Friday, May 22, 2009
Hawkins Street Mural Finished
On Tuesday I went to see and take pix of the mural that Ironbound artist Kevin Blythe Sampson did with a bunch of kids in the auditorium at the Hawkins Street Elementary School quite far east in the Ironbound, six miles from my house. I have an atlas that contains an inset map of the New York Metropolitan Area in which there are three labels for this city: "Newark", "Vailsburg" (my area, on the far west), and "Ironbound" (far to the east), and on Tuesday I passed thru the largest part of the city traveling between the two far ends. Ferry Street is a bottleneck. Had I thought to Mapquest the route, I would have been directed to go via Market Street after Newark Penn Station until it joined up with Ferry Street past the congested area. But I didn't.
Here is the mural in its setting (from far enuf away and at low-enuf resolution that the children are not personally identifiable, something the school's administration was concerned about as regards any foto to appear in the magazine.
Kevin wrote a poem about his experience working with the kids on this project, which affected him more deeply than he had anticipated. I'm not going to show his poem here, because a folk-art magazine is planning to run it. They wanted "a really good picture" of the mural to show with it. The one foto I showed here that Kevin took didn't seem quite right for the purpose, so I offered to take some pix he could make available to the publisher. Kevin chose two, one wide and one detail view. We'll see if the magazine's art director is satisfied with them or would like a professional fotografer to take better pix, perhaps using floodlites to bring out the colors. The (Haitian-Iranian) custodian, a cheerful, helpful guy who also teaches in a daycare center at St. Stefan's (the iconic church of the Ironbound, at the Five Corners) turned on such lites as are regularly available in the auditorium, but the mural would benefit from briter liting. (The fotos I show today are not the same as those sent to the magazine. )
The Hawkins Street School is an old building with the kind of grand sense of itself and its place that many of the institutional buildings of post-1950 schools lack. This is the view looking out from the stage for which the mural serves as backdrop.
The earlier foto wasn't appropriate in any case because the mural at April 11th was very different from the present, finished(?) version. The finished mural combines elements of reality with the Hollywood fable of The Wizard of Oz and the legend of the Pied Piper. Obama's music makes the children dance all the way along the yellow-brick road to the U.S. Capitol, shown here surrounded by the towers of the Emerald City.
Kevin stands alongside mural.
The largest human figure is President Obama, left of center at the bottom, dressed in flowing robes with slogans on the folds. New Jersey After 3 is the program Kevin works with at the Hawkins Street School.
Here, one little girl dances in a wide dress whose skirt bears the Spanish equivalent of "Yes we can".
Here, one little girl dances in a wide dress whose skirt bears the Spanish equivalent of "Yes we can".
The children who worked on the mural wanted things in it that may not have been essential to the theme but didn't detract from it, so Kevin included them. Here, one of the most common wild animals in Newark, a squirrel, scampers past Obama. Kevin and I couldn't figure out the Spanish ("Bentige") on one fold of Obama's cloak. Anyone? I found an expression, "Dios te ventiga", on the Internet, but have no idea what it means. Anyone? (The misspelling in that Spanish text, "Amerca", will be fixed.) "I too sing America" is from Langston Hughes and I suspect references Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing".
Here, a doggy looks up adoringly at another little girl dancing.
Tho I am not privy to the motivations of the kids in creating the various elements of this mural, let me tell something of what I see. Different people will see different things. The yellow-brick road is touched with gold paint, reflecting the "streets paved with gold" language of immigrants' dreams of "America".
Musicians are among the people on the road to the Capitol, reflecting the importance of the many diverse types of music that both stand on their own and merge into a synthesis of American popular music. The yellow-brick road becomes a highway of music binding the Nation as much as do the Interstates.
+
At the apex of the mural is the Capitol, flanked by forms that seem to represent the pipes of an organ as much as the idealized pure forms of the towers of the Emerald City. A blue H (for "Hawkins") on a golden shield caps the mural, and the school's motto, "Believe and Achieve", carries the "Yes we can" theme all the way from bottom to top, as aspirations can carry kids higher. The Newark Public Schools work to instill in students the belief that they can be what they want to be if they study hard, set realistic goals, and do the work — year after year — that is necessary to success.
This mural uses happy fictional references to make its points. "Toto [remember the little dog in the mural?], I've a feeling we're not in Kansas [Newark] any more." But, for all the color and flowers along the yellow-brick road and the beauty of the multicolored towers of the Emerald City, Dorothy ended up tapping her heels together and saying, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home", woke up in Kansas [Newark] and was very glad to be there. The first job of Newark schools is to prepare kids to live in Newark and understand that, as Dorothy came to realize:
"The next time I go looking for my heart's desire, I won't look any further than my own backyard. If it's not there, then I never really lost it to begin with."Kevin Sampson is a first-class, self-taught artist. He has connections to the New York art world, and his work is in various museums. Paris, London, and Tokyo might love his work. But he lives in the Ironbound. The Emerald City is a fantasm. Newark is home.
posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM 
Links to this post:
- See links to this post
- <$BlogBacklinkTitle$>
- <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$>
posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$>
About Me
- Name: L Craig Schoonmaker
- Location: Newark, New Jersey, United States
I am an intellectual with nothing of the nerd about him. I'm also the guy who in 1970 offered the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used. If any of my fotos should not appear, it is because AOL closed all subscribers' file-storage spaces. I can email a copy of any foto someone really wants to see. Feel free to send constructive comments to ResurgenceCity{the AT-sign}aol.com .
Previous Posts
- Twin Fountains
- Renewed My R-E License
- 'Centennial Conversation', Supper Club Both Thursd...
- Hall of Fame Surprise Guest
- Classmate in the Ironbound
- Brick City Urban Farms
- Graffic Design Show, Youth Helpline, Free Computer...
- Not All Black and White
- Marriage Equality, Mention in NYT Blog
- New Robeson Show, Tibetan Lecture, Both Thursday
No comments:
Post a Comment