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Artist John Donato switched from business career to teaching kids life lessons through art

The Daily Times

Painter John Donato sits in his studio in Ocean View, Del. on Thursday, Sept 7, 2017.

John Donato sat on a stack of paint cans in his Ocean View studio. His overalls are covered in paint from preparing for an upcoming art show.

His job is a little different than it used to be.

Donato used to work in the corporate world before the Great Recession. He was laid off from his job as a corporate trainer and didn't know what to do.

But a hobby that he said he had dabbled in previously called his name as a possible profession — painting.

"I was only going to do it as a temporary thing just to get by until I figured out where I wanted to go, a job," he said. "And I liked it so much I kept doing it, and that was almost 10 years ago that happened."

Now he has traded in an office for a studio with walls filled with vibrant scenes like one featuring a dog on a surfboard.

Donato has made a name for himself by painting the bright and whimsical fine art pieces, but perhaps what has attracted the most attention is his collaborative murals, allowing him to get covered in paint for a cause.

He will work with a school or an organization to paint a mural that is used to educate while painting.

"Whatever the subject was, I could tailor the program to that, and then I became more of a mural artist," he said. "I was still doing fine art when I wasn’t on murals, but I started focusing my attention on bigger projects with a lot of people where I might be working with 2,000 people in the course of a week to do 400 feet of muraling inside a school."

They will focus on subjects such as bullying prevention, character building or whatever they are trying to instill in the kids and the staff, Donato said.

The murals took skills from his previous job as a corporate trainer, he said, giving him a chance to use that experience to bring a point home.

Donato has worked through a partnership with the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation, which has secured money to bring Donato into every middle school in Sussex County with the last two middle school projects being completed this year.

"He excels and is a great teacher," said Alyson Cunningham, Joshua M. Freeman Foundation communications manager. "As a kid if you don’t feel artistically inclined that can be intimidating, and he does a great job saying you can make a mistake and guiding them to make that mistake into part of their project and the beauty they are able to create."

The murals in the schools are focused on character building, Donato said.

During the previous school year, Donato worked with the Indian River School District to paint murals in the George Washington Carver Academy and Phillip C. Showell Elementary School.

His work at G.W. Carver was significant, said Whitney Price, a counselor at the school.

"It really helped add to the mission of our program," she said. "Our primary focus is to help students to improve their behavior and their social emotional regulation to help get them back to their home schools. John being the amazing person he is went above and beyond."

Donato worked with small groups of students to do the mural, Price said, and even took time to work with four students individually who were not working well in a large group.

Price said she gave Donato their curriculum — called Positive Actions — that focuses on enhancing emotional betterment for the students.

"Before he would come in he would do his homework and center his work around the curriculum," Price said. "His approach was therapeutic in nature and mirrored the curriculum. I cannot say enough good things about John Donato."

The mural is displayed in different parts of the building, Price added, and the students really enjoy it because they can see the lessons they are taught in the mural.

Part of the mural John Donato helped paint at the George Washington Carver Academy.

At Phillip C. Showell Elementary School, the mural Donato did last year focused on bringing the community together, said Principal Karen Clausen.

Donato worked with each grade beforehand to discuss the mural and his experiences.

"He incorporated the growth mindset and was supporting the initiatives in place here as well as giving them an art lesson," she said. "And it culminated with the students painting the mural. We had a community night during which students, family, staff and community members came and contributed to the painting of the mural."

The opportunity to work with a local artist gave her students a better appreciation for art, she said.

Both Price and Clausen said they are already working on another grant to have Donato come in and do another mural in the school.

The mural painted last year at G.W. Carver will be officially unveiled to the public at an event at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 2, featuring public officials and members of the community.

Donato said every week he is working on a mural with some projects overlapping.

Some of his projects will last for a single day and some projects are done in two weeks, while others are years in the making.

Donato has also worked in Kent and New Castle counties and Wilmington with foster children and at-risk children.

"We are trying to help them out, help them find their way, and in doing so I can counsel them," he said.

His main work with foster youth is through the Youth Advisory Council, which is made up of foster youth to help foster youth.

Artist John Donato works with a schools and organizations to paint murals that are used to educate the students while painting.

The foster youth he works with, Donato said, are about to age out of the system, so he works with them as an adviser.

"It’s a very scary time for them, it’s a very risky time for them," he said. "And what I found out is that through working with them they are just like every other child. They are just as talented, they are just as trustworthy, but there’s sort of a stigma attached to them.

"And this is a scary time for them because when kids are at risk bad things can happen."

Donato said he realizes his path to where he is now, sitting covered in paint in a little studio in Ocean View, wasn't conventional.

But he said he is thankful for everything that preceded his art career.

"Everything I did before I was an artist, thank goodness I did it, because I had no idea it would impact the way I became an artist, or how I would actually run my own business as an artist," he said.

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