This project was an interesting one. First off, it was a little difficult to come up with a subject matter, since I really didn’t know what to do. I looked over the syllabus and decided that I would create some sort of documentation of the neighborhood near or far from the school. Basically, I wanted to find evidence of the social and intellectual changes that were presented by the school for the neighborhood.
On the day that I decided to take the photos needed for my presentation, I decided that I would focus on the neighborhood in a different way. Frankly, I wanted to see where art was exhibited in the neighborhood near the school and exhibited farther West. Basically I ended up just wandering around and west of the school looking for any kind of display. My first finding was when I came across the painted advertisements for the restaurant La Perla. So I was still in the nicer part of the neighborhood, I traversed back and forth between libraries, restaurants, and store fronts. But I wanted to travel farther and find evidence of art outside the immediate range of the school. Where would I find this evidence and what would it look like?
I never really looked at my watch during my walk. So I walked on for what I thought was a half an hour. Farther down the road, I found the peace and culture mural that looked out onto the highway which incoming commuters see. But that wasn’t the half of it. As I traveled farther I heard more mariachi music and saw some more degraded buildings. At this point in my journey I discovered murals and graffiti frequently showing up on walls and municipal objects. The designs that I found the most interesting were those that were not organized as an advertisement for a business or shop. The one I specifically enjoyed was the unfinished or damaged mural of an Aztec king carrying his unconscious or dead wife in his arms, beaming out from the blue background. This picture was inspirational even though I don’t believe it was intended for me as the audience. It really spoke to me saying about the neighborhood’s connection to their ancestors and where they see themselves today. The other time I felt this way about another piece was actually the last one I found. I believe that I was just south of the park that connected to the botanical gardens when I found a mural painted on the side of an Indonesian restaurant: a scenic view of an oriental landscape. Pictured here were farmers, temples, lakes and rice paddies, and jungle foliage that expanded across twenty feet of brick.
This project not only got me to travel outside of my comfort zone, but it also allowed me to get up close and personal with the artistic style that I have tried to replicate myself. Although I knew that these neighborhoods already had “artists” making these murals all over Milwaukee, it was a very interesting to learn about what they were concerned about in there subject matter. From the examples I saw, I believe that these artists are trying to find was of inspiring people through stories of the past and better days, that these neighborhoods need heroes and good memories of better and beautiful places: Something to aspire to.
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