If you’ve ever passed a jolt of brightly colored art in St. Louis, there’s a chance that young apprentices created the piece in a two-story building on the Delmar Loop, just north of WashU’s campus and Forest Park.
And if you walk into that building this summer, one of the first people you’re likely to meet is Duaa Mohamed ‘26, a St. Louis Fellow working with St. Louis ArtWorks.
St. Louis ArtWorks is a nonprofit organization that provides free art training to underserved St. Louis youth, ages 14-19. These apprentices receive a stipend for participating in art training and creating pieces commissioned by clients around St. Louis.
Along with art training, the apprentices take part in employment and life skills training, and develop their business and leadership acumen through client meetings and sales pitches.
Clients can commission work in any of the three client facing divisions of ArtWorks: Boomerang Press/Media, BloomWorks and BoomerRacks. Boomerang Press/Media offers graphic design and multimedia services; BloomWorks offers rain barrels, murals, and functional art; and BoomerRacks offers art instillations made from repurposed bicycle parts.
These pieces of art are sprinkled throughout the city, commissioned by private individuals, government and nonprofit entities, and local corporations.
Jacqueline Dace, the Executive Director of St. Louis ArtWorks, spoke to the value of enlivening spaces through art.
“One of the things that I often think about is what the world would look like without art; what the world would be without art,” Dace said. “I don’t want to imagine that.”
“You kind of become the environment that you live in, and we bring some brightness to it,” Dace said.
To bring this art to the community, ArtWorks needs to engage in outreach, and that’s been Mohamed’s main focus this summer.
Through the St. Louis Fellows Program, Mohamed is heavily engaged with operations and communications work for ArtWorks. She has increased their social media presence to bring more attention to the work of the organization and the apprentices.
“I feel like ArtWorks is such an important place and that it should be more of an institution, one that people recognize, one that people know if they’re on the Loop,” Mohamed said.
By increasing ArtWorks’ recognition around St. Louis and cultivating more relationships with local businesses, Mohamed hopes to draw in more donors and prospective clients to the organization.
While the bulk of the work and training at the organization centers on art creation, it’s often the downstream effects of the artistic programming that can be life-changing for apprentices.
Dace said that the organization’s programs build up apprentices’ confidence and creative faculties. She mentioned a moment in her office when a former apprentice came in and spoke to her about how the program had influenced her life.
“She wasn’t necessarily working in the art field, but she had opened up her own insurance business,” Dace explained. “And she said, ‘I never would have been able to do that had I not been in this program because it built up my confidence.’”
Other students and their family members have returned to relay similar news to Dace of ArtWorks’ alumni starting up ventures and making creative decisions. “Some of the parents will approach us and tell us that being in this program helped their kids open up and take other chances.”
Behind the scenes of these transformative experiences are what Dace referred to as a “small, but mighty team.” ArtWorks employs two full-time staff members, three part-time staff members, and its art teachers.
Dace said it’s helpful that Mohamed can dedicate time to initiatives that are otherwise put on the back burner because of the small size of the full-time staff.
“We don’t have a communications person, so we need as much outreach as we can,” Dace said. “And this year we’re also having Duaa work on identifying some former apprentices and creating an alumni database, so that’d be great to have as well.”
Mohamed’s presence at ArtWorks has been valuable not just for the organization, but for strengthening her understanding of the nonprofit world.
She said this experience gives her more insight into why people can burn out so quickly in the nonprofit world, and how it’s also possible to maintain energy in the field.
“You hear stories of people who have really difficult home lives or [you apply] for a grant that you’re really excited about that you don’t get,” Mohamed said. “All those things can amount to a lot of exhaustion.”
But those challenges have not deterred her from wanting to engage in the nonprofit world.
“If anything, it almost makes me feel like I want to keep going,” she said. “Because for every disappointment, there are probably five exciting things that are happening here.”
And she said that working in-person and seeing tangible results from her work allows her to stay energized even through the more difficult moments. “I see more people following us on Instagram, I see more people stopping by.”
She added that working with young people in a creative space keeps her excited to come into ArtWorks.
“All of the [apprentices] are so talented, it blows my mind,” Mohamed said. “They just have so much energy, and so much passion, and so much hope, and that makes me really happy.”
Dace also emphasized the interpersonal nature of working at St. Louis ArtWorks. She recalled a time when she walked downstairs and happened upon a few staff members and apprentices talking. One of the apprentices told Dace that St. Louis ArtWorks reminded her of the movie, The Wiz.
Dace asked the apprentice who she would be if St. Louis ArtWorks were like The Wiz.
“Maybe you’re the witch,” the apprentice said.
“There were a lot of witches in The Wiz,” Dace responded. “Which one am I?”
“Well, remember the witch who was with Dorothy in the poppy seed field?” the apprentice asked. “The witch that put her on the right path.”
The St. Louis Fellows Program is offered annually to select WashU undergraduates and are made possible by generous donations to the Gephardt Institute. Learn more here. If you are interested in applying or nominating a student for the St. Louis Fellows Program, applications will be available online starting in early November. If you would like to make a gift to support this program, please contact Rasheen Coleman at rasheen.coleman@wustl.edu.