seeing their art in the community with these themes,” Hanna said. “So, this is organic evolution that the high school has taken. It wasn’t something we envisioned, but it’s something we’re happy to engage in and support.”
Both Hanna and Burgos expressed their support for a potential project on a high school scale, whether it be the development of a club or having students reach out to Dows Lane to take on a similar project and to act as role models.
“Irvington Is Everyone” has already been covered by multiple news sources, including News 12 and The Hudson Independent.
Hanna said that he hopes this project can be seen as a model for what high school students can do with a handful of people and an idea that can be embraced by the whole community.
“We all have to continuously work towards making the world the best it can be, and when we put our hands up or step back, it can become more challenging.”
You can check out some of the beautiful artwork on the project’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/portraitsofirvington
