Carving Neighborhoods

For my new P’Art of History class, we studied the historical events of Chicago during the 1600 - 1800s. We also took an artist view for history and looked at statues of different historical figures. Then we learned about neoclassical art and how the statues are examples of neoclassical art. For our action project we took soft cut linoleum and made molds of what we thought would lay to our Chicago experience. The challenge was trying to get the lines to come out straight. The fun thing about this was trying out a new style of art that uses a different perspective.

NVA, "Protection of the Neighborhoods" 2014, Chciago: GCE

Protection of the Neighborhoods

NVA

6" by 6"

7/1/14

Soft cut linoleum, carving tools

Who lays claim to your Chicago Experience? Well maybe I will help you decide that: 

A neighborhood is what defines how we will grow and the person you are going to be. Now some neighborhoods are nice and peaceful, where others can be life or death walking outside. Everyone’s neighborhood controls them more than people think. It controls the schools effecting your education, the police and how they watch over certain places more than others, and the people you will grow around and their influence on you. Everyone is under the control of their neighborhood. Especially in Chicago because we are so segregated making our neighborhoods more of influence on us.

I live in a middle class neighborhood called Sauganash, where it is very peaceful and rarely has any harm or disturbance. Everyone there is very nice and welcoming, if any new moved in they would always get a warm welcome. Going to school I would always walk confidently knowing I was safe and have little to worry about. I would go to school meet with friends and have class. I always thought that the school was very bad, because of other schools seeming to get high educations. Then a new teacher came up and she used to be a teacher at the south side of Chicago. She said that we are lucky because in her old school everyone would get in fights and she would have to break them up form fights. Many kids from her neighborhood wouldn't get good educations because of where they lived and everyone around them.

After that I would always look at neighborhood and think I was very lucky to actually live in a good place where I wasn’t influenced by gangs ruining my chances of my education today. Today many people are shaped from their neighborhoods and how they think of Chicago today. When someone is born in a neighborhood they are patented to that area and everything they become is determined right there.

This would relate to historical events from the 1800s when people were just starting to lay claim to the new land around them. Between the period of 1783-1812, the British stayed in the Old Northwest and manipulated Native American tribes to fight for them against the Anglo Americans. The British did this by giving them weapons, money, and alcohol and in turn, certain Native American tribes harassed Anglo-American on their newly acquired frontier. The tribe that helped them was the Winnebago but the Pottawatomie and the Miami didn't like the British.

Chief Black Hawk believed that property couldn’t be owned, and that when you won something it has to be something that you can bring with you. This relates to what I’m saying, because I believe that land has claim over land and not that you have claim over the land. Also we are that something that land can bring, make, and shape.

My piece is 6” by 6” and shows the different neighborhoods, upper, middle, and lower and how they all are different in the way of the people act. The shields are the protection of that neighborhood and how well protected by the police it is. The border frames are what that neighborhood is about and what they are known for, from luxury to death. The money shows how the upper class has lots of money, the trees for the middle class show how a middle class neighborhood is peaceful, and last the fences on the lower class show how in lower class neighborhoods it can be very dangerous. The two lines are to show how Chicago is very segregated, and the reason ones are bigger than others is because the classes of neighborhoods can determine how much land they have and how well known they are. Also the lines that separate the neighborhoods are bigger close to the rich side because they are so isolated from the middle and lower classes, and the other one is smaller because middle and lower classes are closing together.

Neoclassical art - Is old art style that contains mainly, simplicity, symmetrical, clean lines, unemotional, and a heroic figure. My piece could be an example of this type of art because it is simple, there are clean lines, and is a little symmetrical.

I have created my art piece using soft cut linoleum, which is like a denser clay and is very good for carving. Instead of redrawing my piece or doing it from sight. What I did was I made what I was going to carve dark with pencil on the original paper. Then, I stamped it on to the linoleum and I was able to what I had to carve, I outlined it aswell so I could see better. Last the carving, I used a special tool that somewhat worked like a shovel and very precisely started to slowly move it and it would carve. Once I carved it, I took a bigger piece and tried to make it cleaner

What I plan to do next with it, is take cement and pour it on it then once the cement dries I will have a tile that will make everything that is carved in pop out.

NVA, "Carving Neighborhoods" 7/14/14, Chicago: GCE

NVA, "Carving Nieghborhoods" 2014, Chicago:GCE