About

Community Canvases

Community Canvases is a 501(c)3 nonprofit devoted to facilitating community engagement and expression through the arts.

Contact us

Please reach out to Executive Director Katherine Pessecow at wnytrashmob@gmail.com

History

Community Canvases was founded by Jim Montour, Alex Cornwell, and Elaine Grisanti. In Alex’s words, “After a considerable amount of research on the subject of communities and graffiti. One of the sources we found had done testing to see whether graffiti removal or graffiti replacement was the answer. Just covering it up with gray paint wasn’t enough. Rather, murals were the answer. The study found that not only did murals deter graffiti on themselves, but they had a radiant effect on the area around them.” Over the past decade, Elaine Grisanti has stewarded Community Canvases along with Katherine Pessecow and we have grown to include school programs, summer camps, community-building neighborhood clean ups (fb, instagram), and writing programs.