Arts Mission Oak Cliff looked a little different than usual on Thursday. The wooden floors in the common room of the restored church were covered with bright yellow paper.
Scattered across the floor were yellow baskets filled with painting supplies. Those who had visited the Arts Mission had left behind colorful pastel drawings and marker doodles.
“I just wanted to give people a place to draw and get it out of their system,” said Natalia Padilla, founder of Dsgn For Us. She realized that participants in her workshops found her drawing exercises cathartic, so she wanted to offer them on a larger scale to help more people.
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Dsgn For Us is a creative organization that combines art, design and education. For its fifth anniversary, the organization is celebrating with a 48-by-36-foot interactive 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.
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Since 2019, Dsgn For Us has been working with people of color, especially children, in economically vulnerable sectors of Dallas. The organization brings together community engagement projects centered around education and creative freedom. Their first project, Local, was a bilingual coloring resource guide for immigrant refugees in Dallas created by an elementary school conceptual illustration class.
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The installation will run until March 24, and the paper will be saved and reused for future art projects.
Yellow is free and open to the public. The installation is open from 10:00 to 19:00 until Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00. The closing reception with live DJs will take place on Sunday from 1pm to 4pm
Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration supported by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.
This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, The University of Texas at Dallas, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer and Peter Altabeff and The Meadows Foundation. The news and KERA retain full editorial control over Arts Access journalism.