Forcing young people to go to regular school is like trying to “colonize mold into a grid,” says Devon McKellar, co-ordinator of the Purple Thistle Centre, a youth arts and activism space in East Vancouver. The Purple Thistle offers free classes in drawing, publishing, film photography, bicycle mechanics and animation. It also provides access to a dark room and a computer lab with internet and a variety of animation software.

There are painted canvases on the walls, with more resting against the furniture and on the floor. A table at the front displays zines created at the centre and graffiti covers the lockers, which people in need use as a safe storage area.

A leather jacket with the words “Skid Row” on its back hangs over a messy but well-stocked art supply nook. McKellar says she is wary of people who use the term “Skid Row” to glamorize poverty.

“We cater to low-income people,” says McKellar, whose students at the Purple Thistle are often far from rich.

The school was founded by McKellar and a group of kids from Windsor House, an alternative school in North Vancouver.

Generally, alternative schools are for elementary and high school students who don’t fit well into the “grid” of the public school system. They usually have less strict curricula decided on by the students themselves and a less hierarchical-power structure between students and teachers. Some are private, others are funded by school boards.

The group of Windsor House grads wanted to keep their free education going after high school and decided to create “an alternative college,” says McKellar. “They got together with their friends who were drop-out punks or whatever, and they worked with Matt Hern for a year figuring out what they wanted.”

Matt Hern is a Vancouver author with a PhD in urban studies. He and the original Purple Thistle collective started the school in 2001 in a small one-bedroom apartment on Commercial Drive. “By the end of the second year we had plaster of Paris all over the walls. Everything was covered in graffiti, and it smelled like punks all the time. It was just so cool,” says McKellar.

The Purple Thistle, now located in a loft near Clark and Venables, isn’t affiliated with the Ministry of Education, and it doesn’t grant degrees.

Hern taught the other Thistle members how to write grants to get government funds for art and education projects. Grants, as well as the odd donation, provide all the funds for art supplies, administration and the $2,000-per-month rent. The total cost of running the school is about $80,000 a year, says McKellar.

Grants come from the Vancouver Foundation, the City of Vancouver, Industry Canada, VanCity, the John Hardie Mitchell Foundation, BC Hydro, Arts Now and other sources. A grant for the photography program covers a portion of the rent for the dark room and supplies. Another grant covers the production of a zine and the publishing course. Also, Human Resources & Social Development Canada runs a program in the space that pays for one third of the Thistle’s rent.

McKellar has taken over the administrative duties from Hern, whose education and experience was needed to get the centre up and running, she says.

“It’s not the easiest thing for a youth to write a grant,” she says. “They’ve got no CV, they’ve got no degree behind them or anything. It’s really hard for them to get credibility. Somebody from the Canada Council [for the Arts] will go, ‘What the hell? You don’t have any cred. I’m not going to give you 10 grand.’”

Recently, Hern has been away from the centre, and it has grown independent of him, which McKellar says has its positive side. People used to need him to run everything and even saw him as a “Daddy Thistle,” she explains.

“Now, it’s when we need a degree to stick on something that he comes in,” she says.

McKellar invites artists and mentors to drop by the Thistle if they need a space to work or some help writing grant a application.

Dropping by the Thistle was critical for McKellar a few years ago, she says.

“When I first started coming here I was in college, and it was the worst thing in the world for me. I was going through a lot of personal stuff, and I was not sure what I was doing with my life. I felt really dis-empowered, and I was pretty angry,” she says, admitting she “cracked and quit school.”

“I was like, ‘I don’t have a support network anymore, and I don’t really have an income. I don’t have anything to do with my time. I don’t have anything to do with my life. What the hell have I been doing.’ I was at an all time low.”

Coming to the Purple Thistle made her realize that it wasn’t what she was studying she hated it was just school.The “grid” or “school/work/prison/military” system didn’t work for her, she says.

“The Thistle really helped me figure out that if I’ve got problems in my life, I feel powerless,” McKeller says. “But coming here made me realize that it’s my fault, and I can fix it.”

The Purple Thistle Centre can be found online at purplethistle.ca.