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Our work centers around the capacity of public art to transform people and places. Since 1995, our organization has served communities through an empowering program model that brings youth together with professional teaching artists to create inspiring public art. We believe that access to art is a human right and that self-expression and creative expression is power. Through public art, we connect young people and artists to communities, opportunities, new skills, accomplishment, and possibility.
At Urban ArtWorks, we envision a world where all people have access to the transformative power of creating public art. Our mission is to equitably engage youth, artists, and communities in the creation of public art that inspires connections and honors their voices. Our projects empower people to tell their own stories and envision more equitable futures through a participatory art-making process. We create pathways for underserved youth to become our region’s future community muralists and arts educators, helping to ensure the civic landscape in the greater Seattle area truly reflects community histories, values, and visions.
At Urban ArtWorks, we believe that access to art is a human right and that self-expression and creative expression is power.
We activate our mission through four core programs:
Mural Apprentice Program (MAP): For more than 25 years, this program has engaged teens in a collaborative process for mural-making. Youth participants are paid a stipend to work alongside teaching artists to research, design, and install a public mural. The teens develop specific art and design skills, collaborate with a diverse group of peers, and deepen connections with their community.
The Base Crew: This program provides paid year-round mentorship and training for teens who have completed the MAP and wish to deepen their arts and design experience. These teens serve on our Youth Advisory Council and take the lead on commissions for nonprofit partners.
School-Based Programs: In these customized programs, students in grades one through twelve work alongside teaching artists to install murals at their schools. Students explore themes and issues that are important to their community, create a design, and bring that design to life.
Commissioned and Community Murals: Urban ArtWorks connects business owners, nonprofit organizations, and communities with professional artists to facilitate the creation of murals and other public art. We foster a participatory process that amplifies voices, honors identities, and respects the lived experience of people in our local communities.
There are significant institutional and structural barriers that prevent BIPOC artists from entering the art world and thriving. These barriers include a lack of equitable access to arts education, the high cost of fine arts degrees, and a lack of affordable studio space. Additionally, public art commissions typically favor artists with prior experience in managing large-scale projects and budgets. At Urban ArtWorks, we work to address these barriers at all levels of the pipeline — from arts education to professional commissions — to ensure public art truly reflects the diversity of our region and the lived experience of individuals in our communities.
Urban ArtWorks serves youth and communities in King County, WA. Across all of our programs, we hold primary space for those who face barriers to arts, education, and employment due to systemic racism. For our youth programs, this includes teens facing homelessness, LGBTQIA youth, teens who are disconnected from school, court-involved teens, and immigrant youth.
In 2021, we provided 75 teens with 4,350 hours of paid arts training. We also contracted 80 local artists to install 140 public artworks. And we implemented youth programs and installed artworks in 22 Seattle neighborhoods and nine cities.
In 2021, our youth program participants were:
“My experience working at Urban ArtWorks has been incredible. Since childhood, I’ve loved creating art, but was raised believing it could only be a hobby. I didn’t start taking art seriously until I created my first mural in response to the Black Lives Matter Movement. This opportunity allowed me to express feelings that I couldn’t otherwise describe in words. For the first time, I felt that art was meaningful and significant. My love for art led me to Urban ArtWorks.
After joining the apprenticeship program, I and others transformed a musty wooden fence into a mural that represents overcoming struggles. The following summer, I along with others designed banners to welcome people back into the city, which had been mostly empty due to isolation.
I hope to expand myself as an artist through further collaboration, and I hope to continue working with communities by creating places of healing through the artwork we design together.”
— Ethan Lin, a former Mural Apprentice who is now working with Urban ArtWorks as a Teaching Assistant
Even as overall economic opportunities in the Puget Sound region have grown in recent years, many of our region's youth have been left behind. This is true during the pandemic more than ever. Our organization plays a unique role within youth development efforts in King County because our mission is centered around the capacity of public art to transform people and places. In this moment of increased disconnection, our apprentice programs provide an opportunity for youth participants to develop art, design, collaboration, and leadership skills while also building a network of relationships that can help them thrive.
We believe that creative expression is power. There could not be a more crucial time to invest in our community-driven public art making that centers the voices of marginalized young people.
"This program has had a big impact on me, especially during the pandemic, because it has given me a sense of community even when I felt isolated at home.” — youth apprentice
For many years, our youth programs have been offered at Urban ArtWorks’ primary studio location in Seattle’s Chinatown / International district. As the cost of living steadily rises in Seattle, the youth who stand to benefit most from Urban ArtWorks’ programming are increasingly located in more affordable cities and suburbs nearby. Over the past two years, we have made an intentional effort to increase access by meeting underserved youth where they live. We have expanded to offer targeted programs in underserved areas, including the Seattle neighborhoods of Georgetown and Rainer View and the cities of Bellevue, Burien, and Shoreline. This increase demands that we build up our capacity and resources to cover growing costs for teaching artist contracts, youth stipends, art supplies, and staff supervision.
For our youth programs, we aim to Implement an inclusive and culturally responsive curriculum that encourages participants to grow and thrive.
Staff engage in ongoing reflection with our program participants through regular check-ins. All teens also complete a pre-program survey as they get started and a post-program survey at the end of their sessions. Participants self-assess their strengths in a range of non-cognitive skill areas, including: self-confidence, professionalism, self-discipline, respect for others, collaboration, communication, and decision-making.
In 2021, our MAP survey results demonstrated the following impacts for youth participants:
Would you give $4 a month to support four nonprofits that are making a big difference? Join forces with other 52andChangmakers to automatically give to every Cause of the Week. Every Monday, you’ll wake up knowing you’ve already made a difference! As our community grows, so does the impact!
Together we’ve become volunteers in places we would have never expected, planted milkweed for butterflies, provided books to kids in need, helped save endangered turtles, helped turn excess food into nutrition, helped bring art to youth, educated one another about how we are connected to our delicate food systems, helped save abandoned horses and given old dogs new hope, watched foster youth shine in the spotlight of movie making, helped clean tires out of rivers… we could go on and on and on. It is an absolute joy to be a part of such an amazing network of humans making a difference.
“ALMA reconnects the lives of the formerly incarcerated back to the fabric of society. Our participants have the chance at attaining gainful employment and becoming self-sufficient. Urban Farming helps everyone involved explore the relationships between plants, animals and humans as a way of creating a profound connection to both nature and their community.” - ALMA Backyard Farms
While we’re writing this and you’re reading it, Pajaro Valley Loaves and Fishes is out there, finding ways to provide food to more people in need throughout Santa Cruz County, where one of three residents are reported to be food insecure.
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