Final Artist Statement

“Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: / we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” This is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that in my own personal opinion sums up the journey that Johnsons Park Neighborhood has embarked upon, from the past to the present and into the future.

This blog is about my adventures and interactions within the Johnsons Park Neighborhood and the inhabitants who live there and documented video and photography of the area. This blog also presents the changes that have taken place within Johnsons Park Neighborhood, the rich history that it has, and also the American dream that has made all of these great changes thus far, possible. Without the “dream” of a few hard working, unrelenting individuals who wanted nothing more then to see their neighborhood be a great, safe place to live, the transformation of the Johnsons Park Neighborhood might have never taken place. This in and of its self is a true testament of how anyone in this country can achieve anything as long as you are willing to work for it.

The photographs as well as the videos on this blog are how I have viewed this neighborhood as well as Service Learning project though my own eyes and my own experiences. From an artistic standpoint I wanted this blog to be about the changes in Johnsons Park Neighborhood that were made possible through hardworking individuals mainly the people that I was able to interview. I also wanted this blog to be about my adventures that I have gone through within this class and service learning. I took my self out of the interviews and used text because of time constrictions. We had to edit about 160 minutes of video down to a 5-7 minute video. We were very much there involved and engaged the people we interviewed. It was as much of us getting to know the people of the neighborhood as it was also about getting to hear their story. I personally decided not to edit any of my photographs. One, because I really don’t know Photoshop all that well but also because I wanted to capture how the neighborhood really is as if you were right there some of the worlds most profound pictures are true to life and that’s why I decided not to edit my photographs.

During my work on this project I got to meet a lot of great people, people who care about their neighborhood and people who have worked all their lives to make a difference in Johnsons Park Neighborhood for the next generation. This blog is my adventures and the times I spent in Johnsons Park Neighborhood.

Visits to Johnsons Park Neighborhood

Throughout the semester I had the chance to visit Johnsons Park Neighborhood on several different occasions. Each time I visited Johnsons Park Neighborhood I found, learned or met someone new that added something valuable to my overall experience I had down in the Johnsons Park Neighborhood that aloud me to add something to this blog.

The first time I had the chance to visit Johnsons Park Neighborhood was on March 15^th, 2009 around 4:00pm after our initial group meeting with Mr. George Lewis who would be coordinating our interviews with the life long residents of the neighborhood. I decided that day that I wanted to visit the neighborhood so I could get a start on my JPNA photo essay. At first I was going to visit the neighborhood by myself and I really didn’t plan to stay all that long, but my group mate Quyen decided she was going to come with me. We got to the neighborhood around 4:10pm and parked across the street from Johnsons Park it was a cool day dusk and not too many people were out, but there were a few. We started to walk around and take pictures of the neighborhood and got a few looks from people and were asked by one fellow if we were working on a school project. We walked around for a bit longer and took some more pictures when we came across a lady who asked if we were new to the neighborhood we told her that we were not but instead working on a school project. The lady seemed very friendly and interested to talk to us but I don’t think she lived in the neighborhood. In fact I think she may have been homeless or perhaps very poor since she asked us for money. Neither I nor Quyen had any money to give her but she seemed happy to talk to us none the less. We left soon after that since it was getting dark. At the time I personally didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures of the people we talked too since I don’t like to take pictures of people I don’t know.

The second time I visited Johnsons Park Neighborhood was several days later I again met up with Quyen and we headed to Johnsons Park in the afternoon that day was a bit nicer then the earlier time we visited the neighborhood. But again there were not many people about the neighborhood. We walked around again for about another hour and a half up and down the streets taking pictures. We stopped to take a picture of the fish market when a lady asked if we were taking pictures of her fish market. We explained that we were documenting the neighborhood for our project. We got to talking to her and she had plenty of stories to tell us. Her name was Willie Mays and talking with her, well, lets just say was one of the more memorable moments of this project.

The times I visited the neighborhood was a good experience in my opinion even though when I did go I did not see to many people out and about maybe that was because of the weather maybe not either way it was none the less exciting

My Interview with Mrs. Craft

My interview with Mrs. Craft was one of the more memorable experiences that I have the privilege to take part in during my time working on this project. Mrs. Craft was a great interviewee and was very knowledgeable about the things she talked about. She was also a wonderful host and offered me and Naraij coffee and cake when we arrived at her residents. Before as well as after the interview she had plenty of stories and things to talk about with me and Naraji which made it a surprisingly comfortable situation.

Mrs. Craft was born and moved to Johnsons Park Neighborhood in 1941 when she was only 18 months old. Her and her family was the first black family to move into Johnsons Park Neighborhood. At the time they moved into the neighborhood she said they were the only black family there. She said at first the people there did not like that there was a black family living there but after a while people became accustomed to the fact that there was a black family there since her family were respectful and hard working and just wanted to fit into the neighborhood. She explained that her family worked very hard for her house, and that her father would walk everyday to work to the south side of Milwaukee and back in order to save enough to by a bike. That story was really amazing because in this day and age you almost never see or hear of people walking to work in order to get enough money to pay for a bike and then a car and their house. I personally think in this day and age most people take their homes for granted and don’t work as hard as the Craft Family did for their home. And I would guess that’s why Mrs. Craft home means so much to her.

The entire interview was great and I’m glad I had the chance to interview Mrs. Craft because I learned so much about the history of the neighborhood that I never knew about before I started this project. It was also great to have the chance to interview someone who has lived in the neighborhood all her life and has been able to experience all the different changes that have gone on throughout her life and to convey that to us.

My Interview with Mrs. Evens & Family

My interview with Mrs. Evens and her family was the first of two interviews that I had a chance to partake for my service learning project. Since this was my first ever interview of anyone in my entire life let alone video taping them, so I was a bit nerves. But there was no need to be nerves since Mrs. Evens and her family was just great. They were very inviting and wonderful people and Joe and I had a great time talking basically about anything with them.

On our way to Mrs. Evens interview Joe and I kind of got lost and could not find Mrs. Evens house for the life of us. We drove up and down 20th street about three times. Turns out that the street sign for Garfield Ave. was taken down and that’s why we could not find the street. Eventually we arrived at Mrs. Evens home and we were greeted by her granddaughter. We set up shop in Mrs. Evens living room and started the interview. Mrs. Evens her son, granddaughter, and great granddaughter were all in the room. You could tell that they were very close family that family meant a lot to them.

Mrs. Evens moved to the Johnson Park Neighborhood in the 1960s and has lived there ever since. She was originally born down south and moved to Milwaukee after her a divorce from her first husband. She said at that time the neighborhood was a very close community and everyone knew everyone back then and they would often hold neighborhood parties. Mrs. Evens also explained that back then the police knew everyone very well in the area and if there was a problem they would come out right away so crime was not a frequent experience back then.

Mrs. Evens as well as her family had kind of a different take on the changes going on in the neighborhood. Though they like all the new houses going up in the neighborhood and the positive changes that are occurring they still see need for improvement. Even though Mrs. Evens and her granddaughter have lived in the neighborhood all of their life’s they have only recently heard of JPNA but only after Mrs. Evens granddaughter found out about it while attending UWM.

My Experience with Film Department Equipment Room

Our (Joe and I) adventure with the Film Department Equipment Room began on a Friday after class. Joe and I first headed to the AV check out room to rent out a camera, lights and a tripod. After waiting around for about ten minutes (other people were been taken care of) we asked the worker if we could check out a camera, lights and a tripod for our interview later that day. To which he replied “do you have a reservation?” We explained to him that we didn’t have one and that we didn’t know we needed one since this was our first Film class. He then ‘hummed and hawed’ and rolled his eyes and said “I’ll go look but next time you need a reservation” He then sat at his computer for about five minutes, I guess looking for a camera? Apparently he eventually found one. He then explained that he was unsure if they had any tripods or lights for us to use even though he had a huge stack of lights and tripods behind him. He then “found” a tripod but said they were out of lights; we decided to just leave at that point. My Film Department Equipment Room experience was maybe not the best experience I had while working on my Service Learning Project but it was definitely a memorable experience none the less. I’m not really sure what was up with the Film Department Equipment Room worker maybe he was just having a bad day that day. Whatever the case maybe next time I will remember to have a reservation.

Film Department Equipment Room website

Picture Taken From
http://www.armpullers.com/camp/images/sony_hdr_camera.jpg

Documentation of Work on the Group Project

Work on our group project was one of the more difficult tasks I think our group had to accomplish this semester. Mostly because every single one of us had very different schedules or we had to work. So through out the semester we were only able to meet a few times and the group as a whole was never able to conduct an interview. None the less we pressed on and were able to meet a few times to work on the group project. We each took home an interview that we attended and edited it and from the edited version we picked the best clips we thought would be appropriate and presented them to the group. From that we pieced together or final movie. So each one of us was given hands on experience with imovie or a form of video editing software. Also each one of us had the chance to work with the group blog on an individual basis separate from the times we met as a group and added things we though were good for the site.



This was not the first group project that I have worked on nor will it be the last group project I will work on but I have to say I really enjoyed working with the people in my group and I’m glad we had the chance to work together.

JPNA Media Project
JPNA Youtube Channel

A Few Thoughts on Service Learning

When I initially embarked upon my Service Learning journey I personally did not know what to expect out of service learning, what service learning was all about, or even how it contributed to furthering my education. As a transfer student from the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater we were never exposed, required or expected to do something similar to Service Learning, so this entire experience was a bit alien to me. Before taking this class I had never done any kind of Service Learning except for the other Service Learning project that I was participating in at the same time which was for my environmental science class. Both classes of which I wa required to do service learning for were essentially retake classes for me since my multicultural and environmental class did not transfer from Whitewater. This in and of its self did not hinder the valuable experiences and lessons that I took with me from both of my service learning experiences that I was able to participate in this semester.

My experiences with Service Learning for our class (Film 150) and my Service Learning from my environmental science class (CES 210) were very different experiences indeed. In my CES 210 class which is a lecture class with about 200 kids in it, we were given a choice of our Service Learning partners to work with of whom I chose to work with Alliance for The Great Lakes. What I did for my service learning hours for Alliance for The Great Lakes was to monitor beach conditions at different beach locations as well as clean various beaches in and around Milwaukee country. So my Service Learning for Alliance for The Great Lakes was a very hands on and direct approach to our Service Learning hours that had a direct impact on the environment.

My experiences with Service Learning for our Film 150 I think took a more indirect approach to our Service Learning hours. I think we as a class though were much more involved in our organization then I was with Alliance for The Great Lakes. I personally speaking, had many interactions with the people lived in the neighborhood and got to document that directly. Even though I was not building or cleaning up anything, hopefully documenting the progress and transition that this neighborhood has gone through can someday make in impact on Johnsons park neighborhood.
Pictures taken from:
http://www4.uwm.edu/isl/