Art from Ashes Inc.

Background Statement

Founding Director Catherine O'Neill Thorn has used her unique creative program to empower traumatized youth since 1992-leading poetry and spoken word workshops at juvenile facilities, treatment centers and schools, including weekly restorative workshops for students affected by the tragic shooting at Columbine High School. In 2002 when sweeping cuts in state funding decimated youth programs and arts agencies, Thorn was motivated to found Art from Ashes (AfA) to ensure her innovative curriculum would continue to reach struggling young people. AfA is the first youth arts agency in Colorado to use a process of creative expression specifically designed to facilitate personal transformation. AfA's empowerment workshops transcend standard arts programming by encouraging some of our most neglected members of society to embrace their creative identity rather than one founded on negative experiences and circumstances. Since 2003, Phoenix Rising, the foundational program that launched the agency, has utilized poetry and spoken word to help more than 19,000 youth recognize the power of language in perception and self-development. Based on the success of our original program, AfA has been developing additional youth empowerment programs to further support the agency's mission of resiliency and transformation through creative expression.

Phoenix Rising curriculum utilizes symbolism, metaphor and storytelling to engage youth who live in hopelessness and use the language of victimization because of experiences and/or circumstances characterized by poverty, racism, gender identity, criminal activity and abuse. Because words have a powerful impact on the subconscious - and consequently on choices and behaviors - the program's guided writing prompts allow isolated youth to express their value and access their unique creative genius.

Collaborating institutions contract with Art from Ashes for a series of workshops with up to 20 youth each. Each workshop involves reading published poems from well-known authors, introducing a guest poet for a live performance, administering guided writing prompts (all youth poems are written in three minutes to encourage right brain activity), and ensuring each youth at least one turn at the microphone to share an original poem. This well-honed design, delivered in a safe, supportive context, activates an internal process among participants. We have captured and formalized the process in the following conceptual terms: EXPRESSION, facilitates a brave way for youth participants to tell their story, primarily through poetry, followed by other means of creativity such as visual arts and theater; CONNECTION allows understanding, acceptance and empathy to develop with peers and adults: and TRANSFORMATION, helps youth discover and express their creative genius and thereby recognize it is within their power to choose a healthy and productive life.

We continue to meet the growing need in our state to care more effectively for our vulnerable youth population by listening to them, by providing a way for them to feel connected, and by reminding them of their power and promise. In this way Art from Ashes is ensuring a better future for our youth and for our community.