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

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 Applewhite — an artist he met in a walking group — was 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 says couldn'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 people in your life. And he was one of them," Barham said.

Barham uses canvases to create colourful pieces using crushed cans. His pieces — selling for $25 each — touch on everything from the 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.   

"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 to create the famous Muppet Show character Miss 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. 

He hopes his work will inspire people not only to smile, but to pitch in support for a second hospital 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. 

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."