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Last week, the team for Mass Creativity visited three of the six community centers—the Museum School, Sherman Heights Community Center, and the San Diego LGBT Center. Although it was a hot day, a cool breeze danced around us and kept us energized and excited.
We arrived at the Museum School in Banker’s Hill around lunch time; the school courtyard was filled with students searching for lunches in their backpacks, jibber-jabbering, and lining up to cross the street. Phil, the principal, took us to the park across the street, where the workshop will be held in May. The park had swings, a big caterpillar to climb in, three trees, and a lot of grass. Mayra, Valerie and I smiled: our ideas for the workshop finally had a place to dwell. And a nice one, too. I imagined messages hidden in the trees, flags flapping in the wind, kids running and lying down, and everything in between.
Next, we met Devanna at the Sherman Heights Community Center. She kindly showed us the large indoor room we would be using for the workshop, which was designed by Rob Quigley, the same architect who designed the New Children’s Museum! The room had four sunlit alcoves with mosaic benches, great spots to do our hands-on art projects. There were also speakers for music and rods with clips to hang wind chimes from. While we were talking, Devanna informed us that the Sherman Heights Community Center is also holding their annual youth festival on the same day as our workshop! This was exciting news because two communities events were coming together on the same day and it meant that we could broaden Mass Creativity’s outreach.
The San Diego LGBT Center was our last stop. We met Megan at the front desk and were led into a huge, yellow gymnasium with a stage, benches along the walls, and a lot of floor space. How could we utilize it? Charles and I sat on the stage and pondered how we could incorporate it into a PVC structure we planned to bring to each community center the day of the workshops. I found a niche I could use as a secret space, to hide a camera, some secret notes and maybe some binoculars. And so we began to envision the workshop at the LGBT Center.
