Artist Statement!

Johnson Park!

Working on this assignment was a excellent personal journal. I took my digital camera and sat in on home owner meetings health alliance forums and captured pictures of the area in a four month period. I learned a lot about a Johnson Park that otherwise i would have just kept riding the bus past the neighborhood and not realizing the wonderful things that were going on for a community after many years deserved a turn around. I felt privileged to meet the people of Johnson Park. The community pulled it self together and with the help from funding has turned the area into a place to buy real-estate. I took pictures of residents, the garden and participated in sub-committee meetings. It took years of trial and error to come to the success of this community. So i hope the message received from our blogs is a positive one and shows other devastated neighborhoods they can do it too, just takes a little elbow grease.

JPNA J.O.Y. CENTER-BOARD MEETING

J.O.Y. Center.

The JPNA board meets at least once a month to plan block clean ups summer events for the children

updates on Zilber Initiative,

neighborhood concerns and an open forum for residents to voice their opinion. This board is very productive, and they get the job done for their community. Most of the people on the board have full-time jobs but find the time to sit on sub-committees around the city to find out if the monies granted for their community will make it to the JPNA service area.

Alice's Garden!

The slide show is
Alice's Garden before planting season. The ground was hard from
all the snow melting.
Now it's May and the gardeners are tilling
the ground and planting their fruits and vegetables.
The community garden is essential to many people because of the free produce and the training you get when you learn how to grow different edible items.
Gardening is not just digging in the dirt and dropping seeds.
Their is a science to the magic that happens when the plants start
sprouting. The Greater Johnson Park "Roots of Progress" campaign is about Alice's Garden a two -block community garden across from Johnson Park at twentieth street and Garfield ave. Managed by Seed Folks youth ministry and UW Extension. Seedfolks has one hundred and twelve family garden plots available at no cost. Families receive seeds and seedlings and access to tools at the site. Alice's Garden has an additional fifty rental plots (25$ for 400 square feet including water) managed by UW Extension. This garden is named after Alice Meade -Taylor, the late executive director of the UW Extension who had a passion for the city and urban gardening. You can contact Venice Williams (414) 607-0122 to rent a plot and get additional training resources.
To learn more about community gardens visit web site www.uwex.edu/ces/city/Milwaukee/
Click on the "Horticulture" and "Rent a Garden" Links.

Peer Review!

Sometimes we dont understand the assigments we are given but in the final decent we all find the hill not so hard to climb! I enjoyed viewing all of my classmates blogs, many different views on the same subject the JPNA service area. Frank Barries site stays focused on the JPNA area. Each of his post are on the subject (JPNA) were supposed to document. If we were in a contest I would say he would get first prize. I feel Barrie did a wonderful job on his blog site.His pictures are clear and legible. He took three or four pictures and made them into one for a panoramic view. Cropping the pictures were necessary because of the constant clouds and no sunlight. He says "He is new to blogging" but obviously he is a fast learner. I was able to see my self in the JPNA area by reviewing his various pictures and the use of the hyperlinks, and the community stories he reported on. Barrie also is the only person to report that you can still buy land for one dollar, the dead line is December 2009. He chose black text on white background so the reader would not misunderstand what he is trying to convey. It seems like he put his blog site together with hardly any effort, but with a few pushes of a button. Barrie stated "Touring the community and interacting with the residents was very enlightening and expressed a different side of inner-city Milwaukee. I had fun" I had fun too. I love to meet new people, and this was one way of accomplishing that.

CAROLINE QUARLLS 1842 JOURNEY ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

http://www.burlingtonhistory.org/caroline_quarlls_1842_journey_on.htm

As Told by Her "Conductor," Lyman Goodnow
Caroline Quarlls, a 16-year-old fugitive slave from St. Louis, Missouri, was the first passenger on Wisconsin's "Underground Railroad" in 1842. While it is not clear that she ever "stepped foot" in Burlington, she was hidden on farms just outside Burlington in Spring Prairie township and was met and helped by several Spring Prairie and Burlington citizens, including Solomon Dwinnell, Josiah O. Puffer, George and Moses Arms, and Richard Chenery, of Spring Prairie, and Dr. Edward G. Dyer, of Burlington. Palmer Gardner, a resident of the Spring Prairie area adjacent to Burlington known as Gardner's Prairie, who later moved to Burlington, is also reported to have sheltered Quarlls in his home.
The following account of Quarlls' 1842 Underground Railroad journey appeared in The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1880, pages 458 - 466). It was written by her "conductor," Lyman Goodnow, of Waukesha (earlier known as Prairieville).
With bounty hunters closing in, Goodnow and Quarlls traveled by horse and wagon from the Prairieville area into the Spring Prairie area near Burlington, where she was hidden for several days, before they resumed their journey, by horse and buggy, through Illinois and Indiana, and into Michigan, where Caroline was taken across the Detroit River to Sandwich, Ontario, Canada, where she lived the rest of her life..
Similar accounts of Quarlls' journey -- each a version of Goodnow's account -- have appeared in other sources, including The Olin Album, 1893, by Chauncey C. Olin (Indianapolis: Baker Randolph Co., 1893, pages XXIII - XLI).

NOTECaroline's last name has been spelled various ways in different sources. Quarlls is the spelling Caroline used in an April 23, 1880, letter she wrote to Lyman Goodnow (which appears later in this article). It is also the spelling used in her death certificate.
In the 1880 letter, Caroline states that her father's name was Robert Prior Quarlls. Other sources, including censuses from 1810 and 1820, show Robert Quarles. The copies of those censuses available on the internet did not include any "Quarlls," "Quarrels," or "Quarrells."
"Quarlls" is also the spelling used by the Quarlls-Watkins Heritage Project , a family history organization started by Kimberly Simmons, a great great great granddaughter of Caroline Quarlls Watkins. The Project is a National Program Partner with the U.S. National Park Service's Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

FIRST UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
By far the larger portion of the people of the present day have no correct idea of what meaning was intended to be conveyed by the term "underground railroad," as it was used in the early days of active Abolitionism. Very many think it was literally a railway for the passage of locomotives and cars beneath the surface of the earth, and have inquired where the ruins of one could be seen. For the purpose of properly explaining a term familiar to all Waukesha from thirty-five to thirty-seven years ago, if for no other reason, an extended account of how passengers traveled by that famous line might properly be given in this work; but there are still more weighty reasons for historically preserving such an account, as the first underground railroad established in Wisconsin had Waukesha for its northern terminus; was established by Lyman Goodnow, its first conductor, a Waukesha man, with some help from his neighbors, and the first passenger was Caroline Quarlls, whom he safely conducted by this line from Waukesha to Canada. Mr. Goodnow, still a resident of Waukesha, and whose mind and body are strong and active, tells the story substantially as follows:
"There probably was never more excitement in old Prairieville than during the search for, and escape of Caroline, a fugitive slave girl from St. Louis. In fact the whole county—then Milwaukee, was in a fermentation, and the leading citizens of the day, many of whom afterward became prominent in the State and nation, were the chief actors in that long-to-be-remembered drama of reality.
http://http://www.burlingtonhistory.org/caroline_quarlls_1842_journey_on.htm

Interview thirty year residents Mr. and Mrs. Jacob.

I enjoyed talking to the thirty year residents Mr. and Mrs. Jacob.
The Jacobs had lots of knowledge about the community. Mrs. Jacob wanted to move in the area, and convinced her husband to buy a house, so the rest is history. When they bought their house their were more renters. With too many renters not caring about the houses or the community, the decline of the neighborhood began. The crime rose and people continued to move out. Finally a ray of light when the Zilber foundation decided to grant monies to the area to tear down restore or build brand new homes in the area. This family never gave up on their neighborhood, they dug in their heels and dealt with home invasions and attacks on their family. The Jacobs are the block watch captains for the JPNA service area and say "Now that we have predominately home owners they can see a change. I see working class neighbors beautiful landscaping, children playing, and an overall since of community bonding. Looks like Home to me.

Vision of the past

As I study the photos (Gordon parks, /American Gothic, 1942) and (Rea
Tajiri/still) from history and memory, 1991). They are eerily the same. Even though the picture and video, are of three different people I am still drawn to the similarities that they both have. The first evidence I can draw you to, is that both of the authors chose to use black and white versus using color. Maybe the choice of not using color is to make a more dramatic statement. There is nothing happening in the photos but you are drawn to stare and to try to get an understanding of why the photographer would use these particular people for the shots. Obviously the people are posed in a ridged state, not smiling and basically just staring straight ahead.
In the (Gordon Parks, photo) above, the lady is situated in front of a flag. It is a black lady, standing behind a mop and a broom with a vertical American flag as a backdrop. The lower half of the flag is faded for visual effects, basically nothing is happening in the picture, other than it might be making a point about our history. Possibly the time when black Americans boycotted busses and domesticated workers had to walk to walk to suffer the point about equal rights. The female does not look like she has received her American dream even if she were to smile. As you compare the photos they are similar in look, but different in concept. The use of race is very evident in pictures, a black in (Gordon Parks) and Asian in (Rea Tairi).
In viewing the video (Rea Tairi), the black and white imagery gives off the concept that there American dream has not been achieved yet either, and the still is from 19191. I feel the photographer chose the black and white format and dull lighting for a more visual effect. The woman is standing as if to say this is my family I stand behind him here in America. We are here and you have to deal with our presence the flag is to make a more dramatic effect to bring the point home. Since the picture was taken in the forties, I feel the still would represent a different type of viewing. You would think they were in an interment camp and were staged in front of the flag for more of a political statement. Even if you don’t have a clear understanding f history or race in the media, some can still identity with the characters. I work as a domestic, and if had to be shot to symboling what I do for a living, I would do the same thing as to be shot in black and white for a more dramatic flair.
From the (course reader pg 11.) Richard Dryer states, “Racial imergy is central to the organization of the world. At what cost regions and countries export their goods, who’s voices are listened to at international gatherings, who bombs and is bombed, who gets the jobs, housing, access to health care and education, what cultural activities are subsidized and sold, in what terms they are validated. These are largely inextricable from racial imagery.” I agree with this author. Every picture movie or still, you will see with a racial eye. You can’t help, if you are a non-white, you might wonder why there are not enough people of color or why there are no people of color. Most of the time you probably wouldn’t care what race, just mix it up a little bit sometimes.
Every thing in life is not just about white any more. Viewers make meanings (chapter 2,pg 49 Sturken and Cartwright)
Images generate meanings, yet the meanings of a work of art, photograph or a media text do not strictly speaking, lie in the work itself, where they were placed by the producer waiting on viewers to find them.

(1) Richard Dryer, (”On the matter of whitness”) course reader/Milwaukee, Professor Greene, 2009
(2) Martha Sturken/Lisa Cartwright,” viewers make a meaning” Practices of looking”, Sturken, Cartwright second edition, 2009,pg49