This Toronto artist is painting and donating 100 Nikes for vulnerable youth. Here's why

A Toronto artist is painting and donating 100 pairs of Nike Air Force 1s to show that hope can be laced into a pair of sneakers.

At 15-years-old, Daniel Mazzone, now 42, slept in a park behind the Art Gallery of Ontario, or on a toilet in a mall bathroom with his head folded into his lap. On cold days, he sometimes bought a $2-ticket to a Scarborough theatre, sunk into a seat and closed his eyes.

“I was homeless for five years,” Mazzone told CTV News Toronto. “When I did have a chance to get a pair of shoes, it kind of gave you a little bit of hope … hope that you could move forward.”

That’s why he decided to spray paint 100 pairs of Nike running shoes. Of the 100 pairs, 90 are being given to youth transitioning out of government care and 10 are being auctioned off until Friday to raise money for the Children's Aid Foundation of Canada.

“I spent so many years just in survival mode,” he said. “Towards the end, I just thought, you know, this can't be my life story, this can't be it.”

At 20, Mazzone decided to go back and finish high school while taking a job at a high-end restaurant and painting on the side.

With a paintbrush in hand, he thought back to his time living on the street and the judgment he felt as people walked by and looked down at him.

Daniel Mazzone, a Toronto artist who painted and donated 100 pairs of Nike Air Force 1s.“Wouldn't it be nice if the story of your life was on your skin, like a tattoo? That way when people see you, they wouldn't be so quick to judge, they would understand what you've gone through and really understand who you are,” he said.

For that reason, he crafts labyrinths of intricate designs in the faces of his subjects, which are often blockbuster names like Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn and Nelson Mandela.

 

 

 

 

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The restaurant owner he was working with when he started painting insisted on hanging one of his pieces in the establishment. Four days later, it sold.

“I quit my job the exact same day they bought it,” Mazzone said. He’s been working as an artist ever since.

“I just really decided that this was something I was going to do and this was something I was meant to do. I never looked back.”