"This is Youngstown coming into it's own," said Derek Birnie, executive director of Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association (DNDA), at the event.

The ground floor of Youngstown was bustling with around 50 community members who came to celebrate the cultural arts center fifth year anniversary, watch a documentary on street art, take part in a quick-art assembly line and enjoy a potluck dinner in the rooms of artists who opened up their world for the night.

"DNDA,through a lot of support from the community, was able to preserve and rehabilitate the building and this I think is a celebration now of what's come to be as the community in the building. It's a really dynamic, vibrant set of relationships between organizations and community members here," he added.

The slideshow above shows the collaborative art pieces created by young and old during the quick-art assembly line.

Original preview of the event:

In 2006 the old schoolhouse at 4408 Delridge Way s.w. was transformed into the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center – the result of Delridge-area “neighborhood heroes” turning an abandoned space into a thriving art education, community building, low-income artist housing center.

Youngstown turns five years old on Saturday, Feb. 26, and the arts center staff has put together a multi-tiered celebration for the milestone.

The event starts at 4:30 p.m. with a showing (open to everyone) of Exit Through the Gift Shop, a documentary about well-known street artists where the filmmaker gets involved in making art himself … with interesting results. To read a synopsis of the film, click here.

“The thing I like about it is the notion of a very seemingly regular person getting inspired by something and taking it to the extreme (in this case),” said Youngstown program director Alberto Mejia. “It’s that spirit of playfulness and creativity that can come out of anybody: I think that is the value we hold at this center and so we think particularly the street art movement and the creativity that’s shown there … could spark a really cool dialogue.”

After the movie, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., Mejia said the center welcomes the public to take part in a “quick art production assembly line.”

“So you just watched this movie and you have a lot of energy and we’re going to have these work stations with various pieces of art you can throw together,” Mejia said.

Each artist (that’s you) will have a short amount of time to apply their vision at each station before moving on to the next where they will build upon what has already been done.

“It’s a collaborative art-factory kind of thing going on,” Mejia said. “The idea is create community through art and you have limited time and limited materials, but you do what you can. Improvisation and building community at the same time.”

Attendees will also have an opportunity to explore the Youngstown center, including a look into the lives of some artists living upstairs in the artist villa. Oh, and there will be food.

“A number of residents have agreed to open up their space and have food present so families … can see their space and meet some of the artists who live here and have food and discussion.”

From 8:00 p.m. on the event will transition into a 21 and over celebration of the founding fathers of Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, Randy Engstrom and KC Correll. There will be an open mic, dance party and adult libations available.

Mejia said Engstrom founded the ground floor arts center where performing arts, recording, classroom and art studios are located and Correll was the first manager of the artist villa upstairs (where artists can rent live/work studio space).

“During the neighborhood planning process a bunch of neighborhood heroes, everyday folks, got together and said, ‘This place should be a cultural art center,’ so there is a legacy even behind the founding fathers,” Mejia said.

“(Engstrom and Correll’s) role was to have the leadership, the creativity and the plain old hard work - it’s almost like the business starters’ spirit – to make the building come alive,” he said.

“So together they built a lot of community in between the artist villa upstairs and the cultural art center and the organization that are based on the first floor, so the energy and the community we have – we owe a lot to those two guys.”

Mejia said it is also a celebration of everyone’s efforts along the way under the leadership of Engstrom and Correl.

“There are a number of people that are connected because, obviously, our leaders are only as good as the people who stand with them and that’s something we want to emphasize too,” he said. “Those guys have exceptional leadership that we want to honor.”

To learn more about the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, visit their website at http://www.youngstownarts.org/.

This story will be updated with pictures and more from tomorrow’s celebration.