Art Off the Streets
This program offers artist-led workshops to those experiencing, or who have recently experienced, homelessness.
In 2024, the Fredericton Arts Alliance is planning a series of art/craft workshops in conjunction with the 12 Neighbours Community.
We firmly believe the arts are important in all lives and that these programs can bring pleasure and learning to the community members. For more information about 12Neigbours, please check out 12neighbours.com.
The FAA will pay artists an honorarium and cover the cost of materials. We expect that participation might range from six to eight workshop participants, and the workshops will run in 12 Neighbours’ soon-to-be-completed main building. We are thinking each series might have six to eight sessions of about two hours each, probably 4–6 p.m. or 6–8 p.m.
Deciding what sessions to offer will be determined by the level of interest on the part of community members, but it would help to know what programs local artists would like to suggest.
Painting, drawing, felting, jewelry, knitting, writing, woodworking, and hand-built clay (the latter would require access to the workshop leader’s kiln) have been suggested, but these are by no means restrictive. We are interested in all ideas.
Artists who are interested in facilitating a workshop should send an email to president@frederictonartsalliance.ca detailing the workshop(s) they would like to run with a bit of detail and an indication of materials needed.
Once we have an idea of what might be available, we will survey community members to determine the level of interest in the various offerings.
We would like to thank 12 Neighbours for collaborating with us on this important initiative, and the New Brunswick Economic and Social Inclusion Corporation for supporting this project and its economic and social inclusion efforts in our region.
Previous engagement
In 2016, the Fredericton Arts Alliance tried a program which saw a couple of artists, separately, spending an afternoon at the Fredericton Homeless Shelter with paints, canvases, and other materials, giving participants an opportunity to express themselves in a visual medium.
The feedback from the artists and from staff at the Shelter was powerfully positive. Jean Rooney, the first of the artists involved, said one of the participants approached her afterward and said: "Thank you for three hours of happiness." Another session brought a drummer in and that also was very well received. Yet another had a musician come in and play piano in the Shelter. Shelter staff were impressed with how engrossed the participants were in their creation and how much the experience meant to them.
Three years ago, we applied for and received a City of Fredericton one-time grant of $5,000 to further support this idea. With that money, we ran six short-course workshops of one day a week for four or five weeks, a few hours each session. There were two photography sessions, two writing workshops where participants wrote their life stories, one woodworking session and another with glass etching. An exhibition at Old Government House allowed participants in the woodworking and first photography workshops to display their work in a formal setting. The validation of having their work professionally exhibited was quite overwhelming for many of them. Those in the writing workshop felt their work was too personal for public viewing, but they were profoundly affected by the process they had experienced.