The Most Well Connected Poorman in America: A fotojournal about LIVING in Newark USA Mural Interpretation

Newark USA

A fotojournal about LIVING in Newark USA, New Jersey's largest and most cultured city, by the author of the foto-essay website RESURGENCE CITY: Newark USA.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Mural Interpretation

I said here May 22nd that different viewers will see different things in the mural in the Hawkins Street School that Kevin Blythe Sampson and a bunch of elementary-school kids painted, but my interpretation seems to have struck a responsive chord. Kevin emailed me with this information.

HI Craig
I am sending you a link to the new jersey after 3 web site where they [linked to] your full blog
I have to tell you
and thank you for describing the mural in a way that every one loves
i am using it as the explanation for the mural
the school loves it
every one does
and i want to thank you for the support
the mural project is really taking off
i will keep you posted and hopefully we can
hook up again for future projects
We are both seventies guys and it shows

Here's a great big wall that is begging for a mural. The Barat Foundation has started work on a hybrid between a mural and a sculpture at this location. A group of about 50 volunteers cleaned up trash from the site a few weeks ago, but I wasn't there to take pix. It was too early in the day, and raining. Gary Barat got stills and video, I understand. Perhaps he'll make those available on the Barat Foundation website (if indeed he hasn't already), or send me a couple to show here. Athena Barat has sent me artist's conceptions of what is planned, but asked me not to show them because they might still change. I hope she will send the finalized version so I can show you what is planned. It's glorious. But for now, you'll have to take my word.

(Actually, I'm more like a Sixties guy, early Sixties: "Camelot". And I'm now in my 60s. Kevin has a way to go.) Kevin then shared with his email list the text of the communication he received. I trust it is OK to share it with you.

check out this letter i just received from the headquarters of my job concerning the mural life is a hoot
Hello Kevin!
Just wanted to send you this friendly follow up to our previous inquiry about the BEAUTIFUL Obama Pied Piper mural. As mentioned before, we are ELATED with not only the finished piece - but, the entire back story on its development within your afterschool program as well.
We immediately posted that great article (with pix) on the New Jersey After 3 website!
Also, as it turns out [NJ After 3] ... is starting to receive some great feedback from [other] organizations with an expressed interest to post a link to the article (and pictures) on their site as well!
Just thought you might want to know about the buzz that your mural is creating!!! I'll definitely keep you posted as additional interest is expressed.
On behalf of the rest of us at New Jersey After 3, SINCERE THANKS again for doing such an OUTSTANDING job in your afterschool program! It truly is an honor to have you on the New Jersey After 3 team!

I hope this attention on the Internet does not cause the art magazine to demur from publishing fotos of the mural. They do have the text of Kevin's poem, which I did not publish, so that much would remain unique to them.

This is the wall above in relation to Downtown's skyscrapers. A great location, easy for tourists to get to, and opposite Newark Art Supply, which has some Newark-specific artwork (teeshirts, for instance) that could serve as souvenirs, and could stock more once the tourist industry is well established.

OK, Kevin. That one's done. On to the next mural! And be sure to let me know ahead of time, so I can take a "before" foto, not just an "after".

This other blank wall in the same vicinity has already been 'tagged' with a type of wall art, tho not what I think we want.

Newark may never catch up to Philadelphia, a much larger city, as mural capital of the Nation, but maybe we could come in as Mural City, Mid-Size Division. Newark and suburban artists interested in using Newark as canvas for public art should contact Philly's Mural Arts Program for information on how to form a Newark mural project, find appropriate walls, get permissions, find funding, etc. Perhaps the Newark Arts Council could establish a Mural Section. I remember being very impressed, in my youth, by fotos of brilliantly colorful murals in Mexico City, as at the Autonomous University. Murals can be a striking introduction to art for uncountable thousands of schoolchildren and passersby, and boost tourism (free money, that proceeds from things we've already done) to Newark.

I believe this is the north side of the Newark Museum, seen beyond a parking lot off James Street. (Northern lite is perhaps better for murals than southern, as regards fading.) I see 24 individual spots for small murals in clearly defined brick patches, plus a couple of spots for large murals to the left. The Newark Museum is a world-class institution. Couldn't it hold an international competition to fill all those spots, by one artist who can fill the entire space or a bunch of different artists who might fill one or more, adjoining or separate? How about reproducing, supersized, the Museum's very best works in some of those spots? At least 1/8th of the spaces should be reserved to Newark artists, and another eighth to New Jersey artists more generally (not necessarily excluding Newark artists, mind you). That's one way to provide incentive to artists to move their residences or at least studios to Newark.

posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM