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.