Do you know the way to Santa Fe? Every first Friday the "art walk" features art, culture, entertainment
Every first Friday in the Denver Art District on Santa Fe, the artist from within comes out to play. As evening draws near, artists and onlookers of all kinds fill the streets for the First Friday Art Walk. The doors open to the more than sixty galleries, restaurants, and shops.
Duck inside one of the galleries and you may see a collection of contemporary watercolors. Follow your eye to another and find painted birdhouses or a series of sculptures made from recycled electronics.
Follow your ear, however, and you will experience art too real, too spontaneous for a price tag: live performance poetry.
The young poets of Art from Ashes
A small group of youth poets gather one block east of the art district at Art from Ashes (AfA). Among them are Chance Two Crow and his brother Chase, Jay-Jay “Reality” Davis, and Michael “the Freaky Monkey” Voice.
The crew walks together, a stand-up mic and small amplifier in hand, to the 910 Arts Gallery. The art walk is in full swing now. Aficionados stroll along the drive. Some stop to watch magic tricks on the corner, others dip into a gallery and eye the art.
Chance Two Crow
First Friday emcee Chance Two Crow, an AfA youth participant and trainee, plugs in, steps up, and opens the session with his poem “Sun Rises”.
Chance’s younger brother Chase told him about the poetry workshops at The Spot Urban Peak in downtown Denver. He went. And he kept going.
Now, Chance is a youth representative on the Board of Directors of AfA and is training to be a co-facilitator.
First Friday emcee Chance Two Crow waxes poetic. Click on Chance's photo to hear his poem "Sun Rises"
“I try to be hands on with everything and be involved as much as I can,” Chance said.
Like many AfA youth participants, Chance Two Crow did not find the inspiration he needed as a young man on the radio or in the lyrics of mainstream music. So, he found it in himself.
Now, Chance is a role model for the youth at the workshops, in the schools, and at events like First Fridays.
“What I like most is getting the other youth out there to perform and getting to hang out with them. I love the atmosphere of the art walk. Everybody seems so interested in the community and what we are trying to do,” he said.
So after he reads his poem, Chance lays it down: “Art from Ashes’ mission it to empower struggling youth by providing creative programs that facilitate health and hope through expression, connection, and transformation.”
Then, Chance Two Crow introduces another youth poet who found salvation in poetry: Jay-Jay “Reality” Davis.
Jay-Jay ‘Reality’ Davis
True transformation comes from within. Jay-Jay Davis knows this better than most. The poet with the stage name ‘Reality’ began her poetic journey, like Chance Two Crow, at The Spot.
When Jay-Jay’ mother was looking for a way to get Jay-Jay on the right path, she called Art from Ashes. Jay-Jay
Jay-Jay "Reality" Davis performs. Jay-Jay says, "Poetry saved my life."
was thirteen. She performed for the first time at The Spot, and she has been composing and reading her powerful poetry ever since.
In fact, she has taken her poetry to the big stage.
After being expelled from school and reeling from a brush with drugs and wrong turns, Jay-Jay found herself on stage at a 2009 speaking event featuring Dr. Alvin Poussaint in Aurora.
In front of a crowd 300 strong, “Reality” took the stage and bellowed, almost in song, her poem “Hero.”
The crowd erupted. Shouts of ‘amen’ shook the theatre.
A man approached Jay-Jay and just had to shake her hand. He was the vice principal of a local school. Jay-Jay’s school – the one she had been expelled from. Not only did he offer to have Jay-Jay back at the school, but also wanted her to read the poem in front of the entire student body.
She calls it “the best moment of [her] life.”
“My friends, they never got to see the real me. I was always bad. But if they see my poetry performance their whole frame of mind changes. I got a lot of respect after that,” she said.
The Denver Post’s Tina Griego wrote a column about Dr. Poussaint’s event. She even mentioned “Reality.”
“Reality” may have taken the stage that night, but it was Jay-Jay that changed the course of her own life.
She is her own hero.
Making art from ashes
Jay-Jay Davis and Art from Ashes director of operations Marie Varrett
After Jay-Jay’s set, more youth poets, all with stories to tell, take the mic as patrons of the art district come and go. Some drop a few dollars in a bowl to support AfA’s work, some lean against the wall and listen, and others sit right down and settle in.
As the set comes to a close, each poet hears the applause from the crowd and feels that now familiar feeling: we are heard, we matter.
American novelist Theodore Dreiser said, “Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.”
The young poets of Art from Ashes know what it’s like to come from the bottom and rise, through the ashes, to speak their powerful prose.
Their lives matter, and the failures they once knew are spoken out loud so that they can become the triumphs that help them live the lives they deserve.
Their message is clear.
They can find the inspiration on their own, and even from each other, but they need us to understand.
Click on the photo to donate to or support Art from Ashes.
We get offended over what elders say / And try to define everything with a specific meaning / Our outlook on this world is past comprehending / Can someone please say AMEN/ Stand up and understand/ We need a HERO to guide and hold our hand
~ Jay-Jay “Reality” Davis
[...] Art District on Santa Fe showcases youth poets of Art from Ashes Subscribe to Inside AfA [...]
[...] Chance Two Crow’s poetry is a powerful representation of his experience on the streets of Denver and of his continuing growth as an AfA volunteer and spoken word artist. Chance shared his reflective poetry which stands as a tribute to the formative power of words and the success of the Art from Ashes experience. [...]