Time to shine
Students use art, drama and music to cope with grief after shooting
Camp helps young people cope with aftermath of Parkland shootings.
Sorrow and magic overlapped at Camp Shine last week, as the father of a slain Marjory Stoneman Douglas student joined teens who survived the school shooting and used spray paint to fill a blank wall with messages of love, hope and peace.
“I lost my son, but I got all you here,” Manuel Oliver, the father of Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, told the 20 or so students who enrolled at Camp Shine, a summer camp using art, drama and music to help students cope with grief that lingers after the school shooting where 17 were killed in February.
Oliver, an artist who turned his art toward activism after his son’s murder, guided students during a therapeutic graffiti session at Pine Trails Park in Parkland. He encouraged the kids to focus on a theme, break rules, “give ourselves that gift of being happy while we paint.” Their themes: love, hope, peace, equality.
“I see this full of colors and with a beautiful theme that will represent us together,” Oliver said.
“This is one chance to make your statement and be a rebel and demand the things that you want,” he said. “You’re going to take care of this wall.”
And that they did. Students who appeared timid as they brainstormed, rushed to the 6-feet-by-12-feet wooden fence panel, grabbed spray cans and filled the blank space with color. Affirmations were made: “arms are for hugging,” “spread love,” “be kind” and “equality.”
The mural included the sun-shaped logo of Shine MSD, the nonprofit hosting the camp, and its halo of 17 dashes representing each of the lives lost.
Students Sawyer Garrity and Andrea Peña used paintbrushes to create those 17 strokes. They created Shine MSD
after coping with the aftermath of the school shooting by writing the song “Shine,” which was released on iTunes and performed at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington D.C., and beyond.
Fundraisers benefiting Shine MSD and proceeds from the sale of the song, which was given a social media boost from the likes of Paul McCartney, Andrea Bocelli and Britney Spears, are helping pay for the summer camp. Organizers plan two more sessions later this summer and continue to raise funds for the camp, which is free for Stoneman Douglas students.
Garrity says the camp’s aim is to provide a safe space for anyone who is simply “sitting with their sorrow and grief ” at home this summer. They can bond with other teens over their mutual love of the arts and release their pain through music, like she’s done, and other creative outlets.
“Music and art is just so universal, so it really just helps people heal through that,” Garrity, 17, said. “And we can all understand each other through it. It’s not like who is right or who is wrong, cause it’s just art.”
Makayla Ikner, 14, has a knack for music — she sings and plays piano and guitar — but she decided to dabble in theater during the camp. Although she was hesitant to go to Camp Shine, it was the catharsis she needed after feeling like therapy wasn’t for her, she said.
“It’s helped me get my mind off [the shooting]. It’s helped me learn new things, like theater,” Ikner said. “It’s helped me also make new friends.”
And strangers-turnedfriends united by the ugliness of Feb. 14 poured over the white space, making it explode with color.
After his son’s death, Oliver became a vocal advocate using urban street art to demand politicians be held accountable and cut ties with the National Rifle Association. He, too, created a nonprofit called Change the Ref, alluding to voting out the “referees” or elected officials who have special interests.
Oliver’s traveled the country creating his “Walls of Demand” that include images of his son in a gun’s crosshairs. He uses a hammer to create pockmarks simulating bullet holes, filling them with sunflowers — a reminder of the blossoms Joaquin gave his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day before he was killed. Oliver also includes messages such as “We Demand Change.”
Jessica Asch, a licensed creative arts therapist based in New York City who is helping run the camp and is using drama to reach students, says simply talking about their trauma is not enough. Breakthroughs happen when the grieving, for example, act out the role of someone else who experienced the shooting, such as a parent or a younger student at the neighboring West Glades Middle school that was also on lockdown when the shooter was on campus at the high school.
“The same thing with music or art,” she said. “I want them to have an opportunity to be still and just create.
“It expands their heart capacity, it expands the capacity for compassion,” Asch said. “When I think about the big goals of Camp Shine it’s about how can we expand our compassion, understand everyone has a voice and everyone has a story, and how can we be more empathetic and understand ... that the community is struggling and mourning?”
As the students’ art was nearly complete, a therapy German Shepherd that has been helping kids at the school joined in by dipping its paw in white paint and creating a print on the wall.
This art is a response to the shooting that helps all involved to grow and grip on to their strengths, Asch said.
For Oliver, it’s a way to connect with children who can now use art to find their voice, much like the voice Oliver says he gives his own son every time he takes brush to canvas.
“I’m an artist, I was an artist, and am still an artist. I just have a new mission, an important mission,” Oliver said. “I have to make sure Joaquin is still able to talk to us and art is that perfect tool that can make that happen. Because of art, I can still be a father. Feb. 14 didn’t stop me from being a father. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Oliver beamed surrounded by splashes of rainbow hues on a once blank canvas and smiling faces shouting “guacamole!” (instead of “cheese”) as they took a photo with their masterpiece.
“I’m playing the role of a father right now and that feels good,” he said.