SKETCH is a Canadian charity that creates opportunities for young street- involved homeless people to engage and express themselves through creativity and art. Here at Dashboard we have been working with SKETCH to find ways to get involved within their organization. We will be featuring their culture makers, as well as volunteering our time and knowledge to assist on various projects. As an advertising agency, art, as a means of expression is a necessity for us, so we are thrilled to be working with an agency that is helping to champion this belief. Make sure you keep up with the Dashboard blog, so you don’t miss other culture makers we will be featuring from SKETCH.
This month’s feature culture maker is Mark: He is a musician as well as a visual artist.
What kinds of artwork do you do?
“I’m predominantly a musician, but I do get involved with visual arts for my music projects … I produce, so I play a multitude of instruments. I play bass, I play guitar, I play keyboards, and I also deal with synthetic drum kits and stuff like that, so I kind of do a mixture of, I guess you could call it, like, traditional song writing or like folk or rock but it’s got a very digital edge to it at points too. The stuff I’m doing right now with the Grizwald Project, which is the name of the demo that I’m putting out right now, it’s more acoustic-driven and more of a return to more traditional song writing ideas.”
What has your experience with SKETCH been like?
“It’s been awesome, it’s been really really good. I was introduced to SKETCH from a good friend of mine, I’ve known him for fifteen years, his name is Mozes, he was one of the featured artists, we went to public school together in Sudbury, Ontario. And between his back and forth Toronto scenario I got a chance to get a feel for the city over the years and this year I kinda decided I was going to make it a more permanent stay. And after kind of watching what I was doing with the programming that is at SKETCH already the people that were there were like ‘you know what, you should probably just get on board with us for a little bit.’”
Possible album art for the Grizwald Project
What inspires you?
“Change inspires me a lot and that’s probably why I got involved with this. Change, my environment – of course, I am partially a product of my environment, but I like affecting my environment if I can too. I find myself to be an optimistic person, but at one point in my life I wasn’t an overly optimistic person so at this point I like the fact that I can be a part of change but I can also be a part of what’s happening around me. You know what I mean?” — Mark, SKETCH Featured Culture Maker
Dale says: