The “The Positivity Scrolls.” are coming to LA with your help!
Pairoj wanders the streets every week pushing a folding cart that holds his brushes, paint, and a long roll of canvas. "What is your name?" he gently asks when he encounters a homeless person. "Why are you homeless? Where is your family? What are your dreams?" And, finally, "Can I paint you?"
Some say no. Some shout and curse at him. Many say yes...
I discovered Pairoj's work via a Buddhist community publication I'm involved with, and I thought it was a truly fabulous and empowering way to bring awareness to the voiceless, undervalued, and often, invisible homeless individual.
Together, I (Lifestyledezine) and LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department), have featured Pairoj as the artist in this year’s Walk The Talk Parade: "Where we bring Skid Row to life with performances that pay tribute to neighborhood initiatives and the men and women whose contributions to the community call for a big, blaring celebration!" ... and Pairoj would paint these wonderful humans.
The conception of this project is to honor people who live and work on Skid Row and who have made it one of the most significant areas for solving the problems that other people have given up on.
This is highly important to me and Lifestyledezine, because it has become too easy for a community and people - brothers and sisters to become invisible. LD exist to promote love and compassion, in turn creating a ripple effect that transforms the world.
Pairoj would spend a week in LA painting the homeless of skid row and the honorary individuals for the Walk The Talk Parade, we would document this for archival purposes and to keep his work moving. Pairoj would paint two portraits of each individual, one for the person and one for the gallery show we will have on Memorial Day weekend in downtown Los Angeles. All the proceeds from the show will go towards the Skid Row community's artists, and individuals trying to make a lasting impact.
Taking inspiration from Chinese scroll paintings, Pairoj paints his subjects on 10-foot-wide by 150-foot-long rolls of canvas, sliced into shorter more manageable lengths that are later stitched back together. He's already filled four scrolls with side-by-side portraits of some 250 homeless men and women and plans to start work on a 300-foot scroll soon.
The funds we're seeking will help get him to LA from Thailand, housing, and a stipend (spending money) for the week. Per Pairoj, he doesn't want any money and any money he collects when painting on the street is for the homeless. Any additional funds will go into the pool of money raised from each painting sold at the gallery show and back into the community.
Here's an except from the article:
in 2013, Pairoj Pichetmetakul passed a scene he’ll never forget.
On a nearly empty street in the SoMa district, Pairoj saw a young man beating a white-haired homeless man who appeared to be in his 70s. The attacker punched and kicked his victim, then sat on his chest and pummeled his face.
Pairoj wanted to help but fear held him back. He was new in the country, his English was poor, and he couldn't call the police because his cell phone battery had died. So, he just walked home...
Three years earlier, Pairoj had been a saffron-robed monk living at the Wat Hua Krabue Buddhist temple near Bangkok, where he recalls trying to avoid stepping on insects while walking between his living quarters and the temple.
Why, then, didn’t he help the homeless man?
That question troubled him so deeply that he resolved to make amends the only way he felt he could—through his art. Thus began an artistic and social project he calls “The Positivity Scrolls.”
