Edition 43 — Massiel Grullon Knowing Your Worth Massiel Grullon’s response when I ask her what advice she would give her teen self is concise, but impactful: “Don’t ever undervalue yourself as an artist.” Though Grullon has not always been fully aware of her worth as a creator, her confidence has grown over…

Edition 42 — Kevin Nguyen Work That Speaks As a shy, quiet freshman at Boston Latin Academy, Kevin Nguyen might have struggled to imagine where he is today. Though he filled his notebooks with doodles and leapt at every opportunity to approach school projects artistically, he didn’t imagine his creativity to be something…

Edition 41— Amril Foster Art, All the Time Nearly thirty years after she entered Artists For Humanity as a teen in 1995, chef, small business owner, and artist Amril Foster found herself back at AFH. One of five individuals selected for the inaugural cohort of The AFH Artists Fellowship program, Foster is once again…

Edition 40— Mikey Guadarrama From Outcast to Mentor & Everything In-Between When I ask Mikey Guadarrama to share his favorite memory from his time at Artists For Humanity, he struggles to pick just one. Amid a whirlwind of stories, he places a special emphasis on “The B-Boy Olympics,” an event hosted by a local breakdancer in the…

Edition 39—Trevor Ward All I Wanted to Learn in The World Trevor Ward was one of the few Artists For Humanity (AFH) teens who didn’t discover the nonprofit through their high school career center. Despite being homeschooled, Ward had AFH on his radar for quite some time. “When I was a kid, my mom made us participate in…

Edition 38—Joel Balbuena Kind, Curious, Hardworking Artists For Humanity (AFH) alumni often describe the organization as having opened doors to countless opportunities. Joel Balbuena has a slightly different take. “I actually think it closed my exploration,” he said. “But that’s not a bad thing. That’s a great thing.” A Boston native from Mattapan…

Edition 37— Da Thao Nguyen Coming Full Circle “My name is Da Thao Ngyuen, but I go by D.T.” Da Thao, aka D.T., tells her story with exceptional ease. Her answers to my questions are straightforward, without needless embellishments. Perhaps I expose her modesty when she credits her high school self as a…

Edition 36— Chantale Regnier Little By Little Chantale Regnier has worked in every sector of the fashion industry: creative, business, and even production. Surprisingly, her most cherished memory from Artists For Humanity (AFH) and the time spent honing her skills has nothing to do with fashion. Regnier, a New York City-based designer, recalled…

Edition 35 — Emily Lyons Tough Love “I had no idea that I had this artistic ability to draw and paint.” Instead, 16-year-old Emily Lyons was interested in photography. “That’s when Myspace and Facebook were everything, and everyone was taking photos,” she said. When Lyons discovered that an organization called Artists For…