Paint the World

"Travel is the most important thing. To open your eyes and your mind to the world outside what you know-and then you come back and understand your own world better, and what you can be in it." -Dexter Stewart (YA '89)

Ask any YA/YA artist or alum: Nothing YA/YA offers is more important than the travel opportunities artists earn and experience through the organization. Dexter Stewart currently does documentary film work in New York City. Dexter joined YA/YA in 1989, when he was a sophomore at Rabouin High School. He traveled to New York for the first time with YA/YA. "Then we went to Italy, and saw Italian art and had an exhibition of our own art, and just soaked it all up."

Founder Jana Napoli's penchant for crying "Paint the World, Baby!" captures the essence of the YA/YA artistic process: Practice and develop our aesthetic style in our home studio, then share this style across the United States and around the globe. This process has now become one of our core programs, called Paint The World. Through Paint The World, the YA/YA staff actively researches and develops trips that will open our youth artists to new cultural and artistic experiences. Travel opens cultural dialogues and art-market relationships for our young artists, leading to commissions for international organizations such as Swatch, Ltd. and the United Nations.

Wherever they go, our young artists carry the vibrancy and hope of an urban artistic style that is also an instrument of healing in post-Katrina New Orleans. In turn, they bring back with them new cultural and artistic experiences that enrich their home communities.

Where we've been

• In 2008, YA/YA artists traveled to Cow House Studios in rural Ireland, launching a new partnership that is now one of our core Paint the World resources.
• Three youth artists and YA/YA Creative Director Rondell Crier attended alumni Gerard Caliste's solo show in Los Angeles in April, 2009. The artists visited art schools and museums across the Los Angeles area.
• A partnership with the Lower Eastside Girls Club in New York brought five of our artists, along with Executive Director Baty Landis and founder Jana Napoli, to Manhattan in October, 2008. Jana and Baty were both honored for their work during the Girls Club's annual Willows Awards banquet.
• In October 2008, YA/YA artists Madania Graves and Quentin Gilmore joined Executive Director Baty Landis on a trip to France. The artists documented the Musiques de Rues street festival in Besançan and spent two busy days in Paris, visiting as many cafes and museums as possible.
• In 2009, a team of YA/YA artists was selected to create set pieces for the Guggenheim Museum's annual production of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." The performances took place in the Guggenheim Theater in New York, December 10-14. View the original sketches here!

Sponsor a Paint the World Residency! Send one of our artists to Cow House Studios in Ireland for an annual 2-week intensive art residency.