Retired teacher's pop can art raises funds for Brampton hospital - Action News
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Toronto

Retired teacher's pop can art raises funds for Brampton hospital

If you throw a pop can in Brampton's Queen Street E. neighbourhood, there is a high chance it will land in a retired teacher's house.

David Barham has created over 100 art pieces using pop cans he finds on streets

David Barham
David Barham has created over 100 pieces of art using pop cans. By the end of last year he donated some $1,500 to Brampton's William Osler Health System Foundation under his friend's name, who passed away four years ago. (Saloni Bhugra/CBC)

If you throw a pop can in Brampton's Woodhill neighbourhod, there is a high chance it will land in a retired teacher's house.

That's because 84-year-old David Barham collects them to make art.

It started in 2020, when Barham's friend, Leon Applewhitean artist he met in a walking groupwas hospitalized after a stroke paralyzed his right side. Barham visited him every week. On one of those days,he saw a crushed can on the road a can he sayscouldn't ignore.

"It was the first can that just said, 'Take me home,"Barham said. It was a Coors Light beer can with glasses drawn on it.

Inspired by Applewhite, Barham decided to pick up the can and put it onto a canvas. After that, he said, he couldn't stop.

He's now made over 100 pieces of pop can art, dedicated to Applewhite, who died four years ago.

"You don't meet very many beautiful peoplein your life. And he was one of them," Barham said.

YYURYYUBICURYYY4ME is an acronym
Barham created this piece using cans to create an acronym, which when read aloud sounds like: 'Too wise you are, too wise you be, I see, you are too wise for me.' (Saloni Bhugra/CBC)

Barham usescanvases to create colourful pieces using crushed cans. His pieces selling for $25 each touch oneverything fromthe war in Ukraine, to a tiny model of the first engine car, to a 1986 Mercedes model, to The Muppets,to a steel can banned decades ago.

By the end of last year,his art netted$1,500,which he donated under Applewhite's name to Brampton's William Osler Health System.

"I want to pay back," said Barham, who himself has had a heart attack, two strokes, chronic depression, two artificial knees and two artificial hips.

The neighbourhood's Williams Fresh Cafe has provided Barham an entire wall for free to exhibit his work for an indefinite time.

'Community champion'

Ken Mayhew, president and CEO at the William Osler Health System foundation, said Barham is a "community champion"in a statement to CBC Toronto.

Miss Piggy art
Barham says he loves The Muppets. He says he created Miss Piggy with the jewelry his friends from the walking group found on the roadside. (Saloni Bhugra/CBC)

"His creativity and his passion for giving back to his local hospital are more than inspiring they're vital to the work that we do. Many people don't realize that 100 per cent of hospital equipment and a portion of redevelopment costs are funded by the community," Mayhew said.

Every penny counts as the foundation embarks on its "largest and boldest fundraising campaign yet to build Brampton's second hospital," Mayhews said.

"It's truly heartening to know that we have people like Mr. Barham bolstering our efforts," he said.

Barham's venture has become popular in the neighborhood's walking group of retired teachers, with people bringing him treasures they find on the roadside.

Some of those findings were jewelry, which he used tocreate the famous Muppet Show characterMiss Piggy "in all her finery," he said.Barham, who previously taught engineering at University of Toronto, says he loves The Muppets, which isn't a surprise because they make up five of the 20 pieces on the display wall, and he says there are more at home.

The Last Straw
Barham created 'The Last Straw' when Ontario banned plastic straws in 2021. (Saloni Bhugra/CBC)

He hopes his work will inspire people not only to smile, but to pitch in support for a secondhospital in Brampton, which is among the fastest growing municipalities in Canada.

"Anybody that has some spare money, give it to the hospital foundation. They need it and we need a decent new hospital," Barham said.

The King and his loyal subjects
Barham created 'The King and his loyal subjects' with Pepsi king can and cans of President's Choice Cola and Coca Cola. (Saloni Bhugra/CBC)

He says people anywhere in the city should be able to receive the kind of health care his friend did.

One of Applewhite's last pieces of work, named the "Midnight Jazz the blues," remains with Barham he calls it "the best painting."

"I still think of him at least three or four times a week," Barham said. "Leon never saw any of this work at all. He was the inspiration for it in a weird way."