London, Ontario
2010 - 2011
Artwork created by the students of the Peacebus
For several years, I found myself with a very unusual job... I was a school bus driver! It didn't take long until the students of my bus had named it 'The Peacebus'. During that time, several videos were made to showcase the artwork that the students gave me to decorate the bus with!! Hypnotized By Peace is one of my favourite Peacebus videos! Please enjoy this link.
I was always very happy to share the students' artworks on my Facebook pages and I was always delighted with the many comments that these efforts received. These artworks have inspired people from around the world!
One day, I got a message on my Facebook account from one of the fans of The Peacebus. Margaret Ann Franklin told me that she has become a huge fan of my students’ work and she wanted to know if I could ask them to become involved in a project that she was working on. I became intrigued!
Margaret explained that she is involved with several campaigns designed to raise awareness about Autism and how it affects children. Since she has always loved carousels – because they represent the fun and freedom that all children should be able to enjoy – she had started a collection of children’s drawings inspired by these thoughts. I told her that I thought my students would be very happy to create some artwork for her… and I was right!!! The students all thought that this would be a really cool thing to do!
Before I began this project I spoke with all of the parents – as they were usually waiting at each of the stops to ensure that their children get on and off the bus safely – to see if they would mind if I went ahead with this project. They all agreed that this would be a fun learning experience for their children. Then, I created an exercise sheet for the students to colour in.
Over the next week fourteen art creations were handed in. Here they are… in no particular order…
There were two highlights for me, during this time, and they both had to do with the fact that two students who had never created art for my bus, had! Both Thomas and Sarah have been enjoying the artworks created by their friends but neither one had participated in any of my previous competitions. This fact never bothered me. I realize that sometimes children feel nervous about sharing something so personal – as art is – with others. The fact that these two felt comfortable enough to participate for their very first time brought a huge smile to my face. I was proud to have witnessed a little inner personal growth with positive results!!!
Margaret is on cloud nine, lately!!! She has told me over and again how thankful she is for this support, how delighted she is with the students’ artworks and how happy this has made her feel. She will be showcasing these artworks in many different formats, over the next while, with other families who are dealing with this disease, to bring a ray of light into their lives.
I would like to send out a huge THANK YOU to Thomas, Emilie, Bianca, Maxime, Mehdi, Adrian, Clara, Nathan, Isha, Maddie, Sarah, Zyren, Lydia and Purnima, my Peacebus artists extrodinaire!!!!!
Whenever I had an art competition/project on The Peacebus, I would always create some kind of prize for the students who participated... and I usually used one of the artworks that was created during the project to create the prize. By making small posters, like the one here, as a prize, my hope was to have the students put the poster on their bedroom wall where it would stay for a year or so. It would be a constant inspiration for them as they would be reminded about how they got the prize and what they did to earn it!
...and this is what Margaret did with it...
Margaret had take each and every colouring sheet that I had emailed to her and she used a computerized sewing maching that took the artworks and turned then into an embroidered art on a piece of fabric.
Here's a second example...
!
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