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

6 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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Activism

Griot Theater Company Presents August Wilson’s Work at Annual Oratorical Featuring Black Authors

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Published

3 months ago

February 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Late playwright August Wilson. Wikipedia photo.

By Godfrey Lee

Griot Theater Company will present their Fifth Annual Oratorical with August Wilson’s “Half a Century,” at the Belrose on 1415 Fifth Ave., in San Rafael near the San Rafael Public Library.

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20^th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Previous performance highlighting essential Black American authors included Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry with Langston Hughes.

The play will be performed at 3:00. p.m. on Feb. 20, 21, 22, 27, and 28 at 7:00 p.m., and on Feb. 23 at 3:00 p.m.

For more information, go to griottheatercompany.squarespace.com/productions-v2

Oakland Post

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Activism

MLK Day of Service Volunteers Make Blankets and Art for Locals in Need

“Everyone has an opportunity to participate,” said Glenda Roberts, kinship support care program manager at CCYSB. “Our nonprofit organization and participants recognize how important it is to give back to the community and this is serving. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, ‘Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.’”

Published

4 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of the nonprofit.

By Kathy Chouteau
The Richmond Standard

The Contra Costa Youth Service Bureau (CCYSB) and Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church (BMBC) are collaborating with a team of volunteers for a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 20 that will wrap the community’s most vulnerable people in warm blankets and provide them with an uplifting gift of art.

Volunteers will kick off their activities at BMBC at 11 a.m., making blankets for the unhoused people served by the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP) and art for those in convalescence in Richmond.

Others will get to work preparing a lunch of chili, salad, a veggie tray, and water for participants, offered courtesy of CCYSB, while supplies last.

“People of all ages are welcome to participate in the MLK Day of Service,” said Roberts. Volunteers can RSVP via phone to Glenda Roberts at 510-215-4670, ext. 125.

CCYSB Boardmember Jackie Marston and her friends donated the materials and supplies to make the blankets and art projects. The nonprofit is also providing the day’s complimentary lunch, as well as employees to volunteer, under the direction of CCYSB Executive Director Marena Brown.

BMBC, led by Rev. Dr. Carole McKindley-Alvarez, is providing the facility for the event and volunteers from the church, which is located at 684 Juliga Woods St. in Richmond.

Located in Richmond, CCYSB is a nonprofit youth advocacy organization that serves eligible children, youth, and low-income families with a variety of wraparound services so they can thrive. Programs include academic achievement, youth mentorship, truancy prevention and direct response.

Oakland Post

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Art

Vandalism at Richmond Ferry Terminal Saddens Residents

Residents have been lamenting the destruction online. Ellen Seskin posted photos of the vandalism to the Facebook group, Everybody’s Richmond, on Jan. 12, saying she encountered it while out on a walk. “It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

Published

4 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Graffiti mars the walkway at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Photo by Kathy Chouteau, The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” stated the post on NextDoor.

The post referenced images of graffiti at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Not just on the terminal, but also on public artwork, on trail signs, on public benches and the boardwalk.

On Wednesday, the Standard stopped by to see it for ourselves. The good news was that it appears the graffiti on the terminal and on the artwork, called Changing Tide, have been cleaned for the most part. But graffiti remained abundant in the area around the relatively new ferry terminal, which opened to the public just six years ago.

Graffiti artists tagged benches and the boardwalk. Cars that had done doughnuts in the street marked the cul-de-sac just outside the historic Craneway Pavilion.

A ferry worker told us the graffiti had been there since before he started working for the ferry service about a week ago.

A member of the Army Corps of Engineers who did not want to be named in this report called the scene “sad,” as “they’d done such a nice job fixing it up.”

“It’s sad that all this money has been spent and hoodlums just don’t care and are destroying stuff,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how soon the graffiti would be removed. The Standard reported the graffiti to the city’s graffiti abatement hotline. We were prompted to leave a message reporting the address and location of the graffiti.

“It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

In the comment section responding to Seskin’s post, local attorney Daniel Butt questioned why there aren’t cameras in the area.

On Nextdoor, one resident suggested searching to see if the tags match any accounts on Instagram, hoping to identify the perpetrator.

On its website, the City of Richmond says residents should graffiti immediately call Public Works graffiti removal and/or Code Enforcement at 510-965-4905.

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report.