"I haven’t seen it since I did it. Ha ha."

You may have seen this larger-than-life mural on the corner of Broadway and Van Trump Court in Albany, but you probably didn’t know it was created by this woman - a representative of Black history in the making.

Twenty-eight-year-old Jade Warrick is literally making her mark on the Capital Region with a stroke of her paint brush. But she doesn’t just create her own art.

“We are now going to the first Amplified Voices mural on First Street. We’re about two minutes away, so we’ll be there very soon," Warrick said. 

Amplified Voices is a mentoring program that Warrick co-created in June of 2020 to help teach children the power of expression through art.

“These are all original designs," Warrick said. "My thing is, I don’t lead the kids or tell them what to paint. I give them the foundation to come up with the idea, and this is what they came up with.”

The children share their pain in some of the art, but by sharing the pain, they begin to take ownership of their community.

“One of my favorite things about this is whenever I do these programs, I only get kids from the neighborhood," she said. "They’re all in the neighborhood. It's fun because sometimes when I’m here, I see little kids and they’re like, ‘Hi Miss Jade,’ and you know they get to see this every day, they get to drive by and say, 'I did this. This is for my community, you know.'”

The art also tells a story written by the people who live there.

At the corner of North Swan and 3rd Street in Arbor Hill, the Amplified Voices mural depicts the children’s anger over basketball hoops being chained to dumpsters, and also their pride in the talent that resides in the community.

While Warrick is working with children to make their communities even more beautiful, she finds her personal projects taking on a deeper meaning.

“I do find painting very cathartic. I do it quite often. Bad mood, good mood, sad moods, all moods. So I care about Black and queer artists of all ages seeing me out here successful. I care about that because it shows them that they could do it, too,” she said.

And while Warrick doesn’t see herself as a Black history figure now, she is aiming to make a lasting mark.

“It’s not my goal to create a legacy, but it is my goal to leave the world a better place than when I was born in it.”