Kids, pizza help celebrate Starts with Arts’ three years

If you know David Varela, you know he has a bit of an obsession with pizza.

The founder of Starts with Arts Foundation liberally peppers the foundation’s Instagram account with equal parts art, pizza and artistic renderings of pizza.

It was only fitting, perhaps, that all things pepperoni pie would be the final children’s workshop the foundation staged Saturday heading into its third anniversary since becoming a nonprofit dedicated to arts education and youth art outreach.

On March 31, 2012, Varela and his Starts with Arts partner Alex Tamayo were granted 501©3 status for an organization that has donated money, supplies and time to the El Centro Elementary School District over the years and has consistently held free art workshops for children focusing on everything from silk-screen printing, painting and photography to writing, guitar and weekend afternoons just dedicated to opening their El Centro Main Street location’s doors and letting the creativity flow.

Behind it all, though, has been Varela’s unwavering love for pizza —- oftentimes all he could afford to eat in college — because he almost sees the concept of pizza as an extension of being an artist.

“We take something as simple as pizza and we go wild with the imagination,” he said with a smile and laugh.

He’s not taking it that seriously, though. It’s fun for him.

For Ryan Auren of Crumbs Pizzeria in Brawley, it’s a little more meaningful.

Pizza is his livelihood and his connection to his family.

Auren, who opened Crumbs this year, works endless hours making the business go. He even became certified through Goodfellas Pizza School in New York to come back and teach this process to others for fun and a little profit.

With late nights at the pizzeria taking him from his family, the classes are “a way for me to try to spend time with my kids,” he said.

On Saturday, as he pulled and stretched dough with a room full of flour-dusted children and preteens, his 9-year-old son, Chance, was his assistant in Pizza 101. His 5-year-old can often be seen bumping around as well.

Auren’s interesting story is meant for another day, though. It was the class he led for Starts with Arts that was the focus Saturday.

Varela stood by with friends, family members and parents and their kids from around the community who got a spot in the capacity workshop, watching dough get smacked in to submission and fly into the air, sauce and cheese tossed around sloppily with youthful glee.

Varela snapped photos and posted them to his Instagram page, of course.

Meanwhile, children like 6-year-old Emma Leal, a first-grader from Imperial, and her friend, 7-year-old Victoria Andrade, also of Imperial, giggled as they made their mini-pizzas, noses and clothes thick with high-gluten flour and a dash of semolina.

Older kids like Gwyneth Rodriguez, 12, of Calexico and Riley Brown, 10, of Imperial made full family-size pies to take home and share.

And for Starts with Arts, Saturday’s workshop was a prelude to a big art event and music release party in Brawley for local hip-hop artist Asaph the Vigourous, where Starts with Arts would have a booth fundraising for its community art programs.

Varela said it was that community he was thanking through a little fun with pizza after another year of reaching the Valley through art — starting creative conversations and keeping them going.

“Our main focus, from the beginning, was to try to bring art back into the classroom and that mission has also evolved into community work with Easter Seals,” Varela said, and other community organizations.

“Also, to come into the community to spark that conversation about art,” he said. “There seems to be more conversation between artists and art lovers. … That conversation is getting stronger. … We feel we’ve been a part of that.”

Photos by Richard Montenegro Brown.

This story originally appeared in the Imperial Valley Press, April 5, 2015.