“Expression Through the Arts” Project
Testimony by John Sabas.

I live at Griggs Manor in south Etobicoke (Mimico). One day I noticed posters put-up in the lobby and elsewhere in my building advertising free art classes being offered in the library/party room.

I shrugged it off, although I used to enjoy taking photographs when I was younger a long time ago… the closest thing to art that I had ever done, but my photography wasn’t too arty back then. My sometimes insistent neighbor announced that she will be attending these art classes and insisted that I go with her, probably for moral support more than anything else. I brushed this notion off by saying that I can’t draw or paint doodly, so why go, and I had other excuses why not to go as well.

I finally relented due to her persistent cajoling and dropped in to the already started art thing. Walking into the room, I surveyed 10 or so people hunched over at their tables painting prefabricated wooden bird houses in earnest. The thought for some reason intrigued me…maybe a bird house installed on my balcony? The hole in the bird house is too small to accommodate unwanted pigeons, so what if? The 2 teachers there quickly handed me an art kit with everything I needed to get started plus my choice of 4 designs of bird houses to choose from, I took the one with a door and a “window” and was painting in 6 minutes. From that day on I was hooked on art class, and I’ve stayed ever since.

The classes are very much hands on only, no lectures on art theory; and everyone there can’t draw or paint just like me, so I feel safe with my new found company. The 2 guys teaching art class here speak Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and English, plus both are advanced artists themselves. This means that when we get stuck on painting something (we are now painting on canvas with acrylic paints) which happens all the time, the teachers come over and fix it for us, making us students look good.

I have a framed picture hanging in my apartment that I am proud of that “I have painted”; all my friends are impressed with my artistic prowess. I highly recommend going to this art class called “expression through the arts” ask for it to come to your place.