lot(s)

New Beginnings

2010-05-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

Check out our Summer 2009 Mural!

Our new rendition of the community mural.

Previous mural for 30 years

Take a look at the completed mural project at Central Park and Van Buren, on the west side of chicago. After over seven weeks of wall prep and painting 17 Chicago youth enrolled in the After School Matters program through the Garfield Park Conservatory and I have completed the revitalization and re-imagining of a mural which stood in the neighborhood for over 3 decades. With help from the community at The First Church of Brethren the youth artists and I were able to work through a collaborative design process to redesign this mural with the input from the youth artists and the members of the church's community. Many thanks to everyone who made this project possible including the Youth involved in the project, Department of Cultural Affairs, Garfield Park Conservatory, especially Mike Tomas and Seprina Redmond, After School Matters, First Church of the Brethren and everyone who came out showed their support, by verbal support or helping me take down scaffold, you know who you are. Thanks!
For more pictures please check out my website www.brendanhudson.com

COMPLETE!

2008-12-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

After month of hard and often very cold work, the Maypole Community History Mural is finished! The project was possible with amazing support from the community, incredibly hard work of artist volunteers, and of course the great design work of the 2008 kidstart students. Please walk, drive, or bike by to see the mural at the corner of California and Lake street in East Garfield Park.

2008-11-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

The Maypole Community History Mural has started! Lot(s) artists and volunteers have been working through the month of November to complete the mural. We have continued to collect photos of neighborhood residents while working on the wall. The mural includes photos from past residents, elders and children that live on the block. We expect to be finished by the middle of December.

8/16

2008-08-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

The end of class was celebrated on Saturday, August 16th in conjunction with Maypole's annual block party. Kidstart students displayed their art work and mural designs for the community to see. Neighborhood children along with the students painted the back of the Maypole Garden sign. We look forward to seeing the final design come to life this fall!

8/2/08 & 8/3/08

2008-08-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

The Maypole Garden is planted! Friday and Saturday were scheduled garden installation with Neighborhood Youth Garden Corps, Openlands,Chicago Cares volunteers, Maypole Residents and Kidstart students. Friday was spent moving two huge mounds of mulch and soil into the garden to create the path and areas for plants. Despite the hot weather the students worked hard moving dirt with wheelbarrows, shovels, buckets and tarps. All the dirt and mulch was in the garden by mid-moring on Saturday and we were able to start planting. So far the garden looks beautiful! An Evergreen tree will be added in the Fall when the season is right to plant it.

7/30/08

2008-08-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the wonderful job all the students did at the Community Design Presentation we took a field trip to Millennium park. We visited the Sculpture Garden of the Art Institute, Crown Fountain, "the Bean" and a summer art program for high school students held in the park.

7/29/08

2008-07-30T14:26:00.000-07:00

We spent all day today preparing for a community design meeting held at a local church this evening. Students have been working in two groups to prepare mural designs along with power point presentations to present to residents of the maypole block. During class we made final edits to our presentations and rehearsed with each other.

Community Design Meeting: This event was held at 6:30 at a Revival Fellowship Church. Each group of students presented their projects by explaining different elements of their mural designs and how our community research process led them to include specific elements: words, photos, drawings, stencils, etc. The presentations were followed by a reception where community members had the opportunity to give the students feedback on their designs. The event was very helpful for our design process and the students did an AMAZING job!!

7/23/08

2008-07-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

Today were working on our group projects, designing pictures and putting photos together to share with the community on Tuesday. We are working in two groups of five to create drawings. We had some students from the neighborhood group gardening core come, so that we could explain a little bit about what it is we are doing in our program.

-J

7/22/08

2008-07-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today we are working on our presentations for the community meeting on next week. We are planning great pictures and ideas to share with the rest of the community. The reason for this presentation is to gain ideas and opinions from the maypole community about this mural design. In order to design this mural we think that it is very important that voices other than ours are heard. Yesterday we created flyers telling people in the community that our meeting will be held at Revival Fellowship Church on next Tuesday on the 26th at 6:30pm. stencils were also a big contribution in helping design these flyers that will be handed to the community later this afternoon.

-J

Week 3 Day 1

2008-07-15T17:50:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we created flyers 2 hand out 2 people in the community, letting them kknow that we will be stopping by 2 visit and talk 2 them about what changes are being made 2 better the Maypole community. These flyers were 2 show the maypole community that positive changes can still be made 2 better the neighborhood. But in order 4 these great changes to be made, we have 2 work 2gether and put forth a lot of effort 2 make sure that these changes are made and not just discussed.

Overall, making a better Maypole has been fun. We’ve learned a lot of things, we can take with us in the future. For instance, knowing/learning about eh community History and how it has changed over a period of time. Also how music has influenced murals. We have learned what murals are, how they influence the community and how you can express what you’re feeling, and how the community influences the murals.

Week 2 Day 4

2008-07-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

Today we worked with Neighborhood Youth Garden Corps to being the install of a paver patio. We dug the area out for the patio, leveled it, and then continued to lay a layer of gravel followed by a layer of sand. We leveled off the surface so that the pavers would be ready to be installed the next morning.
After our lunch break we met in small groups to discuss individual assignments for the weekend.

Week 2 Day 3

2008-07-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

This morning we reflected and talked about yesterday’s mural tour. We then moved on to discuss with each student what interested him or her most about the mural design process and what role in the process that they wanted to take responsibility for.

In the afternoon we continued to work on our design by drawing and taking photos. We met with a community leader and elder to discuss the past and the future of the 26-2700 block of Maypole. This conversation gave students an idea of what the current issues in the neighborhood as well as a sense of history of the area and people. This discussion served as a way to ground and give context to the students’ ideas about the mural design.

Week 2 Day 2

2008-07-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

We took a tour of Chicago’s South Side looking at a variety of murals; Stephen Saunders guided our tour, Mr. Saunders is a artist and resident of the South Side. We learned about the rich history of mural painting in Chicago including: origins, methods, styles, community interaction, identity, activism, advertising and much more.

Week 2 Day 1

2008-07-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

Today we worked with Neighborhood Youth Garden Corps. (An Openlands group youth job training program that focuses is in landscaping.) We spent the day cleaning up the lot and spreading mulch on the lot. After working on the garden we gathered to discuss presentations to the community by looking at students work from the previous year. We then moved on to prepare questions to ask on tomorrow's south side mural tour.

Week one of the second year

2008-07-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

Over the past week we have begun the process of designing a mural for the Maypole Garden Project. This project again involves high school age youth from Chicago who are enrolled in a vocational training class through Chicago Public School's Education to Careers Program.
We spent the first week of class looking through mural books, familiarizing ourselves with the history, methods, styles and approaches of mural painting. Spending time in the neighborhood was important to beginning our research process. Students took photographs of interesting elements in area, ranging from stained glass windows to residents of the neighborhood.
After collecting imagery from the neighborhood students worked to develop patterns, designs and ideas for the mural.
This week we generated questions to ask members of the community, which will help to inform our design process.

Christmas Tree

2007-12-16T08:38:00.000-08:00

A Christmas tree has been put up and decorated by the residents of the 26-2700 blocks of Maypole. The tree looks great!

Saturday: Block Party

2007-08-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the block party, we worked with the community to plant a raised bed garden. We installed the design board and portraits, we grilled, we hung out, we tied surveyors tape to the fence, we ate and made friends.

Friday: Installing Posts and Finishing Painting

2007-08-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

Today we installed the posts to support the design board. Chris from Z Construction helped us pour the concrete after we dug the holes. After we finished with this more students from The School of the Art Institute worked with members of the community to clean the rest of the lot and weed the proposed site for the garden. After installing the posts we went to a studio to finish painting the background fot the design board, mount the portraits and designs as well as finish any prep work for install the next morning.

Day Twenty Two and Three: Finishing and Painting Designs

2007-08-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

We wrapped up the course finalizing designs and transfering them to a 40"x20" board to be displayed on the site. The students did an amazing job visualizing their designs and transfering them into paint. The design boards will be used to present the students designs to the community and will be presented at a block party and BBQ.

Day Twenty One: Finishing Portraits, Display and Garden Design Work

2007-08-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

We finished our portraits today, and let me say that they look great. We also really began cranking out our final designs, doing scale and color drawings of our plans. After lunch we all met to discuss the possibilities for designs and layouts of our presentation board that will be installed on the garden site. After reviewing several proposals for designs and layouts of our outdoor exibition and design presentation we discussed what designs we liked the most and then those who decided they wanted to participate in the design of the presentation picked up templates to layout the portrait and designs on as well add design and decorative elements to the template. As we wrapped up the day with design work we put it aside and as students left class we had them vote on the new designs that were developed in class to get a more clear understanding of what fashion the students wanted to see their work presented in. A few volenteers and teachers stayed beheind to wait for supplies for the presentation board as well as to begin painting the lettering for the board.

Day Twenty: Portrait Painting and Design Work

2007-08-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

Today we continued our self portraits. We met in our 2 design teams during the day so that those who finished with their portraits could move along with design work and have a sense of the intentions of the overall group. The School of the Art Instistute students, volenteers and teachers began to discuss the plans for the display of the student work on the lot located at Northeast corner of California Ave. and Maypole Ave where the garden site will be.

Day Nineteen: Portrait Painting

2007-08-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

We transfered our drawings from a pounced piece of tracing paper onto a piece of primed masonite this morning. After we transfered the defining elements of our drawings we traced over the charcoal lines with a watered down blue paint. We sat and talked about value and color and ways to mix paint for a short while and then we took off painting. The talent of the students was evident right away, everyone did an amazing job!

Day Eighteen: Portriat drawing, tracing and pouncing

2007-08-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today we all got the basics down for our portraits, we used a scale and grid system to transfer draw our portraits on 15 inch square pieces of paper. After drawing out our portraits from our selected photo we laid tracing paper over the drawings and copied the defining lines of our portraits. We then used a pouncing tool to perforate these lines in preparation to transfer our outlines onto a primed piece of masonite to paint our portraits that will be displayed next to our garden designs on the proposed garden sit at California and Maypole.

Day Seventeen: Portrait photos and drawing excersize

2007-07-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today we started the day off with a short artist presentation of my history as an artist. Directly after showing images of portrait work that I had done we moved straight into technical instruction on how to determine the proportions when drawing freehand. Until lunch we practiced what we learned about drawing faces. While we were practicing drawing students also took individuals aside and took several potraits of each of the students and teachers.
After lunch we had the kids break into new design teams by nominating group leaders and voting on those who were nominated. The nominated group leaders then picked their teamates. The next activity was a demonstration on how to use a grid and scale ruler to enlarge their portraits from the print outs of photos that we took that morning. The rest of the day we spent picking photos of ourselves to draw and laying out our grids to do our drawings.

Day Sixteen: Mulching

2007-07-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

We spent today laying down mulch in the lot to keep the weeds down while the lot is in a transitional stage. During the process of putting mulch on the lot we traced out a possible path leading around the garden. By laying out the path it gave a much more clear visual sense of the space in the lot. While we were out working on the lot we we approached by a developer in the area who runs an iron works shop down the block and may be able to provide us with a fence. To see the way things come together when you are working on a project like this is quite amazing.

Day Fifteen: Visit to downtown

2007-07-27T12:24:00.001-07:00

Today we spent the day downtown looking at all of the different types of parks and gardens. We walked through the vegetable and rose gardens, the prairie landscaping, Buckingham fountain in grant park. We visited Millennium park, the south garden of the Art Institute, Gallery 37 and the Chicago Architecture Gallery.

Day Fourteen: Documenting Utility lines, scale drawings and discussion of phased development

2007-07-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

Today we visited the site to record the utility lines that ran through the lot as well as those that were in close proximity of the lot. After measuring and documenting utilities we incorporated them into scale drawings to consider them as we progressed with the design for the lot. To finish the day off we gathered in the courtyard to discuss what elements might be included into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stages of the design. We addressed both our budget and community concerns as we determined what would be most important and in what order they would be implemented.

Day Thirteen: Reflection and discussion

2007-07-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

Today we wrote responses to the design charette, we individualy reflected upon the feedback we received from the community members. After this excersize we gathered as a group and talked about our individual responses and shared what we felt were the most important elements of the experience. We dismissed the students early, because of their hard work, time and effort which they put into the charette. After this we talked to Stephen Saunders from Feather Fist who shared knowledge about the community and offered insight into the project. Thank you Stephen.

Day Twelve: Finishing and practicing presentations and community design charette

2007-07-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

We spent this monday finalizing the design presentations as well as practicing our presentations for the charette in the evening. After class we took a break for a couple hours and reconveined at the Revieval Fellowship Church where Reverend Jackson was so gracious to host our community meeting and charette. We introduced the project and the students took it from there. The presentations were very well recieved and all of the students presenting did so with confidence and delivered their ideas excellently. The SAIC students quickly presented their ideas to introduce themselves to members of the community as well as to get an initial response to their ideas. After presentations we gathered for snacks and beverages while the community members posed questions to the students as well as engaged in conversation with everyone involved. The members of the community were able to express their concerns as well as respond to the elements of the design which they liked. This was a great learning experience and catalyst for our design process.

Day Eleven: Finishing designs and making presentations

2007-07-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

We worked on finishing the last elements of the student designs to get them ready for a design charette and community meeting. Using a digital camera and scanner we documented the designs and pictures that would inform and explain the designs. We also spent time taking pictures that would complement the presentations. We started creating powerpoint presentations that we could present to community members in order to make our design process responsive and community based.

Day eight, nine and ten: Design work

2007-07-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

We spent three solid days working on color drawings, scale drawings, visual keys and written descriptions of elements in the designs. The students worked in groups of three to develop collaborative designs. Each group worked with a student from The Art Institute of Chicago to help guide them through the design process as well as to assist translating their ideas on to paper.

Day seven: Lot clean up and discussion

2007-07-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

We spent our seventh day we spent the day working with Openland's Neighborhood Youth Garden Corps cleaning up the lot on the corner of California and Maypole. We spent the majority of the day weeding the lot getting it ready to be mulched in the coming week. The students from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago went to meet with one of the involved residents on the block to talk about the project. We stopped in the church that was near by to eat lunch, while we were waiting for the students to eat Reverend Jackson introduced himself, The Reverend is a very kind and insightful man who shared some of his knowledge of the neighborhood. Reverend Jackson was gracious enough to let us use the church to hold a community meeting where theKidstart students would be able present preliminary designs to community members in order to receive feedback that could inform their designs from the raw survey data from which they were based on. We continued back to the classroom after lunch where we discussed a reading that was given to the students the prior week. The Hanover Principles was the title of the reading, our review and discussion of the article was centered around the responsibility we must take when we design. We talked about how issues of social and ecological sustainability could be integrated into our design.

Day Six: Visual brainstorming through collage

2007-07-15T13:46:00.001-07:00

We ended this week with an activity that gave us the oppourtunity to draw upon existing images to explore our ideas in a visual language. For this activity we printed out images of the site and cut out images from garden magazines to rearrange, orginize and then paste on to the pictures of the site.

Day Five: Container Gardens

2007-07-15T12:47:00.001-07:00

Thursday we spent the day constructing container gardens. The container garden activity was a way to start thinking about the layout and arrangment of plants, making creative strurctures for raised bed and container gardens, a manageable design feat, as well as a way to introduce the students to the partnership relationship that is required in the caring of a plant.

Day four: Survey analysis and drawing response

2007-07-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

On the fourth day of class we were visited by Jamie Zaplatosch who is the education and outreach manager at Openlands, Jamie has provided us with the oppourtunity to address one of the lots in this neighborhood by working on the design for a park/community garden for the space. Jamie addressed the survey process in which the Neighborhood Youth Garden Corps conducted a week prior to the begining of the Kidstart program, the surveys address questions pertaining to the neighborhood's issues of concern, needs, wants, activities that residents engage in and objects and element that can facilitate the activities that they would like to do. After we reviewed the surveys in groups we responded with drawing addressing the needs and wants of the community and issues that we have talked about in our research such as ecological stewardship.

Day Three: Field trip to Chicago Center for Green Technology and Garfield Park Conservatory

2007-07-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

Our third day we took a field trip to both the Chicago Center for Green Technology and the Garfield Park Conservatory. During our visit to CCGT we learned about native plant landscaping, stormwater management, ecologicaly concious building materials, alternitive and renewable energy, all of these concepts which we exposed will influence the design of the lot that we are looking addressing. Visiting the Garfield Park Conservatory we observed a much different type of landscaping, the gardens in the conservatory are much more ornamental and decorative than the natural landscaped at CCGT. We were also able to see the work of Jens Jensen and his prarie inspired landscaping that has been so influential to parks especially here in the midwest. We sat in the Monet garden and dicussed our experience visiting CCGT and responded to a series of questions.

Kidstart: Chicago Center For Green Technology:
Tuesday July 10th 2007
Describe the purpose of ecologically conscious design and construction.
Why is it important to consider the options and resources that CCGT offers?
What is one piece of technology, material, or landscaping element that has peaked your interest during your visit to CCGT?
Describe a function of the landscaping on the campus of CCGT.
What are three things that you saw today that could be incorporated into our design of a garden/park? Explain your choices and reasoning.

Day two: Lot clean up

2007-07-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

Our second day of work entailed cleaning up the lot which the residents had chosen as their first choice of the selected lots to be developed. The Kidstart course partnered with OpenLands, Neighborhood Youth Garden Corps and Students from the The School of the Art Institute of Chicago to pick up trash and weed the selected lot.

Our first day: Looking at possible sites

2007-07-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Day One: Introductions
Class rules discussion
Overview of project/class
-How Brendan and Kirsten came to do this project
Tour of lots and lot clean-up
-Have students write and respond to lots: location, size, neighborhood, etc
Introduction to surveys: have students complete persional surveys
-Discussion about how surveys relate to possible lot designs