Through a collaborative design process, the development of public art installations at GSM engages youth in exercising their freedom to expression in a considerate, productive manner. The design stages encourage freedom of thought and communication, using art as a tool to fuse partnerships and cooperation. Harmful ideas and speech tend to get weeded out in this context due to the nature of the platform- because the goal of the project is to produce a work of art to be installed in a public setting, a collaborative means of production toward this end is ingrained.

With a vehicle like public art to drive expression, the artists have to be intentional about the message. What do they want to project on their neighborhood? What do they see happening in their neighborhoods that they like? What would they like to change? Images that express their responses often include traditional, mythological symbols for peace, hope and unity, encouraging a circularity and inclusiveness among the artists and the viewers, inciting a network of support.

Challenges to freedom of expression and imagination in Chicago and abroad remain, from book bannings to removal of resources for the development of expression and imagination, enforcing objective answers on subjective truths and punishment by authority for expression of youth. In tandem with these challenges exists the reality of popular media’s oftentimes derogatory portrayal of youth overriding the visibility of youth-driven media, which includes youth in the creation of media about them.

Support of diverse art spaces helps preserve, maintain and improve conditions the conditions of freedom of expression and imagination. Youth learn to practice foresight, working in tandem with a varied group of individuals, including other youth, volunteers of all ages, instructors and bosses, helping them structure, develop, implement and engage about their ideas across social barriers. By encouraging the use of creative media in their expression, we shed light on their hopes and dreams. Forging connections with youth leads to enthusiasm and optimism about the future. Enabling youth to express their views and reducing obstacles facing this freedom is obligatory in the creation of a brighter future for our communities.

By Whitney Richardson for GSM

The neighborhood’s history etches in Norwegians cuddling Polish, Italians and soups of Russians & Germans, sculpting the foundation of the Chicago neighborhood. Modern-day Humboldt Park began in the 1950′s with a heavy migration of Puerto Ricans (the period from 1950-1965 marked the largest migration of Puerto Ricans to Chicago, entering through West Town) from West Town and centers east, followed by significant numbers of other Latino cultures which continues to this day.

To this day, Humboldt Park makes the largest Puerto Rican community in the Midwest. In June 1966,  the three-day long “66 Division Street Riots” blew through the neighborhood in response to Chicago  police shooting & injuring a young Puerto Rican man. The insurgence of ethnic conflicts contributed to widespread tension, dense with reactionary violence.

“Deteriorating economic conditions facing Puerto Ricans and incoming African Americans embodied many aspects of the national urban crisis…” During this period, symbols of ethnic pride grew visible around the neighborhood, consecrating landmarks that established the neighborhood’s identity. Community-led movements were born from this experience in continued struggle for social change and peace in the neighborhood.

While Humboldt Park still suffers from the resulting social isolation and confusion by outsiders of a bad reputation, local artists are busy transforming the neighborhood through community art centers and programs, putting Humboldt Park on the map for something beautiful. “Ultimately, it takes an art community to bring a community together,” said Brook Woolf, founder of Humboldt Park community art sanctuary, Rumble Arts Center.

The last few years have seen a spike in creativity and visual arts across the Humboldt Park community.  While Green Star Movement joined forces with Rumble Arts in 2012, fortifying its ties to the neighborhood, lights all over town sprung on to see what this new arts scene is all about. Here is a look at some of our neighbors making the neighborhood a creative destination.

Rumble Arts Center, founded in 2008 by Humboldt Park native Brook Woolf, provides art, music, martial arts & yoga programs by donation to the community. “The center’s name pays homage to the rumbling sound elephants make to alert fellow pachyderms miles away about the existence of water,” she said. The art space aims to create a ripple effect, a resounding call to members of the community that there is beauty, love and hope nearby. The most popular courses include West African drum & dance, where whole families are encouraged to attend, and Graffiti 101, taught by Gabriel Carrasquillo, a local artist. The gallery space on the ground floor plays host to the work of local artists, screenings and cultural events, like free community markets, to encourage collaboration and togetherness. Check out behind the Rumble Arts building to see the murals from the Graffiti Arts classes.

Murals, murals, murals line the streets, telling the neighborhood’s stories through images and visual poetry. Humboldt Park houses some of the country’s oldest public art murals. Projects like the archi-treasures “Humboldt Park Mural Arts Program” use creative place-making strategies, promoting murals as a destination by showcasing the generation of murals across the neighborhood. The project increases visibility of murals, sparks interest and value in the practice while encouraging the creation of new pieces, the restoration of aging pieces and the use of murals as a way to represent community concepts, visions and collectively held beliefs and dreams. You can find a murals tour map here. Some of the mural highlighted on the map include (1) the oldest exterior Puerto Rican mural in Chicago, “La crucifixion de Don Pedro Albizu Campos,” originally painted in 1971 and restored by the HP Mural Arts Program in 2012 and (2) “Born of Fire,” painted in 2006, portrays a complicated community of Puerto Rican-Chicagoans through narrative.

Programs like Graffiti Zone, another Green Star partner, offer young adults, ages 18 to 25, a hand up with their living situations and lifestyles, offering residence and creative space in exchange for community-building support, offering art classes to at-risk youth in the community and dedicate time to their growth as artists. These young artists-in-residence serve as mentors to at risk youth, offering creative resources and encouragement, sparking strong ties, values and connection in the process. You can see some of their murals featured on their website and other works around the neighborhood.

“Despite challenges, HP works together. We have good partnerships, share resources and advice with other organizations,” said Wolf.  While the ripple effect continues to surge out, washing over the neighborhood and breathing life back in to neglected scenes, artists are busy spinning their webs for you to get caught in. Come enjoy!

By Whitney Richardson for GSM

Whitney: Let’s start with a broad question. How do you define art?
Guillermo: I find art to be a form of expression, by any means or media, to show how you feel about something or towards something else.

Whitney: Would you say art is important to you? How &/or why?
Guillermo: Yes, art is important to me. It’s around me every day. I have art class every day and friends make art all around me. It’s outside. It’s everywhere. Art gives me a way to calm down. Compared to like, subjects like science and math, art is more free and abstract. There’s less pressure on it. With art, you can do whatever you like.

Whitney: Awesome. Exploring the gray areas where there is no right or wrong… Would you call yourself an artist?
Guillermo: No, because I don’t feel like I’ve reached that level yet.

Whitney: I like to ask that question because I think a lot of artistic people are afraid to self-identify as an artist, despite the evidence. Now, does society need art? What would the world be like without it?
Guillermo: Society needs art, yes. Society needs something it can relate to, that it can look it and respond to. Like, I really like cartoons. I think it’s an art form. When I watch them, I relate to the feelings and the images. The world without art would be bad because it’s everywhere right now. Art is in everything. It’s in propaganda, in the media. There’d be no music… We’d have limited forms of expression. I can hardly picture it.

Whitney: You said you have art class every day. Can you talk a little bit about it?
Guillermo: I have an art class at school every day with 20-30 other students. We call it the ID program. You can make pieces using whatever media you choose. I chose mosaic tile as my medium.

Whitney: What do you like about mosaics?
Guillermo: I like the beauty of mosaics and the puzzle. It’s relaxing most of the time. I dislike how tedious it can be, and sometimes it’s dangerous.

Whitney: What piece have you made that you are most proud of?

Guillermo: The piece I’m most proud of is one I made for ID class. It’s called, “A Dream,” and I think it really shows my progress as an artist. It has a lot of texture. There’s an image of the sun coming off the water… I think it looks really good. It took a lot of time, and I was really happy with how it turned out.

Whitney: How did you hear about the Green Star Movement?
Guillermo: I heard about GSM because someone came to school and talked to us about it. I was already making mosaics for class, so it was something that I thought I should really do. My first season with GSM was in Fall 2011.

Whitney: How many hours a week do you spend making art?
Guillermo: It’s hard to say how many hours a week I spend making art. I do it all the time. When I doodle in my notebook during class… I’m making art. I think it helps me pay attention. I mean, I know it’s kind of distracting because I’m also paying attention to what I’m doodling, but it’s really relaxing. It feels good. Then I spend a lot of time on my pieces and in art class.

Whitney: What inspires you?
Guillermo: Artists of the past who stood up against society, who accomplished what they set out too despite what they were told. No restrictions.

Whitney: Boundary pushing! Now, how can Chicago benefit from art?
Guillermo: Chicago can benefit from art… It can make the city look better, more beautiful. There was this time when I was little… I was crossing under a tunnel that was dark and desolate. They decided to paint a mural under there, and it changed everything, lit it up. It wasn’t so uncomfortable anymore, more calm. You could walk under it and not be nervous. I don’t remember where the tunnel is anymore, but it said “Chicago” and had people with other signs of Chicago pride. I remember very well how it felt, the difference it made.

By: Whitney Richardson for GSM

After-school programs can revitalize and recharge neighborhoods, encouraging youth to spend their free after school hours positively engaging with the world around them. Green Star Movement (GSM) partners with schools and organizations (such as After School Matters) to make the most out of this crucial period of the day, offering youth the opportunity to learn, design, engage and realize public art in an effort to beautify their neighborhoods while earning an income.

The neighborhoods GSM works in are especially affected by school closings alongside carrying a burdensome history of economic and social displacement, poverty, violence and shortage of access to food and other services. By engaging youth to participate in these a program designed to help them realize ideas and transform their environment, after school programs have a unique opportunity to enact social change. At GSM, the surrounding neighborhood becomes the classroom, enlivening the environment just outside youth’s backdoors, introducing them to community organizations, individuals and resources that can sustain a lifetime. These programs expose youth to new environments, experiences and ideas beyond their usual scope.

The activities provided by many after school programs, like GSM, are ‘regenerative,’ providing tools that allow students to explore, understand, connect with, redefine and shape their world. What kids put into these programs, they see returned to them. Through these experiences, youth derive and develop meaning, value and worth. Programs like GSM have the opportunity to fill voids and bridge gaps in students’ lives. Successful programs are designed to provide a physically and emotionally safe and stimulating environment; support, warmth and guidance; opportunities to socialize and belong; opportunities for skill development; opportunities to strengthen responsibility and take ownership; and augment youth voice.

GSM’s project-driven model provides students with the opportunity to develop project planning, implementation, reflection and assessment opportunities, much applicable to life in the professional world. GSM mosaic installation projects improve hand-eye coordination, mechanical cognition and tune awareness to the physical environment. After a long day of bookwork, it feels good to release some energy in this creative, physical way, again, releasing energy creatively rather than destructively. Kids can let go of their frustrations and talk about their days in a safe environment, learn how to use new tools and machines and break tile for the common good!

After school programs can provide a balance and alternative in addressing the broader social and personal developments neglected in contemporary school models. By providing youth with opportunities and resources to develop and explore their creative energies, after school programs utilize these hours and make them a valuable resource. So why are after school programs like GSM important? Because minds and bodies don’t turn off when the final bell rings. (For more on tapping into youth’s creative potential, read “The Creative Process: The Importance of Nurturing Creativity”)

Look at what can come from a few hours after-school each week…

–Whitney Richardson, GSM

The capacity to create is innate and universal. “[Art education] has a tremendous impact on the developmental growth of every child and has proven to help level the “learning field” across socio-economic boundaries,” says Americans for the Arts. The universal benefit of encouraging creativity is widely evidenced. The notion that some people are born creative and others not reinforces a myth of creative selection that discourages development of individual creative potential. All that creativity needs to manifest is a bit of attention, encouragement and maintenance. American’s test-obsessed education systems position students to work likesponges, soaking up surface knowledge to recall facts and events. Studies indicate a decline in creativity and innovation among youth, paralleling the rise in emphasis on test-driven education.  Students rarely get the opportunity to discover how the use of creative energy by individuals like them transformed our world.
By being told rather than shown, a generation has been desensitized, translating to aloss in motivation, purpose and direction. “It’s not that creativity can necessarily disappear, but it can be suppressed in particular contexts,” said Ron Beghetto, an education psychologist at University of Oregon. The creative process provides a blueprint for enlivening inner worldsand latent creativity. The yellow brick road of the creative process follows four distinct phases: preparation, incubation, illumination and implementation. While the phases often overlap and intermingle, by exploring each phase singularly we are able to see how each nurtures the separate yet complementary components of creativity (Source: http://www.productiveflourishing.com/demystifying-the-creative-process/).

In the preparation phase, we practice our craft. Repetitive motions make up the bulk of this phase. Not generally considered the exciting phase of the creative process, it enforces self-discipline and paves the way for reflection- drawing attention to the rhythm of motion, setting the brain to auto-pilot. The incubation period lives in these repetitive motions and the constant, subconscious flux of the mind as it forges new connections and simulates new abstractions.  The capacity to incubate all too often gets eked out by distractions, getting lost in the hustleof contemporary life. The more distractions we allow, the more buried our creative impulses become. Carving out distraction-free time helps keep the creative edge sharp and ready for use when illumination hits.
The sudden birth of a vision, concept or idea strikes is called illumination. It can take place without a moment’s notice and has the power to derail you with its palpable urgency to bring this new idea to light. Illumination builds momentum toward the ultimate phase inthe creative process, implementation. This is where we first come into contact with our ideas in real time & space, tracing the silhouettes of our inner world onto the walls of reality.  The implementation period can stir significant frustration, releasing insecurities and latent emotions.  Moving forward despite the emotional risk produces more capable, brave and confident makers comfortable with their creative identities and processes. In sum, through these phases we are able
to gain form and focus as creators, summoning and celebrating our humanity while developing adesign for living.

The creative process provides the maker with constant, nonverbal feedback and material for reflection. It can offer cause for praise or self-flagellation, spurring catharsis and emotional growth. While deepening our awareness of the self and our surroundings, art offers us a break from immediate reality. The creative process unifies our mental, emotional and physical selves, rocking a balance of forces.  It raises an appreciation and respect for hard work. It regenerates our ability to think for ourselves, enabling us to develop and define a sense of purpose. It gives usperspective, nourishes a capacity for enthusiasm, passion & motivation. By calling to life these abstract inner worlds, we learn to share, explore and articulate identity.
The creative process can become a most reliable friend. Countless artists have cited art as their prevailing lifeline, a pathway for expression that offers a creative, healthy way to exploreand process negative emotions and energy. Exercising creativity has been linked to improved mood and sleep, combating depression and aggression. The benefits experienced by the creative process never fade. No matter how old a person is, making time for creative pursuits translates to allotting time for the self to experience and awaken the senses. By creating, we redirect the flow of emotion. We suddenly have a way to address and cope with life’s challenges.
Upon traveling the road of the creative process, an impression has been made on the psyche, imprinting a mental map on which we can rely. The illusion that some people are more creative than others is a misinterpretation. Those perceived to be more creative are simply more apt to invoke their creative impulse precisely because they have charted the course and developed this mental map through repetition. They have spent time conjuring and feeding their creative intuition, sculpting detail-oriented minds and dexterity in the process.
The more often one moves through the creative process- the more fluid the process becomes, more art and creativity are released in harmony with an individual’s rhythm, the more it becomes second nature… By nurturing creativity in others, we can raise engaged, innovativecreators with a grounded propensity for action. By investing in youth, we invest in a more livable future and color new, engaging realities, in the process making earth a more beautiful, wondrousand imaginative landscape.
–Whitney Richardson, GSM

The goal of the next few weeks is to generate images that will actually appear on our mural.

We began the day with a lesson in texture. The students were instructed to explore the school grounds and trace interesting patterns found in the environment. These patterns will serve as inspiration for the background of the mosaic.

The students used these patterns as inspiration for their own designs. In the photographs below, each design is laid out on the table to showcase everyone’s sketches.

Next, students rolled out the yellow paper. The students broke up into teams and each designed a prototype mural. We will eventually take images from each mural and combine them into our final product. Imagine when these colors are beautiful tiles and pieces of mirror. The final product will take up a 200 foot by 25 foot space on the front wall of Farragut Career Academy.

The Green Star process is marked by collaboration through community, dialogue, and design. The work is already yielding some pretty powerful imagery. And friendships.

Exciting developments lie ahead. Check back next week–we will keep you posted!

-Carly Robinson, GSM

In continued celebration and support of women and equality post-International Women’s Day, we have pieced highlights of prominent, contemporary female figures who use public art as a means to engage and reimagine society- as artist Katie Yamasaki puts it, giving voice to “those who have traditionally been spoken for rather than listened to.” International Women’s Day, celebrated in many countries worldwide on March 8, is a day for us to collectively honor the struggles and accomplishments of women, without acknowledgment of divisive lines, while looking forward to a future of untapped potential for generations of women to come. It was initiated by the United Nations in 1975, the International Year of Women to encourage support for women’s rights and an end to discrimination.  It wasn’t until the 1970s that women began taking a more visible, active role in public arts. This development was only made possible by opening access to the official institutions that historically blocked women from entry, to the necessary training, technical skill and social systems to design and produce public works of art. Prior to this, women artists in the west generally settled for work in socially accepted art mediums- china decoration, portraiture and flower painting, or handicrafts…”

Below you will find the stories of women across the globe who employ public art as a means to express hopes and fears, reinvigorate communities, explore cultural identities, and share stories traditionally dismissed from public discourse. Unified in their mission to address the how’s and why’s of societal transformation, each artist employs different mediums in their approach. These women use art to raise awareness and create opportunities for engagement in discussing critical issues and build brighter pathways toward tomorrow. We look forward to the development of future generations of female artists, working to build peace and unity in their communities.

Fefe Talavera, Brazil

Talavera picked up techniques and skills from her artist father at a young age, growing up with art as an extension of self. Her works shed light on dark emotions. Through her work, she encourages the use of creative outlets as a means of processing collectively held fears, societal ills and symptoms of the human condition. Being able to draw, she says, helps her release aggression. She believes her creative outlets prevent her from expressing these emotions in a more violent way. Her work is riddled with monsters that symbolize fear and anger. “These monsters are a way of exorcising my feelings, my angers, my sadness, my ignorance,” she says. “It is the only method by which I succeed in expressing my rage at life, my fury.” She uses fantastical imagery in  her work, building on the hopes and dreams we experience internally, that drive our actions and shape our motivations. Talavera sees her home city of Sao Paolo as a megalopolis plagued by malignant social, economic and ecological ills, negatively impacting its residents. City walls remain an avenue for connection and healing, reflecting the beauty of a dynamic internal life outward. Her approach to street art can be understood alongside the history and tradition of “murales,” using murals to reflect contemporary urban life and political beliefs.

Katie Yamasaki, USA

“Always the hope is that with art… that it can actually change the way people feel when they look at it,” Katie Yamasaki says, explaining her drive as a public artist. As director of Voices Her’d Visionaries, a part of the Groundswell Community Mural Project in Brooklyn, NY, Yamasaki leads a program for exemplary young women to develop and install public art projects in their communities. Participants examine issues facing girls & women and choose a topic for a large-scale summer public art project. ”It’s amazing when you provide young women a space where they develop their own sense of artistry, sense of self, their physical self… that space outside of expectation… how much they evolve over a summer, a year, and they keep coming back.” Yamasaki works mainly as a muralist and community artist, in the hopes of enacting social change. While discussing a piece created by a group of young, colored women, she shares, “Young women of color are not usually the creators of the media about them… This time we had the actual faces of the girls in the painting [for a local school]… After the mural was done, the principal of the school was walking down the street and someone walking behind her said, ‘Well, the mural looks nice, but it’s just odd that they didn’t put any American girls in it.” It’s dialogue like this that keeps her motivated and aware that work still needs to be done. “When you’re in the street, you have encounters with people all the time… The collective imagination needs to be stretched…,” she says.

Mural at women’s prison in Chiapas, Mexico. Photo courtesy of Vera

Shamsia Hassani, Afghanistan

A woman in a burqa sits at the foot of a staircase leading nowhere. Next to it is a line of poetry, “The water can come back to a dried up river, but what about the fish that died?” The work aims to express the sorrow and loss experienced in Afghanistan over decades of violence and addresses the notion that what has been done cannot be undone. She imposes the image of the burqa in unfamiliar, ironic contexts to alter how her community perceives women. Hassani came to street art in 2010, with the desire to reach more people in the hopes of building a stronger society and cross class divides. “If you have an exhibition, most… people won’t even know about it. But if you have art like graffiti in the street, everyone can see that. If we can do graffiti all over the city, there will nobody who doesn’t know about art.” Rampant security forces and threat of harassment against women discourage many female artists in Afghanistan from pursuing street art. Hassani is not deterred. She answers these obstacles by working in industrial yards and abandoned buildings, where the likelihood of trouble is lessened. She hopes to create a street art program at Kabul University, where she works as an associate professor of sculpture. She says, “Art can bring change. I am sure. If people see an artwork, it will perhaps only cause a small shock to their mind, but that can grow and grow.”

Mural in Saigon, Vietnam, in collaboration with El Mac. Photo courtesy of Street Art News.

Faten Rouissi, Tunisia

Street Art – Art in the Neighborhood, a public art event, took place over the course of several days  utilizing cars burnt during the Tunisian revolution of January 14, 2011. The idea occurred to Rouissi while witnessing the amassing wreckage of vehicles piled in a vacant lot near home in the northern suburbs of Tunis, the product of the anger by the revolutionaries. “Fascinated by this image born of fire, I imagined a positive and visual fertility of a phoenix reborn of its ashes to rejuvenate the image of a free Tunisia,” she says. Using social media, she successfully mobilized artists to transform the burnt cars into public works of art, highlighting the willingness and action of a new generation of Tunisians to color happiness and freedom into the future of the nation. The event hoped to ignite passions for public art in the Tunisian Ministry of Culture and in other cultural players- to encourage, inspire and support creativity across Tunisia. “It is important to preserve the initiative while remaining in control of our destiny and to find allies in the creation process while building new solidarities and new weavings likely to develop our imaginative worlds,” she says. Artists, students from across the country, and residents transcending demographics, turned out to transform the cars into “a blooming of objects in bright colors, adorned with revolutionary graffiti.”

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, USA

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville’s public works reflect a commitment to social activism through engagement and preservation of the collected memories of community. De Bretteville is celebrated as a pioneer of the feminist art movement, founding the Woman’s Design program at Cal Arts in 1971 and later co-founding “The Woman’s Building” with Judy Chicago and Arlene Raven in 1973. “It did not take long before I understood that there were as many differences within the sexes as between them, and that the roles class, race, economics, language, biolity and acculturation played were all to be contested, re-approached and mined,” she says. Like realizations have spawned a lifelong investigation of social behaviors in her artwork. Her site-specific public art installations serve to define, express and preserve community identity, making her work inherently significant to site residents. By creating works of art that resonate with community, she opens doors for further participation and inclusivity in reshaping society. Her most popular works of art include “Biddy Mason: Time & Place” installed in downtown Los Angeles, CA in 1990, an 82-ft. long mural that shares the story of Biddy Mason, an African-American woman, former slave and midwife who lived at the site. Using images and stories, she tells Mason’s narrative, calling attention and ensuring the memory of the community member’s struggles and successes. Her other best known installation “Path of Stars” (1994) weaves together the lives of New Haven residents, both living and deceased, using granite stars set in the sidewalk.

– Whitney Richardson, GSM