One of the guiding principles of the Y — something every staff member and volunteer takes seriously — is youth development. Helping young people to reach their full potential in life is one of the things that makes the Y more than just a place to take swim lessons or work out.
So it’s fitting that the outside of the Boll Family YMCA in Detroit, which also serves as the headquarters of the Metro Detroit YMCA, is bedecked with large-scale portraits of youth leaders. And it’s equally fitting that those portraits are the work of someone who is himself a youth leader: Will Erwin.
Erwin is a senior at Cranbrook Kingswood School with a strong interest in using art ot advance social initiatives. he’s been part of several youth leadership programs in the Metro Detroit area, and wanted to do something to highlight the potential of the youth in this region. The work of street artists such as Banksy, Shephard Fairey and JR inspired his idea to create a large-scale art installation on a high-profile building. The problems? Finding a building owner who would share his vision, and funding the costly large-scale,weather-resistant prints to install if he did find someone.
Through networking, he met the Y-Arts staff, who supported his cause as long as he could guarantee no lasting damage to the building. The financial end was covered by a scholarship through his school, the Pursue A Dream Scholarship. It was founded by the family of a young man who had been a student at the school when he died, and is given to a junior to pursue a summer project.
Over the summer, Will worked to install the project at the Boll, starting with a sample on the loading dock and continuing through Labor Day Weekend. It was hours of work every day, and he used a cherry picker to reach the highest part of the building. An opening reception will be Sunday, Sept. 9 from 3 to 5 p.m.