Artist’s twist on Canada 150 inspires kids
Teen painter Aidan Lee hopes to convey message of acceptance through art
When Aidan Lee was very young, his autism inhibited him from communicating what he was feeling through speech.
“So how I responded was I painted to show my emotions,” said Lee, now 13. He continues to feel most comfortable expressing himself through art, and paints regularly at his home in Oakville.
The young artist now has a new reason to pick up his paintbrushes: teaching.
Lee has been going into elementary school classes to teach art ever since Angela Boers, a teacher at Tom Thomson Public School, suggested that he come into her Grade 1 and 2 classroom in April.
“When I met the kids they were happy,” Lee said of his first time teaching in Boers’ classroom. Eager to continue, he told his mother, Judith Elaine Hung, that he wanted to reach 150 kids through art classes before Canada’s 150th anniversary on July 1.
The idea caught fire: After Boers and Lee’s parents shared images of Lee’s first students’ artwork, other teachers were eager to host the young guest-teacher too.
Lee has taught 123 kids — from kindergarten to Grade 6 — as of June 22, and expects to reach 150 by June 26.
Boers says that Lee’s classes have made an impact at the school.
“It’s a pretty neat thing for these kids. They’re striving and they see themselves as artists and they love art and they want to engage with it,” she said.
“Knowing that he has autism and that he has to overcome challenges and barriers . . . I think there’s just an awareness that people can do hard things and people can strive towards goals.”
What began as an experiment in connecting elementary school students with Lee’s artistic experience has become an opportunity for the young artist to deliver a message to other kids about inclusivity, especially as Canada Day draws near.
He has been teaching kids to paint using maple leaves, a symbol that he has spent a lot of time thinking about lately.
The veins on each leaf, he said, remind him of the roads and arteries that weave through Canada’s towns and cities. Each point on those roads
“Each person needs to keep this leaf nice and happy by saying nice things and not being mean to people.” AIDAN LEE ARTIST
reminds him of a house. “And then inside those houses is a different person. Maybe a family of two here, maybe a different family, maybe a different religion, different age, different gender,” he said.
“And what I said was that . . . each person needs to keep this leaf nice and happy by saying nice things and not being mean to people.”
Lee began to think about the maple leaf as a symbol of Canada after watching the film of Gord Downie’s Secret Path, which tells the story of how Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Indigenous boy, died after trying to flee a residential school in 1966.
The story moved him to paint a piece depicting a blackened maple leaf — a “stain” on Canada’s history, he said. Lee also went to learn more about Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people at Branches of Native Development, a Hamilton-based Indigenous cultural centre.
Now he hopes that kids, by partici- pating in his art classes, will see the maple leaf as a symbol of inclusivity and mutual respect.
Once he reaches 150 students, Lee said that he hopes to continue teaching.
Boers said that he has become a part of her school’s community.
“He’s quite the special guest now in our environment. Everyone knows him and they’re excited to see him,” she said.
For Lee’s part, he’s found a place where he fits in.
“Every time I teach them I gain more and more of a bond,” he said.
“It’s like a community.”