Art Project led by graduate student Matt Samolewicz

Throughout the week, Project Coach directors and graduate students meet with the youth coaches after school, mentoring them. On one such afternoon Matt lead a watercolour art project. Each youth coach selected a photograph taken during a Project Coach session. They then transferred the picture onto a sheet of watercolour paper. After reflecting on what the photograph meant to them, the coaches picked a sentence that they felt described the photograph they had chosen. Devin picked an image of his fellow youth coach, Frankie, kicking a soccer ball because, he honestly explained, it was the “easiest to trace”. He picked the sentence “practice makes perfect” to accompany the image. He isn’t altogether pleased with the way his watercolour turned out because he “didn’t use enough water” and it “looked like paint” rather than watercolour. Kiana chose a photograph of many hands, one on top of the other. She selected the sentence “working together is the key to success”. When the players she coaches work together as a team they play better games, she explained. To express more she used “different kinds of colours to make the picture bolder”. A couple of weeks after she

completed the project Kiana brought in some of her own pencil drawing, saved in a plastic folder for Matt to see. One of the drawings she brought was an image of her sneaker. She explained that she had observed her sneaker while she drew it to make the drawing more realistic; another detailed drawing depicted an erupting volcano. Matt commented that saving her drawings in a plastic folder indicated how much Kiana cared about them.