Betsy Casañas' mission unites art and activism

Betsy Casañas is an artist on the move. When she isn't zooming around the city from her A Seed on Diamond Gallery in Kensington to social events in Southwest Philadelphia, she's jetting to Peru or Dubai.

The 40-year-old muralist, educator, and activist thrives on engaging communities, wherever that takes her, and telling their stories, her mission for the last 20 years.

"Murals are a starting place," Casañas said. "They provide the opportunity to transform spaces, and, in particular, take back spaces for underserved communities. Art is a necessity for life."

On Front Street between Allegheny and Westmoreland is a block-long mural by Casañas titled Aqui Se Respira Lucha (Here We Breathe Struggle) that chronicles the history of Latin people. The intensely patterned motif with two monumental figures in a warm embrace, possibly a mother and daughter, graces the Asociación de Puertorriqueños en Marcha building. "It Has to Come From Here, Forgotten but Unshaken," a quote from the Julia DeBurgos poem "Farewell From Welfare Island," frames the underlying context of Casañas' powerful imagery.

Casañas, whose family is from Puerto Rico, was born and raised in North Philadelphia. Last year, she received the Hispanic Choice Vision Award as artist of the year for her dedication to improving communities and empowering their residents through her artwork and community gardens. Casañas' first garden, Semilla Arts Initiative Children's Garden, is now a landmark at Fourth and Somerset Streets in North Philadelphia.

"There are not a lot of art venues in the North Philly area, and Betsy's gallery gives access," said David Acosta, a local poet and arts activist. "She had the vision and foresight to put it together to help improve the community. She is someone who is connected to North Philly, and her life reflects that connection."

Casañas says her goal is to get people, young and old, actually working on art projects.

"I'll go into any neighborhood, and work in some that are dangerous; I feel that there is a need for that," Casañas said. "I'm not afraid, but there is an element of violence in the streets based on a combination of things, such as the lack of resources in the community and the school system [that] does not truly serve inner-city kids. The impetus for working in the neighborhood is a desire to facilitate change. I wanted to help create a community where my own children can live and thrive."

Casañas started out as an educator working with young people before attending Moore College of Art at age 19, and it is through this prism that her activism grew.

"CHAD [Charter High School for Art and Design] was a mural studio/workshop for me, so every year my groups assisted me in creating murals," she said. "They learned about everything from life drawing, portraiture to color theory." She also invited artists from diverse disciplines to work with the students.

Her most important lesson for her students was for them to understand how they could change their environment using very simple approaches. She conveyed to them that "your community is more than your bedroom." She emphasized basic concepts like "keeping the community clean and working to make it beautiful."

Despite her hardly imposing 5-foot-2 frame, "I never had discipline problems," she said. "The students were exceptional."

Casañas also worked for more than 20 years with Network Arts Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and has taken her work overseas, creating murals in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and several cities in Peru.

Casañas' invitation to Dubai came from Lebanese mother Ghia Haddad, who during a trip to Philadelphia in 2012 took a tour of the city's murals. She hoped to launch a "Be" campaign in her city and invited Casañas to create a mural for her project because of the artist's collage techniques and work with children in making large-scale murals.

Though Casañas didn't work with an underserved community in Dubai, she did talk with a local parent-teacher group of her experiences working with communities in Philadelphia. And she managed to produce two murals in 14 days, which she unveiled during a repeat visit four months later.

In 2013, Casañas shared her communal approach to murals with residents in Peru, including in the cities of Cuzco, Piura, and Lima. The invitation was arranged by Monica Rodrigo, a Peruvian board member of Raices Culturales in North Philadelphia who had heard about Casañas' work in Dubai.

Casañas worked directly with the indigenous populations as she traveled through the hills of Cero Agustino in Lima. "I really connected with the people," she recalled. "You had to finish your work by five o'clock in the evening, because it became really dangerous [at night]. The Lima community was riveted with issues of alcohol abuse, domestic problems, and violence." Casañas' work was seen as a vehicle to facilitate change within the community. She worked in tandem with educators, Jesuit community workers, adults, and teenagers.

Challenges endemic in Latin communities throughout the United States and the Americas in general are of particular concern to Casañas.

Her A Seed on Diamond Gallery was an outgrowth of the collective Semilla, initiated in 2007 with Philadelphia artist Pete Ospina; the gallery opened in 2010. A recent project is "Las Desaparecidas de Ciudad Juárez: A Homage to the Missing and Murdered Girls of Juarez," featuring the work of Diane Kahlo. The portraits painted from 150 photographs of missing and murdered girls are a stark reminder of the murders of women not only in Mexico, but all over the world.

And Casañas takes on the recent horror of the murdered and missing students in Ayotzinapa Guerrero, Mexico. She is working to secure funding for a series of murals to be created in various parts of the city to honor the lives of these students, transforming their anonymity to heralded presences.

For now, she continues to grow deep connections between artists and activism in her gallery. And she shows no signs of slowing down.

"Casañas is extraordinary and energetic," says Thora Jacobson, executive director of the Art Alliance. "She is ultimately an artist who makes it happen."