The Mural

Public art is a piece of a community, a part of work that shows either a group's struggles or history. The work people make related to public art is essential to the city of Chicago, and I took a class called Drawing Lines to see why. In my class, students and I learned about policies around communities, history of residents and environments, and how groups of people displayed their frustrations through their art. The class also went to countless field experiences that focused on policy, how art could evolve, and the creation of artwork. My favorites were The Chicago Museum of Design, the streets of Pilsen, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, "The Power of Places" by the Obama Foundation, and a walk within New City. We also spoke with Rich A., who helped us through some of the field experience with his own experience and prepared for an upcoming project.

For a final project, the class supposed to design a mural for the Near Northside, an area that used to be the infamous Carbine Green. We separated into groups and interviewed several people of the community, understanding their needs, and what the residents knew. I'm proud of the research I did and the work I made from that research. However, I wished my class interviewed a variety of people with different job titles.

 JN,The Lincoln Park, own ,2019

    This art piece is for those who aren't aware of the complex history of the Near Northsidewe as it was considered the first "bad" neighborhood in Chicago. Known as "Little Hell" during its birth, it housed Italian & german immigrants in 1820. It had multiple gang wars throughout its lifetime. As different groups such as Puerto Rican and African-American entered the community, the original members gave backlash as hard as they could. Groups slowly became neutral, and the violence cools down during WWII. After the war, the housing project was fully built, and policies were made to segregate the European and African American communities. The European descent left for the suburbs, and the "Cabrini Green" era was born. Due to such policies and the restrictive feeling of space, violence was brought back up that was last seen 80-90 years prior. Despite the hard push from the residents, the city during the 90s decided to destroy the community, pushing gentrification and building "New City." The original residents were relocated with new residents aware of the history of before.

For the project, we went around the neighborhood, taking pictures and writing responses from the residents of New City. We found out that most were oblivious to history and didn't live in the area because it was too expensive. One person considers the area not to be a community because the people living there kept to themselves. Some didn't enjoy the streets felt artificial, while others felt great about the neighborhood because of the lack of conflict. It was a contrast between ages because of the overall ignorance of the young. There was also remorse of the Cabrini Green buildings and questions on what happened to its people.

This piece addresses the needs of ignorance and remorse. Not only did we show the destruction of Cabrini Green, but also the large brand stores that now sit on top of what used to be. The history of these communities includes these brands, and we decided to show them to take a "homey" feeling that could have been there in Lincon Park. Overall, we tried to address the need for education for the newcomers and remind the old comers of Cabrini. The piece is a memorial to what was Cabrini Green and how it was almost taken out of existence.

We decided to use the 2D mural as it looked like a timeline and showed contrasting styles for emphasis on different parts of the piece. There are three parts of the section; Cabrini Green, the abandoned church in New City, and New City. There is more color on Lincoln park compared to the other parts, but it feels too clean and almost artificial. Cabrini Green is white, feeling set in one state of time while being demolished. The church is supposed to be the final piece of Cabrini Green as it is between two worlds. However, where the cross on the church initially was, there's a person melted within the church. Unlike all the other items in the piece, he is drawn dramatically and given an epic feeling. He has one fist up, symbolizing the pride for his community and the hand asking for charity as his village is becoming destroyed for development. The church, still staying on both worlds, is implied to be killed like the rest of Cabrini Green. 

A Circular Discussion

When trying to push for the community, one must " How can we push towards the future and what is the best way to do so?". This is what my class “Econ: Risk Value” tried to understand. For the second unit of the class, we focused on circular economies, equations based on economic models, ways that people could be better with the environment. We also went to Rheaply and read Donnut Economics for a better understanding.

For this Action Project, we were told to make a symbol for our own economic principle and then explain it. I choose nostalgia as I believe it could be a powerful tool for a large number of people. The problems I had on this project juggling it with other different projects at the time. I also had trouble finding ways to shorten my words for everyone to understand. However, I did enjoy studying the subject.

Images are the force for economic thinking, as stated through Donut economics. "The most powerful stories throughout history have been the ones told with pictures” (Raworth,17). However, in a world where it is hard to pinpoint the exact trend or symbol of the public before the trend itself died, economists must find ways to connections of people who are hesitant to new ideas. A solution could be the nostalgia of popular art styles, animations, gameplay, or specific eras. The use of nostalgia correctly could be a powerful tool for an economist.

JN "Nostalgia" thenounproject.com, Nov 17, 2019

During the 20th century, parts of pop culture were capitalized by companies. However, the video “Nothing Defines the 2010s” describes how this method is obsolete in the digital age. A solution companies found is the nostalgia of certain trends. A 21st-century economist could do the same in promoting circular economies and also bring the reflection for the public.

Linsdey Ellis, a video essayist, describes the three types of nostalgia in films: reflective, deconstructive, and reconstructive. Economists could demonstrate harmful economies by showing unaffected/affected communities. Film and images are the best media for demonstrations as Donut Economics states. “Images, on the other hand, go directly into long-term memory where they are indelibly etched”. The American Psychological Association transcribed a study on nostalgia with “1,675 features listed and then sorted ...into groups(60) ...34 groups of synonymous (to) desirable features” and concluded, “nostalgia may be uniquely positioned to offer integrative insights across several important facets of human functioning..”. Nostalgia has the ability for reflection of a person, so to use nostalgia towards a harmful system wouldn’t be a stretch.

During a meeting in Rheaply headquarters, an employee lectured of the goal of the company: “hopefully gravitating towards a culture..better utilize our resources will overcome the pettiness of a rival like that”. I believe a person, whether a common worker or CEO, could be affected through nostalgia and let their guard down cooperate. Though nostalgia, we can create a strong future.

I feel like this AP is a wake up call for me. I could have work the whole day on this but instead I was focused on other things. This was a fairly simple AP, yet I did this at the last minute and I suffered the consequences of it. So from now on I'll try to save space for my school work and prioritize it from other work.

Clay Routledge "Nostalgia: Content, Triggers, Functions"American Psychological Association, 2006, Nov 16, 2019

Ellis L "Stranger Things, IT and the Upside Down of Nostalgia" youtube.com, Youtube, Dec 4, 2017, Nov 16, 2019

"Nothing Defines the 2010's" youtube.com, Youtube, Dec 9, 2018,  Nov 16, 2019

Raworth K "Donnut Economics" Penguin Random House, 2017, Nov 16, 2019

Tierney J "What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows" nytimes.com New York Times July 8, 2013, Nov 16, 2019

The Work of an Animator.

All around you, you see events based on the hard work of past generations who pushed the norm. But even though you recognized the main figure of an idea, you don't notice the people behind them. They could be the voice of a generation without you even knowing it. These "Voices of a Generation" is what my class, Journalism, had studied about. In the class, students learned the uses of audio through a technical standpoint and a narrative standpoint when creating a piece of art. Students also learned about the importance of journalism and its impact, such as spreading new ideas. The class also had a professional audio engineer in the last week to help students with projects.

For a final project, students had to create a narrative about a "voice of a generation" based on the Ira Glass’ storytelling requirements. I choose John Hubley, an animator who help found the UPA and pushed from more diverse animation. The difficulty was writing the podcast without being bio of the "voice of a generation" and the pleasure was seeing the perspective of peers and what they believe this person represented.



Here is a link to my transcript

A Business Woman's Meaning of Life

The understanding of life is subjective based on a person's history, philosophy, mental process and many others factors in life. To understand a person's meaning and visualize it through photography is what my class Journalism taught over the past few weeks. My classmates and I learned about subjectivity and objectivity,  how photos affected the world around us, and grammar to prepare us for college. We also attended the Chicago Ideas Week for a talk on Journalism and the current political atmosphere. In this unit, Image, we had to interview someone who was willing to tell us their meaning of life and take a photo afterwards. I had interview Dolly Zea, a saleswoman and a business adviser at several different companies. I am proud of interview I did as it contained nuanced information and I was stressed on the original time limit the project was originally due.

It was close to the middle of the night, and we were both tired in a car. My mother and I both came from a long day with little sleep from the night before. I saw her, looking out the window to the road ahead as I planned to interview her about her meaning of life. She already knew I was going to ask her questions for a school assignment, and she persisted for me to bring them up. We were stopped by a train and waited for it to pass by. After thirty minutes, I decided to conduct the interview.

With hesitation, I asked her in Spanish about the meaning of life? After interpreting and finally understanding my broken accent, she took a silent moment and began to talk in her language:

“What is my meaning of life? My meaning of life is my family, my kids. My meaning of life is to help others in need. It is to create a proposal. To have a proposal to wake up every day. A proposal to be a better person, a better mother, a better wife. To be a better companion, to be a better daughter. To be a better boss. To try to do things-every time better. To live life simple and to enjoy every moment of life well.”

JN, "Mother Sitting" web, 2019

The most interesting word to was “proposal”, and she used it throughout the conversation. I enjoyed that it was phrased where it wasn’t fact but a hope for something better. It showed a level of uncertainty that, when we were all younger, we never thought of. To understand the word better, I asked if she thought about her meaning and if her proposals are conscious or if the word “proposal” was built to deep into her that she didn’t need to think.:

“I always think about it. Every decision I take. The consciousness is to think about what to do and the consequences of what happens. That is the consciousness. It doesn’t matter if I do good or bad. My consciousness will state that the action will have an impact.”

The thought I had was how the intent of an action was secondary to the implication based around her comment. It wasn’t for a while until I understood why this comment upsets me because, as an artist, meaning is the strongest part of a piece. So taking out the meaning of an art piece would only take away the implications it brings from said meaning. Therefore, there is no action created by the artpiece, and it is rendered useless.

Throughout the interview, there were words I didn’t understand. There was one word, “madurez”, that piqued my interest, and I hadn’t heard of it when she first said it. I asked her what it meant and she said, “It is to see error in your life and to fix them every time. All the errors, I learned not to commit them.” I was intrigued, but still confused. So I asked if she knew an example. “Yes. Before I thought, for example, when I was young, I didn’t believe I was going to die. Now, I enjoy every moment of life because many people, at the conner, because of their age, are dying.”

An hour after the interview, I learned the word ”madurez” was “maturity” and that when I realize the core of her meaning. The ability to reflect whenever possible. The ability to reflect on a decision and factor in how certain elements lead to certain scenarios. To realize your time and how to spend it with others. For the final question of my interview, I asked my mother how she would imagine her meaning as an image.

“I would be in thought. I would be in thought because I’m a creative person. I’m always thinking. I would be with my family. I’m in a beach with you three.”

My shutter speed, which measures the motion of the frame, was at 60 frames per second for the focus. The aperture, which measures the light on the lense, is at 3.4 since I wanted to show natural daylight. For the rule of thirds, the main focus was my mother since she alines directly on the left side of the frame on the graph (of the rule of thirds). She also has two rays of light (the kitchen and sun) over her while most objects of the frame only have one source of lighting.

After finishing my breakfast the next morning, I saw my mother working a notebook with concerned thought. I opened the curtains (she noticed) and I warned her about me taking a picture. She ignored me and looked down on her notebook silently.

The picture has more subjectivity than objectivity. It shows my mother not only in focus, but in reflection as she stares to a blank piece of paper. Yet, in the background, she thinks about her family based by the treehouse. People could interpret my mother as either planning to write something down or having nothing to say. Either way, both interpretations include the treehouse, which also mean child-related/ideas of past in the background while she is working now.

I knew how the words “proposal” and “consciousness” worked in her mind without her stating them. She was always working since childhood. At times, I would also use the “proposal” method when I’m dealt with uncertainty. But what I found surprising was how she thought of her mortality. As a child, I resemble my mother mentally compared to other siblings. Yet, even when I was young I knew death was inevitable.. I hadn’t heard much from my mother’s childhood besides that she was hardworking and I have only seen passive people of my age deny their mortality. To see that contradiction makes me who if her original description was just hiding all the errors.

The College Job

There is a difference when understanding a job and a hobby. Though both include working with effort and also bringing a person joy, a job can advance you to a higher position or different field while a hobby normally could not. This is what my class, Economics, studied for an assignment. This includes understanding how coding/calculations worked with jobs, history/events which lead to the downfall of the US economy like the Housing Crisis, and understanding why certain events came to be based on statistics. We also went to Chicago Lyft Headquarters and studied algorithms on Chicago Ideas Week.

For the assignment, each individual researched their own personal job interest and see what college or career paths they could use. The assignment has a short video and a slideshow describing the details of my person job interest (animation). 

What I enjoyed the most and struggled the most was the animation. Though I originally didn't intend to create an animation, I realized this would be the perfect assignment to create an animation. However, it was a struggle for me that didn't give me much joy was the spreadsheet calculations. The code would be confusing to follow.

 (Note: The figures stated in the video is incorrect. It is actually 23 years and 19 years for the schools)

The Hospital Expansion

Anyone has the power to be a reporter, but only those who understand the rules of journalism laid down decades before will provide the best service to their people. That is what my class, Journalism, was taught for the past few weeks. The class learned about the 5 principles of journalism, leads, and the morality journalist must have when working in the field. We went to the Weinberg Newton gallery to understand reporting through the arts.

For this project, each person had to research a story based around their community. I decided to research the St.Anthony hospital expansion and how the perspectives of the two main characters in charge changed. I'm proud of the researched I produced and I struggle with receiving direct quotes from Alderman Rodriguez and Mr. Sifuentes.

St. Anthony Hospital ,Google,, bisnow.com,  2017, 2019

On August 21st, announcements of St. Anthony Hospital told of an expansion at a lot on 31st Street and Kedzie Avenue. However, Lucky Camargo and others opposed the expansions from the hospital for fear of gentrification during a community meeting in Little Village discussing the project. Even though there were 1,500 signatures from Little Village residents supporting the Hospital Expansion, new concerns have risen and Senior Vice President (of Mission and Community Development) Mr. Sifuentes and the 22nd Alderman both considered the concerns of residents.

Plans started in 2012 with the City of Chicago’s Community Development Commission (CCDC)voting in favor of construction for the new division of St. Anthony. Not only considered a branch to the hospital, but it would also include a student campus, several shops, fitness centers, and several community-oriented services-all totaling to a 600 million dollar project. Meanwhile, several people from the community opposed in hope for a new high school on that land since the was home to Washburne Trade School ten years earlier. There is also the film studio, Cineplex, bidding on the land for their own development plans. Several community members such as Lucky Camargo and Raoul Contreras believe that the city should sell the land to none.

On September 24th, Mr. Sifuentes was interviewed to see his thoughts after the conference. Though he understands the concerns, his position is on the belief that the majority considers the Hospital as a positive. When asked how the structure would try to lower the risk of gentrification, his response was the project was already preventing gentrification since the beginning. “The shops are already placed on the second floors rather than ground level, so it would be unlikely that the problem of gentrification would arise outside of that area if the extension is already contained” He also claims to have lower prices for citizens of little Village as another solution to prevent the problem. However, he states there hasn’t been many compromises for the rights to the lot nor will there be any as the project will follow through.“ This lot has been here for 20 years and nothing has been done about it…. There is little to no compromise to what’s going to happen in the land”.


On September 25th, Alderman Rodriguez was asked about what he thought about the community’s mindset. He promoted the claims of a majority vote by recalling the community conference in Little Village on August 21st. “There were 200 people that attended that meeting.. Over 180 responded to the survey… only four people responded that they didn’t want the hospital”. However, unlike Mr. Sifuentes who believes the project will come to full fruition, Mr. Rodriegez states that the project is still standing and being weighed over by the city. “There were to applicants that are being considered by Chicago Public Schools, St. Annothy and Cineplex...those are the only two applicants that are being considered by Chicago Schools...and that’s where it stands now.” During the interview, it seems that Alderman Rodriguez will be taking action in order to prevent gentrification during the construction of the hospital expansion.


Attempts have been made to reach the opposition of St. Anthony and there have been no connections as of right now. However, it seems the community is on hold for the expansion and Chicago Public Schools are still in the process of which private entity will take the lot: Cineplex or St. Anthony. There doesn’t seem much worry coming from the community, however, new events could always rise within the upcoming months.

The Jewish-Islam conversation

During the past 8 weeks, I had learned within an Independent Study trying to understand the relationship between Islam and Judiasm. I had went to the Chicago Synagog and IMAN to meet important figures such as Mr. Evans and Mr. Zin. I also read books on Islam and Judiasm such as when bad thing happen to good people and many more books.

link