Local art nonprofit reaches major milestones

Walking eastbound down West Jefferson Boulevard, a miniature mosaic skyscraper sits outside the Texas Theatre and the Oak Cliff Cultural Center. Although it is the first piece completed of 29 designs, it feels ingrained into the neighborhood.

Over a decade ago, Piece 24 was built over a three-year process through the local art nonprofit 29 Pieces. Designed by co-founder Karen Blessen, the organization holds love at its core through expansive art lessons.

As the first graphic artist to win the Pulitzer Prize, she even worked on the redevelopment of Times Square along with confetti engineering for the millennium New Year’s Eve ball drop. Blessen says her work truly took off in Dallas with the bulk of her career having an illustration and journalism focus.

One of her most impactful stories was published in 2003 with The Dallas Morning News. Titled “One Bullet,” the piece is a retelling of the events that happened in her own front yard while living in the Lakewood Heights area, having to dial 911 after a man came for help.

“In 2000, a young man was shot and killed in my front yard,” Blessen says. “The story was not about who committed the murder because we knew within several weeks who had been the shooter. The story was about the impact of one act of violence on the individuals involved, on the community and just on the world at large.”

This is what inspired Blessen and Barbara Miller to found 29 Pieces in 2005 (first called Today Marks the Beginning).

That same year, Blessen began to practice passage meditation, where she would devote time each morning to learn sacred texts from major faith traditions and write about them. These words eventually evolved into three-dimensional designs for 29 large-scale works, some even reaching as large as 60 feet tall from conception.

Those were the 29 Pieces that have reached 20 years of impact. Through the years, lesson plans were developed to strengthen skills for students, all tying back to love.

In 2013, 29 Pieces launched The Dallas Love Project. Inspired as a way to combat our city’s reputation as the “City of Hate,” the project included working with teachers and students across 24 states and Washington D.C. to create artwork to demonstrate that love lives in Dallas.

The 29 Sculptures project stands out differently, having taken a multi-year process to complete the first piece of two currently finished and being the namesake of the nonprofit today.

Between 2015 and 2016, a team of mosaic artists and local Oak Cliff high schoolers designed and built Piece 24.

“I had developed a system and love for working with young people and with educators,” Blessen says. “It turned out to be one of the great joys of my life, really, to work with that team on Piece 24.”

Operating out of an office on Peak Street between Main and Elm, the nonprofit opened an application and hosted interviews to give local students the opportunity to be paid interns.

Those students are now young adults. Some applied having a goal to end up in the art world where others were reluctant to even be involved.

Elmer Rivas wanted a foot into the field of art when he applied as a sophomore at Sunset High School.

“The idea of just working in art and, specifically, in Oak Cliff, where a lot of the community is marginalized and it’s Hispanic-based, I wanted my voice to be heard along with my peers,” Rivas says.

Piece 24 was a stepping stone for Rivas’ career goals. Following graduation, he earned his associate’s degree in art and a bachelor’s in art, interdisciplinary art and design studies.

Eventually, he landed a job back in Dallas ISD working as a teacher assistant. Today, he’s in the process of earning a certification to be an art teacher.

His experience with 29 Pieces helped him earn not only art experience, but nonprofit experience and pushed him to grow as an individual.

“During that time, I was a relatively shy kid. And I feel like as time went on, I was able to slowly open up and kind of find my voice in the project,” he says. “And even if you ask Karen how I am now, compared to how I was back then, it’s a completely different person.”

Hope Trevino was reluctant, but later became one of the most active in 29 Pieces.

“It’s so odd now that I think about it. I actually didn’t want to (apply) at the time,” she says. “I was very young, but my math teacher saw that I was drawing on my binders in class, and she gave me the paper to apply, which I did. She said that this might be a good way of expressing myself and just doing something other than drawing on the folder in her class.”

Trevino applied while she was a junior at Sunset, later graduating from Dallas Can Academy. She interned for 29 Pieces a few years after having left her mark on Piece 24. She remembers coming up with the eyeball on the hand at the top of the sculpture with Maria Patino.

“When I was working on Piece 24, I had a realization that even after I am gone, buried in the ground, that the piece will still be there,” she says. “I think that’s something that will stick with me forever because if I have children, my children will be able to see that, and I think it’s just something that I did for the community that will be there even when I’m not around, and I feel like kind of just leaving my mark for my hometown, especially because I’m from Dallas, born and raised in Oak Cliff. It means a lot to me.”

Dolores Mendoza worked on Piece 24 as a sophomore at Sunset, along with her first daughter attending most of the events with her.

“We’ll pass by it with family members. She’ll just say, ‘Look, my mom did that,’ or she’ll tell my youngest, ‘Oh, look what mom did,’” Mendoza says. “Having them know that I was part of something that everybody can see and everybody passes by. It’s just like a feeling that I did something. It just gives that little excitement every time she brings it up.”

The nonprofit and Piece 24 continues to impact her life today, even if it’s been a decade since she was spreading the grout and selecting the mosaic tiles.

“Throughout the years, what I would do is be with my family or go to 29 Pieces and even now … they’re just a big part of my life, especially all the people that I worked with and being able to catch up with them every now and then. It’s just great,” Mendoza says. “Karen is one of them. Maria is one of them. Hope is one of them. Elmer is one of them. They’re the type of people I go to every now and then when I need somebody to talk to.”

With 20 years of 29 Pieces wrapping up and a celebration in the spring, Blessen says she looks back on the impact made with a whole lot of pride and joy taking such a tragic event and finding purpose.

“It’s been just fulfilling, artistically fulfilling, personally fulfilling, spiritually fulfilling and a joy to meet all the people,” Blessen says. “There have been so many people who have helped make this happen. I look at it with a little bit of disbelief that we’ve done as much as we have and reached as many people we have  on what’s been a very small organization, really, and that for the most part, we’ve all remained part of it and friends and still contributing in one way or another.”