Calling Lincoln Park

In unit 1 of If These Walls Could Talk, we looked at the history or murals, from Prehistory up until the Renaissance. We also looked at the visual styles of different murals, and how to classify murals based on its purpose. For the Action Project, we had picked a neighborhood in Chicago, and created a sketch for a mural that addresses a problem that neighborhood. To explain the image, we wrote an artist statement that clearly explains how the image addresses the problem we identified. The neighborhood I chose was Lincoln Park, and I believe that there is a lack of community in that neighborhood. The purpose of this was to learn about how murals are used and what they can do. Also since we are moving to a new space as a school, this is to help get an idea of how to make a mural for a new location. Please enjoy my art piece and artist statement!


NVA
“Calling Lincoln Park”
11-15-15
11’’ x 14’

Drawing

During the 1850s, Lincoln Park was home to many German truck farmers, helping Lincoln Park to earn the name “Cabbage Patch”. It was also home to many industrial workers, who worked in the neighborhood. The Germans started creating the community, but after the Great Chicago Fire, many Germans left and other ethnic groups began to move into the neighborhood, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Puerto Ricans, and African Americans; moved into Lincoln Park for the cheap housing built after the fire. But how did a lack of community become a problem if the neighborhood was called home by so many different cultures? Well, the Great Depression the people of Old Town (Southeastern part of Lincoln Park) were worried it was becoming a slum. From housing stock deteriorating as the owners subsided and neglected their properties. So they formed The Old Town Triangle Association in 1948, which inspired the north side of Lincoln Park to form the Lincoln Park Conservation Association in 1954. Then in 1956, the neighborhood was designated as a conservation area. Then, because of the General Renewal Plan that was enforced in Lincoln Park, groups of people, like the Puerto Rican and African - Americans were bought out and forced to move. Then the property value increased drastically, forcing out the poor to make room for the wealthy. Making it, by the early 2000s, one of the neighborhoods with the highest status. 

Today, after a long history of culture and economic changes, Lincoln Park has lost its sense of community despite efforts to help its residents connect with each other. I would say it it isn’t working just because of technology as well, because it adds to the disconnection people build by themselves. I hope to draw attention to this problem through the mural I am proposing. 

In the sketch I drew a-over-the-shoulder view of a man looking at his phone, and on the screen it says, “Take off the headphones”. The headphones symbolize the reason there is a lack of community.Spending time in Lincoln Park and observing the people in the neighborhood, I saw many people with their headphones on and no one looked nor talked to each other. I was inspired by the use of realism, developed during the Renaissance. I chose to use realism as a visual technique because the scene I created is a real one; people in real life are always on their phones. I used a muted and dull color palette to show how boring the community has gotten because of the lack of community. I’ve created this image as a revolt to address the need to put your headphones in and ignore everything around you. 

This is a mural that I’d want to be put in the park or by the lake, these areas are where the most people hang out, and where the most wealthiest people live. From my mural, I want it to wake people up and have them take out their headphones and try to talk to other people around them. From that a community will be born, and there will be no need for one, because it will already be there.

References:

"Lincoln Park." Lincoln Park. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.