In D.C., Art Program Turns Boys' Lives Into 'Masterpieces'
Maurice Kie, 26, is a mentor with Life Pieces. He started with the program as an "apprentice" when he was 9-years-old. "It's the whole thought that you went through something in your life and I support you," says Kie. "Or you went through something and I also embrace the same idea, canvas and paint brush."
Take a series the boys did called "Walk A Mile In My Shoes." Each painting is different, but they all have a pair of tennis shoes as the centerpiece. One painting is black with brightly colored flecks, like stars. The tennis shoes sort of emerge from the center. According to Kie, the shoes could represent anything from the death of a community member to a marker of drug territory or prostitution. But in the series, the shoes have a deeper meaning:
"For us it was more like, 'Could you walk a mile in my shoes?' " says Kie. "Could you experience some of the things that I experience? Could you embrace me as I experience these things?"
Kie often talks about the "brotherhood" that forms between boys who learn to talk about these experiences with each other at Life Pieces. The art, he says, is the means but not the end. They also write songs and poems together:
All these odds
If I do well in school, can I jump over jail?
If I pray every night, can I jump over this hell?
If I run past time, will time really tell?
Or will these shoes turn to boots
As I write this next poem from a cell?