Art

Mural Slows Down Traffic, Calms Neighborhood

THE TENNESSEE TRIBUNE — Drivers don’t speed past Amqui Elementary School in Madison on their way to Gallatin Rd. anymore. Walk Bike Nashville, artist Andee Rudloff, and a group of k-5th graders decided to paint something beautiful so commuters would slow down. The ribbon cutting on their mural project took place last week.

Published

5 years ago

May 28, 2019

Peter White

By Peter White

NASHVILLE, TN – Drivers don’t speed past Amqui Elementary School in Madison on their way to Gallatin Rd. anymore. Walk Bike Nashville, artist Andee Rudloff, and a group of k-5^thgraders decided to paint something beautiful so commuters would slow down. The ribbon cutting on their mural project took place last week.

They used cell phones to clock drivers’ speed and film them texting or talking on the phone so they knew they weren’t imagining the problem. Some people were zooming past the school at 75mph. The average speed was 60mph and drivers used to pass on the inside bus lane in front of Anqui Elementary. Drivers dumped trash out their windows. The situation was pretty ugly and really unsafe.

Rudloff held some brain-storming sessions with bike advocates, parents, students, and teachers to focus on the problem and imagine ways to fix it. Getting drivers to be aware of the school and more present when they passed it was the big challenge. The solution turned out to be a collective street mural painted on the ground next to the school.

“We came up with an overarching question about texting and driving, about speeding, and each of the students was asked to create a small icon based on words they would use to explain what was happening out here. I took their icons. I got, I don’t know, about 100 icons and I twisted them all together to make the design,” said Rudloff.

Over the course of a few days, third and fourth graders filled in the mural with different colors. Rudloff painted with them. The result was a coat of many colors on the street right by Amqui Elementary. The mural runs the entire length of the bus lane along Anderson Lane in front of the school.

Marques Carter, 4^thGrader, painted his part of the mural imagining a person walking down the street with a sign saying ‘Stop for kids’.

“They stop to look at it. And to see how beautiful it is,” said Carter.

Zoe Johnson, 3^rd-grader, painted the yellow parts. She said she doesn’t particularly like yellow but they gave her a can of paint and while she worked she imagined how it would look when it was finished. “I think it came out amazing,” she said.

Up close the mural is abstract; from a height you can see things represented inside it. It is brightly colored; it is painted on the ground and draws the eye. And it calms people down which was the main idea. “People slow down just to look at it,” said Lesoy Quijada, 4^thgrader.

“Since we created this small bump out just using paint and these small little stanchions called delineators we have seen the speed slow. It’s now down between 30 and 40mph,” said Rudloff.

The children created a small mural that was turned into yard signs that say “Stop texting while driving”. Those signs will go up around the neighborhood to remind people to drive safely.

“We’ve noticed they are not on the phone and they are slowing down and they are realizing a school is here and they are realizing there could be kids out here. And I think the imagery itself is an extension of the spirit of the school. And while we were coming up with our palliative colors and how we were going to do that, we did want to say ‘Kids are here. Kids play here’,” said Rudloff.

This article originally appeared in The Tennessee Tribune

Peter White

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Art

Marin County: A Snapshot of California’s Black History Is on Display

The Marin County Office of Education, located at 1111 Las Gallinas Ave in San Rafael, will host the extraordinary exhibit, “The Legacy of Marin City: A California Black History Story (1942-1960),” from Feb. 1 to May 31, 2024. The interactive, historical, and immersive exhibit featuring memorabilia from Black shipyard workers who migrated from the South to the West Coast to work at the Marinship shipyard will provide an enriching experience for students and school staff. Community organizations will also be invited to tour the exhibit.

Published

3 days ago

April 16, 2024

Oakland Post

Early photo of Marin City in the exhibit showing the first department store, barber shop, and liquor store. (Photo by Godfrey Lee)

By Post Staff

The interactive, historical, and immersive exhibit featuring memorabilia from Black shipyard workers who migrated from the South to the West Coast to work at the Marinship shipyard will provide an enriching experience for students and school staff. Community organizations will also be invited to tour the exhibit.

All will have the opportunity to visit and be guided by its curator Felecia Gaston.

The exhibit will include photographs, articles and artifacts about the Black experience in Marin City from 1942 to 1960 from the Felecia Gaston Collection, the Anne T. Kent California Room Collection, The Ruth Marion and Pirkle Jones Collection, The Bancroft Library, and the Daniel Ruark Collection.

It also features contemporary original artwork by Chuck D of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group Public Enemy, clay sculptures by San Francisco-based artist Kaytea Petro, and art pieces made by Marin City youth in collaboration with Lynn Sondag, Associate Professor of Art at Dominican University of California.

The exhibit explores how Marin City residents endured housing inequities over the years and captures the history of plans to remove Black residents from the area after World War II. Throughout, it embodies the spirit of survival and endurance that emboldened the people who made Marin City home.

Felecia Gaston is the author of the commemorative book, ‘A Brand New Start…This is Home: The Story of World War II Marinship and the Legacy of Marin City.’ Thanks to the generous contribution of benefactors, a set of Felecia’s book will be placed in every public elementary, middle, and high school library in Marin.

In addition, educators and librarians at each school will have the opportunity to engage with Felecia in a review of best practices for utilizing the valuable primary sources within the book.

“Our goal is to provide students with the opportunity to learn from these significant and historical contributions to Marin County, California, and the United States,” said John Carroll, Marin County Superintendent of Schools.

“By engaging with Felecia’s book and then visiting the exhibit, students will be able to further connect their knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of this significant historical period,” Carroll continued.

Felecia Gaston adds, “The Marin County Office of Education’s decision to bring the Marin City Historical Traveling Exhibit and publication, ‘A Brand New Start…This is Home’ to young students is intentional and plays a substantial role in the educational world. It is imperative that our community knows the contributions of Marin City Black residents to Marin County. Our youth are best placed to lead this transformation.”

The Marin County Office of Education will host an Open House Reception of the exhibit’s debut on Feb. 1 from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.. All school staff, educators, librarians, and community members are encouraged to attend to preview the exhibit and connect with Felecia Gaston. To contact Gaston, email MarinCityLegacy@marinschools.org

Oakland Post

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Activism

Alternative Outcome to Slayings by Police Explored in One-Man Play

BLACK MEN EVERYWHERE! is the explosive new one man play written, directed, and performed by Jinho “Piper” Ferreira. Set against the backdrop of a presidential election, the play explores how political and cultural leaders wield the myth of the dangerous Black man to manipulate the masses for personal gain. Piper penned the follow-up to his ground-breaking solo play, “Cops and Robbers,” after an impromptu cross-country Black history tour.

Published

2 months ago

February 16, 2024

Oakland Post

BLACK MEN EVERYWHERE! is the explosive new one man play written, directed, and performed by Jinho “Piper” Ferreira.

Special to The Post

What would happen if police officers who have gotten off for killing unarmed Black people started turning up dead?

Piper penned the follow-up to his ground-breaking solo play, “Cops and Robbers,” after an impromptu cross-country Black history tour.

“My wife and I had been talking about it for years,” Ferreira said. They had taken their three children to Brazil several times and West Africa but had yet to explore their history as Black people in this country. “It was Juneteenth last year and I realized we had a few weeks to make it happen, so we just jumped in the car and left” Piper said.

Three weeks later the family had seen everything from the African American Museum of History and Culture in Wash., D.C., to the phenomenally preserved Whitney Plantation in Louisiana. They’d stood outside of the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., and paid their respects at the Africa Town cemetery – where the passengers of the Clotilda (the last known U.S. slave ship to smuggle captured Africans into this country) were buried near Mobile, Ala.

“We had the kids keep a journal of the trip and my wife and I took notes, but once we got back home, I knew I had to make the pen move,” he said.

Ferreira plays 21 characters in the 60-minute emotional roller coaster ride; personalities we all know. While brilliantly weaving in themes of revolution, treachery, and revenge, “Black Men Everywhere!” is surprisingly — more than anything else — a love story.

“I wrote the play for Black men and everyone who loves us,” Ferreira said. “The play is narrated by a sistah and performed in front of the deeply spiritual artwork of Nedra T. Williams, an Oakland priestess of Olokun. It’s called ‘Black Men Everywhere!’ but we don’t exist without the Black woman.”

For tickets, please go to: http://tinyurl.com/5dm3mhra

Oakland Post

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Art

City of Stockton Seeks Applications for Public Art Murals

The City of Stockton Arts Commission (SAC) has announced the opportunity for artist(s) and/or artist teams to apply to design and paint original artwork on City-owned property through a Public Art Mural Program. The deadline for applications is Friday, March 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. Applications and additional information are available online at www.stocktonca.gov/publicart.

Published

3 months ago

January 24, 2024

Oakland Post

The Public Art Mural Program incentivizes mural installations by providing city funding and the means of curating the City’s collection of murals.

City of Stockton

The deadline for applications is Friday, March 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. Applications and additional information are available online at www.stocktonca.gov/publicart.

The Public Art Mural Program incentivizes mural installations by providing city funding and the means of curating the City’s collection of murals.

This program has $50,000 in available funds for artist(s) and is also available for those who have already identified funds and would like to complete a mural project on city-owned property. Applications will be reviewed on a competitive basis and selected by the SAC.

To learn more about the Stockton Arts Commission (SAC) or qualifications and eligibility for Public Art Mural Program, please visit www.stocktonca.gov/publicart or call the Community Services Department at (209) 937-8206.