Artist Statement

This project was the first time I ever used a blog site and I would say that I learned a great deal about how to use one. At first I had a lot of kinks to work out. The problems I had were, I didn’t know how to post pictures and how to move them around after I did post them. Obviously I figured out how to post them but I could not find any way to move them in the blog after they had been posted which was frustrating but I worked around it. It was also difficult to get my text to work with my pictures. I tried having the text wrap around the photos and although I would have liked to keep that it cut off words. I decided to have the photos centered with the text either above or below them. I think this worked well and looks good in the blog. Another problem I ran into using blogger was that after you do a post it moves all the other posts down in on the page. This was not too much of a problem I just had to make sure I posted everything in the right order. Overall I think my experience with Google Blogger was good and I feel Learned a lot about the program.

For the photo-essay I bought a cheap camera before going to Johnsons Park. This camera proved difficult to use, the viewfinder was small and as a result I was not able to use many of my pictures because they were diagonal or out of focus. Another problem I experienced with the camera was that all of the pictures had a very low resolution. As a graphic design major I have had to work with Photoshop often and know my way around the program. This helped with editing the photos and making more focused and more interesting. I have worked with photography as well; I took several classes in high school as well as many art classes over the years. I feel that I know how to make a good composition for the photos that I took and think that this was the strongest part of my photo-essay.

I took the bus each time to get to the Johnsons Park Neighborhood, I am not very used to taking the bus because I have always had a car to use until this year. The first time I took the bus to the area I had to MapQuest directions so I knew which bus would get me there. I feel that I learned a lot about the community and the people who live in it just by waiting at the bus stop and taking the bus with them. I met several people from the community doing this and I think that is what made me feel truly comfortable in the area.

I did not edit the video for our group project and I did not make one for my personal blog. I did however have a say in the selection of clips that we put in and I think that my contributions in the decisions on clips and the sound and the writing that went along with the different segments of our videos. I have made movies before and have used the windows movie editor program so I feel that I have enough knowledge on how to edit a film. I also have watched a huge amount of movies so I know what looks good in after the edit. I think that our group video turned out very well and got the message we were trying to convey about the Johnsons Park area across.

Overall I think this class taught me a lot, I learned how to use blogger, built on prior knowledge on photographing, Photoshop, and filming and film editing. The experiences I received from the service learning portion of this class showed me the diversity Milwaukee and I learned so much about the Johnsons Park Neighborhood and the community services that are offered there as well as the people who call the neighborhood their home.

I went to the Johnsons Park Neighborhood 3 times to complete the service hours. Each trip to the area brought new things to my attention. On the first trip I was there to take pictures of the area for my photo-essay. I went at 2 o’clock and walked around the area getting a feel for it and taking pictures for 3 hours. I noticed that there were a lot of new houses in the area and this made it look like I was walking around the suburbs not inner city Milwaukee. There were other areas that looked more rundown, a few old houses and some shady characters. Overall this first trip gave me a greater understanding for the area and a new respect for the originations and community members working to make their neighborhood a better place to live.

I went to the Johnsons Park Neighborhood 3 times to complete the service hours. Each trip to the area brought new things to my attention. On the first trip I was there to take pictures of the area for my photo-essay. I went at 2 o’clock and walked around the area getting a feel for it and taking pictures for 3 hours. I noticed that there were a lot of new houses in the area and this made it look like I was walking around the suburbs not inner city Milwaukee. There were other areas that looked more rundown, a few old houses and some shady characters. Overall this first trip gave me a greater understanding for the area and a new respect for the originations and community members working to make their neighborhood a better place to live. On this first trip I bought a $10 camera. This proved to be difficult to use I had to look through a very small viewfinder and many of my photographs turned out diagonal. There was also a problem with the resolution of the pictures. Because of the cheap camera I had to rely more on my composition, which I feel I did very well.

The second time I went I visited the Amaranth café. The owner of the Amaranth sets up a class that meets on Tuesdays from 6-8 pm. This class meets in the café and a teacher tells those who come about gardening and various things about Alice’s Garden, which is a big part of the Johnsons Park community. When I went the owner had set for us to go see a guest artist who’s studio was across the street from the café. Muneer Bahauddeen is a local ceramics artist who works with ceramic tiles. His art can be seen in hospitals and parks in the Milwaukee area. Muneer told us about his rue passion, which is helping the kids in his area discover art. Muneer is a artist in residence at the Saint Charles Family center, where he has the kids there create tiles based on symbols from Nigeria. He showed us his studio and told us how he works with they clay and fires it and such. He then told us a bout his project for Alice’s Garden, which is to make a cement archway covered with tiles in the front of the garden. He then plants to make cement posts at each plot so that the owners of the plots can put their own special tiles as a way to mark their plots.

On my third trip I went back to the Amaranth café. This time Muneer was planning on teaching those who wanted to how to make clay bowls and then they would actually make bowls for themselves. I skipped out on this and instead went with the owner and a few other guys to help him with his Amaranth community garden. The garden is in located in the back yard of the café and is being built so that the community members can plant vegetable gardens. We helped to finish setting up plots for the garden and dig up all of the grass that previously covered the yard.
In all three of these trips I was struck by the strong sense of community of the area as well as the many different charitable programs set up there to help the members of the community. At the Amaranth they not only will have a community garden but they also have a pay what you can soup night that is very good and helps the community gather together. In the area you can buy lots for $1 and build a home for yourself which is not only good for you but also helps the community by revitalizing it and making it a newer and safer neighborhood.

More About Housing Projects in the Johnson's Park Area

Many houses in the area were simply revitalized by doing some painting and fixing a few things around the house. Others had to be completely demolished to make way for new and better housing. Here are some pictures of 2 houses that were demolished.



This is a picture of an abandoned home before it was demolished.
These area a few pictures of the kind of homes that are being built in the Lindsay heights area. They are very nice and affordable for the people who live in the area.



Most of these homes were built with the help of WHEDA who worked with other organizations in the area such as Walnut Way Conservation Corps, JPNA, the CDC, and the YMCA. these organizations did most of the hands on work in the Lindsay Heights Neighborhood. North Shore bank also helped in the financial area with the houses.

a brief history of Johnso's Park and the Lindsay heights area

Lindsay Heights was named after Bernice Lindsay the “Mother of the Black community.” Bernice Lindsay was an early African American rights activist in the Milwaukee area. The area is on the south side of Milwaukee between west Center, Walnut Way, N 20th and Hwy 43. The area started as a working class neighborhood but changed when many homes were demolished to make way for the freeways. Many of the prospective freeways were never built in the area leaving behind many empty lots. After the 60’s many residents and businesses in the area began to move out; the neighborhood began to deteriorate and succumb to drugs and crime.
In 1997 WHEDA (Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority) started the Lindsay Heights Initiative, which set a goal to make 60 new houses in the area. They sold the empty lots left by the unfinished freeways to people looking to move into the area. The lots were sold for $1 and the residents of the area were also eligible for mortgage help and tax breaks. By 2007 WHEDA had put 9 million dollars into the area and more than doubled their goal of creating 60 houses. They built 165 new houses and rehabilitated another 221. In 2008 the mortgages in the area are now market driven and the WHEDA is no longer treating the area as a special project area.
The success of this project caught the attention of the Zilber Family Foundation. Mr. Zilber grew up in the area as a kid and now wants to help in its revitalization. He plans on giving over $1 million to the area allowing the residents to decide what to do with the money, he believes in a bottom up program that allows residents to put the money toward what they feel needs it most. Despite all of the rebuilding in the area not all is perfect. According to U.S. census data 48% of the areas residents are below the poverty level, 25% are unemployed, 45% have never earned a High School degree, and less than 5% of the residents in the Lindsay Heights area have a college degree.

Amarath Bakery/Muneer Bahauddeen

On April 28th I went to the Amaranth Bakery to do serve hours. I got there at around four an hour early for the class because I took the bus and didn’t know how long that would take. I talked to the owner of the bakery for a while before the meeting started. He has been living in the neighborhood for 12 years and told me a little about the history of the area. When he first moved there it was a predominantly African American community and still is. He told me it was 70% African American, 15% Asian American, 10% German speaking, and 5% white. He talked about how when he moved there it was common for the German population there to never have to speak a word of English. When the class started at 6:00 we first went out to the Amaranth Community garden, which is a small garden in the back of the Amaranth Bakery. At the garden people in the community can help plant vegetables and then harvest them later. We worked in the garden moving railroad tiers to portion off sections of the garden and create a small path. After helping there we went back into the bakery and got soup. Then we went across the street to Muneer Bahauddeen’s studio. Muneer is a professional ceramics artist. He has made installations for several parks in Milwaukee and a hospital. Muneer works with clay pressing it out into tiles, which he then designs. His real passion is to help out his community. He works in the schools system and has done artist in residencies at the Saint Charles center, working mainly with troubles teens. He has residencies their 3 times and has the kids make tile murals based on Traditional African symbols. Right now Muneer is in the process of creating a proposal to submit to Alice’s garden. He would like to create an arch and different posts with tiles marking off different family plots in the garden

Here are a few links to websites about Muneer Bahauddeen
http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1091
http://www.artsatlargeinc.org/muneer.html
http://unifiedmilwaukee2.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/make-milwaukee-muneer-bahauddeen/

JPNA Photoessay Artist Statement

JPNA Artist statement

I went to the JP area and used a Vivitar mini digital camera purchased at Walgreens pharmacy. The camera worked well enough for its purpose although I would have preferred something with a little better resolution. I used Photoshop to fix some of the problems with the images I took but Photoshop can only do so much. Overall I think the pictures turned out well compositionally but the pictures were not as good as I wanted for quality. I used Microsoft PowerPoint to make the photo essay. That was very easy because I have used it a lot over the years.
I learned a lot about the camera as an instrument. I have always been interested in photography and the idea of capturing a moment of time in an image. This made the photo essay very fun and interesting for me. I experimented with the new camera I bought and got some interesting images out of it. The buildings in the area were interesting to photograph. Some were run down old and abandoned other building like a school that I saw that was pretty new and well kept. I also got to use Photoshop to fix several of my images, which is something I like to do.
I enjoyed my trip to the Johnsonville Park it was interesting to see the place that I had heard so much about from others. Although there weren’t many people walking around the neighborhood I got a good view of the area and what it looks like. I was surprised to see that there was no grocery store in the area.

photos of Johnsons Park Nieghborhood

Brown Street Academy

School bus


Some of the houses in the JP area are run down and abandoned.


The community is working to make their neighborhood a better place to live.


In the JP area there are different forms of housing. The neighborhood mainly consists of homes, new and old. there are also a few apartment buildings and rentable properties.


Alice's Garden offers the community a place to come together. residents can purchase plots, or in some cases get them for free. they are aloud to plant anything in these plots and are given training and advice in vegetable and fruit gardening.

blog #5

For my final project I plan on doing a history of the Lindsey heights neighborhood and the JPNA’s involvement in this area. I may do interviews with residents and would like to try to interview some people that are involved in the JPNA. Another thing that I would like to include in my final project is a picture comparison. I plan on looking through archives of photos of the area and then going to the places that were photographed and take pictures of those places now to compare the two time periods.