On Thursday, Arts Mission Oak Cliff looked a little different than usual. The hardwood floors in the community room of the restored church were blanketed by bright yellow paper.
Yellow baskets filled with drawing utensils were scattered across the floor. Those who had visited Arts Mission had left behind colorful pastel drawings and marker doodles.
“I just wanted to give people space for them to draw and get it out of their system,” Natalia Padilla, founder of Dsgn For Us, said. She realized that participants in her workshops found her drawing exercises cathartic, so she wanted to offer it on a larger scale to help more people.
Dsgn For Us is a creative organization that blends arts, design and education. For its fifth anniversary, the organization is celebrating with an interactive 48-by-56-foot floor installation titled Yellow. The installation provides a safe space for drawing and encourages attendees to think about what makes them happy.
“Yellow is just such a happy, vibrant hue,” Padilla said. “A lot has been said about coloring, it helps with stress and depression, [mental health] is a huge component of it.”
Since 2019, Dsgn For Us has worked with people of color, especially children, in economically vulnerable sectors of Dallas. The organization puts together community engagement projects centered around education and creative freedom. Their first project, Local, was a bilingual coloring resource guidebook for immigrant refugees in Dallas created by an elementary school conceptual illustration class.
The installation will continue through March 24, and the paper will be preserved and reused for future art projects.
Yellow is free and open to the public. The installation is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Saturday, and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The closing reception with live deejays will take place Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
NOTE: This story was updated on March 28, 2024 to correct the size of the installation.
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