5 Reasons to Celebrate Youth Day at the Rail Yards Market by Alex Paramo

Alex Paramo

The great playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” While our reflex response is to agree with Shaw, I seriously believe that as a society, we can change that. How? By creating safe-spaces where our young folks can express themselves, unlock their creative souls, and promote the ideas that are relevant to their generation. Our multidimensional world requires multi-sensory ideas and solutions and that is what the arts cultivate in all of us. In these days of constant information, our young folks are generating not only new ideas, but new paradigms! Their collective potential to change our unsustainable ways of living is something we must invest in.

Join us in celebration of our Empowered Youth

Young folks are adept at multiple modes of expression: visual, musical, kinesthetic. They have the potential to change the world, and we have a responsibility to give them the tools with which to accomplish it! In that vein, we are very excited and honored to have Warehouse 508 be our guest programmer for our Youth Day theme! “Warehouse 508 is Albuquerque’s biggest youth art and entertainment center located in downtown Albuquerque. We offer a safe, structured and supervised facility to young adults and youth. Warehouse 508 provides a variety of programming and events that are youth driven, and youth focused.”

1.  The Pop-up Gallery will feature poster art from the Warehouse 508 Screenprinting program, sketches from the Fashion Department, and skateboards painted by local and national artists for the 5th Annual NMX Xtreme Art Auction, scheduled for August 1st. Proceeds from the auction provide scholarships for young people to participate in arts and extreme sports programming. Representatives from Warehouse 508 will be on-hand through-out the day.

2.  Live Art Zone – Warehouse 508 Mural Arts instructors Roberto Reyes, Kailani, Jermz, and their students will be painting on recycled skateboards to prepare for the NMX Xtreme Art Auction scheduled for August 1st. Proceeds from the auction provide scholarships for young people to participate in urban art and extreme sports programming.

3.  Local painter Gem the Alien will host a sticker making workshop in the Youth Art Zone to promote his program Xpression Sessions, free studio art classes hosted by local emerging artists held twice monthly (2nd and 4th Fridays) at Warehouse 508.

4.  The Community Stage will feature performances by the Warehouse 508 Rockstar and DJ programs as well as demos from 508 Break dancers, UHF Youth Crew, and a free breakdance workshop at 11:30am hosted by Bboy Versatility of Versatile Styles dance studio. Afternoon performances by youth singer songwriters. See schedule. Sage McKay is an Amy Biehl High School senior and composer who recently released his EP recorded in the Warehouse 508 studios.

https://soundcloud.com/sagemckay and http://www.reverbnation.com/sagemckay

5.  Warehouse 508 Photography students will document the day for us. I’ve included a flier we created for this weekend, a few photos of screen printed posters, a photo of a skateboard painted by muralist Aaron Noble who painted the Quantum Bridge Mural with our youth last fall.

Vision Thing

As we celebrate Youth Day, lets remember that we should honor and respect the next generation of leaders on a daily basis. We can lead them by being true leaders and conducting ourselves in the manner we would like to see them conduct themselves. If we work together, we can create the safe and free spaces that youth will need to set our society upon a different course that values justice, equality and respect for all living organisms that share our planet Earth.

In addition and conduction to the Warehouse 508 programming, we will have our wonderful poets, musicians, vendors, growers and food trucks for your sensory pleasures. Please visit our website for our complete schedule including performance times. See You Sunday!

Alex Paramo is an Author and Co-Founder of Community Publishing. Community Publishing brings local artists of all mediums together in creative collaborations for distribution as multimedia eBooks while promoting literacy in our communities.

We are proud to be a community partner and digital marketer at the Rail Yards Market.
#JoinOurCommunity at http://communitypublishing.org

Thank you to contributing writers: April Freeman of Warehouse 508 and Chad Gruber of the Rail Yards Market.