I was walking my dog, one beautiful sunny
morning and we strolled past a school playground that was covered in many
colourful chalk drawings. Although I had
seen sidewalk chalk drawings many many times before, it had never occurred to
me to use this form of expression to inspire people to think about ‘PEACE!’…
until this moment!
Later that same afternoon, I had gone to a
store and bought a box of sidewalk chalk and then I got busy…
I decided to draw my first peaceflower right
outside of my house so that I could see people’s reaction to the drawing.
It’s very easy to draw a peaceflower… you
simply start with a peace symbol for the middle, then you add some colourful
flower petals and a green stem with a leaf or two on it.
The next day, I took the box of chalk with me
when my wife and I went for a stroll through our neighbourhood and soon nearby
sidewalks became my new canvases.
For the next week or so, I had a lot of fun
drawing these peaceflowers all over the city and soon I found myself sharing
them on Facebook. Then, another idea
came to my mind…
I began asking my Facebook friends if they
would like to draw peaceflowers on sidewalks around their homes and soon a nice
collection of photos started to grow…
One of the first photos I received was sent to
me from a close high school friend and her daughter.
Then an interesting thing happened. A Facebook friend from Florida sent me a
photo of a peaceflower chalk mandala that she had drawn on a blackboard. I thought that it was great the people were
drawing their peaceflowers in locations other than sidewalks.
Soon other sidewalk peaceflowers were being
sent to me on a more frequent basis.
One Facebook friend who lives in South Africa
but was working as a teacher in China during this time, got her entire class
involved. Can you imagine how big my
smile was when I received seven different photographs?!!
I didn’t realize it at the time, but soon it
became clear that I had started a GLOBAL art project. Peaceflower photos were being sent to me from
many countries around the world… including Japan!
Esha and I met in 2001, while I was living in
Nelson, British Columbia working on my art project entitled ‘Canada: Glorious
To Be’. His father and I became friends
first and then I was later introduced to Esha!
Esha and his friend drew these peaceflowers for me while they were
studying at a University in Japan.
Many of my high school friends got involved and
it was great to see that they were getting their children involved.
One of my high school friends got his kids and
his neighbours’ kids involved and they created a peaceflower using their
bodies! I was very impressed that people
were having so much fun exploring their own imaginations!!
Janet Letkeman is another Facebook friend who I
have never met in person. She just loved
this idea and soon she got herself involved, her sister involved and her young
neighbour involved in drawing peaceflowers all over the sidewalks of Winnipeg,
Manitoba!!!
When I received this group photo all the way
from a youth community group in Australia, I was completely blown away! Just look at how much effort went into this
art creation!!!
This fun idea was really catching on and soon,
more people I had never met in person were sending me art creations that were
drawn on sidewalks in Edmonton, Alberta and Australia and the side of a barn in
Pennsylvania, USA.
Two other peaceflowers were sent to me soon
after. One was from the west coast of
Canada and the other was from the east coast.
These were very unique artworks because they were created using rocks!!!
A friend of mine wrote to me and told me that
he was very impressed with this collection of peaceflowers from around the
world and he asked if I’d like to organize a small local event to surround
London’s downtown Victoria Park with more drawings. I quickly agreed…
While we were working, someone came up with the
idea that we should all create one peaceflower together. We thought that it would be cool if each
person traced their hand in one of the flower petals and then wrote their name
above their handprint.
To say that I was overwhelmed with this great
response from friends, family and complete strangers from around the world
would be an understatement! This was one
of the greatest life/art adventures of my life and it still brings warm shivers
down my spine when I think that one small spark of inspiration grew to be quite
a large flame that surrounded our world.
This experience proved to me that with the
right motivation and inspiration that ideas can be shared across all borders
and positive actions can unite a people and a planet!
Jim Kogelheide
2016
No comments:
Post a Comment