Posters of peace

BURBANK — A girl watched the sunset over an ocean of white space on 13-year-old Alexandra Acton’s peace-themed painting.

There was a small sliver of blue to represent water, but the empty area on her “peace poster” helped reflect that peace is just an idea, the eighth-grader at Jordan Middle School said.

“It’s really saying that peace is something that we think we can achieve and it’s really easy, but it’s not,” Alexandra said, explaining that peace is a process that begins with each individual.

Her poster was one of three selected Wednesday as winners of the Burbank Noon Lions’ 13th annual peace poster contest.

The other two winners, Kayla Eng of Luther Burbank Middle School and Valerie Vasquez of the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank, also submitted posters based on the theme “peace begins with me.”

The Noon Lions, along with Mayor Dave Golonski and representatives from the offices of Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, Rep. Adam Schiff, state Sen. Jack Scott and Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, all recognized the art projects of the three children, many of them presenting special certificates to the winners.

“It really makes the kids think about what peace really is to them,” said Golonski, adding that he was inspired by the creativity of the winners.

It wasn’t easy to come up with a painting that reflected the theme well, said 12-year-old Valerie, a seventh-grader at Mt. Gleason Middle School in Sunland.

“I thought it was sort of hard thinking of how you would show that,” Valerie said. “Then, at the end, it was easy because it starts with me.”

Valerie’s painting was a hand drawing of a giant, red peace sign over an image of joined hands, recycling cans and a newly planted tree.

She started the image by drawing her hand to show that she was part of the environmental efforts for peace in the picture, she said.

Especially important was the image of four hands joined together in the middle of the photo, each one a different color to represent a different racial background, Valerie said.

“It’s a symbol of what we can all become,” Valerie said. “Like one big united family.”

The girl in Alexandra’s poster was listening to music while sitting on a beach, next to blue, yellow and green rocks.

The different colors represented that the idea of peace was sometimes unrealistic, she said, adding that the girl in the picture was reflecting.

“It means you can’t really be peaceful for anyone else unless you can be peaceful with yourself,” Alexandra said.