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.