photography

FreeHand, an art auction benefitting War Child, features 50 works from established and emerging contemporary artists, along with another

Toronto volunteer Phyllis Novak has spent the last two decades trying to maximize the creative potential for at-risk and homeless youth. In 1996, her efforts materialized into Sketch, an art studio that offers marginalized young adults, aged 15 to 29, the chance to express themselves through the arts, from painting to sculpture, photography to music recording.

“The underlying assumption behind every welcome or entrance [into Sketch] is that we just assume people are creative and that they have something to contribute,” Novak tells Samaritanmag. “That’s not always something that homeless people or marginalized young people hear. They don’t hear that they have capacities that the rest of the world needs to learn from. They hear that they have deficits and that they need to get those taken care of, and then they can participate as a full member of society.”

One of the central motives behind Sketch is to expand the opportunities for homeless and street-involved youth. It offers the chance for struggling young adults to get relief from the conflicts and pressures of an underprivileged life, and just let loose creatively and become part of a community.

“People first know how to be themselves and feel good about being themselves, and then feel okay about interacting with each other and building cooperation and communication skills with each other,” Novak says of the learning framework after which Sketch is modeled.

“And then the people [start] getting excited about the potential of using the arts to participate in the world, making stuff to show and to sell, or writing a song and performing it in public.”

Nikki Sixx’s kids, the product of his generous Running Wild In The Night music program at Covenant House California which serves more than 10,000 homeless youth a year, are making more of the program than even the Mötley Crüe and Sixx: A.M. bassist imagined. 

In May 2008, Sixx donated $250,000 to the Los Angeles and Oakland shelters, mostly via sales from his 2007 New York Times best-selling autobiography, The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star, and companion Sixx: A.M. album.

“I donated a very large percentage of the proceeds from The Heroin Diairies to the Convenant House and through that, and awareness, we’ve raised a lot of money, but it goes fast. It just goes so fast,” Sixx tells Samaritanmag.

He also gets involved with other fundraising initiatives, such as auctions, and plans to donate proceeds from his photography book, This Is Gonna Hurt (our April 12), a companion to the next Sixx: A.M. album (due May 3) of the same name.

“What got me to the next level in my life was music. It was something to live for,” Sixx tells Samaritanmag. “A lot of the kids at Covenant House, they go through really hard times obviously; they’re just coming off the street; there’s gangs and prostitution; drug addiction; they’re getting into a safe environment.