This mural is was commissioned by the Elaine Schreiber Daycare at Silver Spring Neighborhood Center. It was inspired by historic and recent events in Milwaukee, WI.  It was painted with kids enrolled at the daycare ages 4 to 12 during a three week residency. I was challenged with finding a way for the little ones to contribute, so we used balled up plastic bags to dab paint on the background for a textured effect. The older kids were able to paint in the bigger areas, and I touched up the edges to make it more cohesive. JOSHUA GLOVER Joshua was an enslaved person from Missouri who escaped to Racine, WI in the 1850's. He made it to Milwaukee, WI where he was jailed at Cathedral Square Park downtown under the Fugitive Slave Act. Thousands of white people helped break him out of jail and escape to freedom in Canada, where he lived in freedom as part of an integrated community. The jail no longer exists. OPEN HOUSING and EDUCATION RIGHTS  For 200 nights in 1967...

In October and November of 2014 International Community Artist Lily Yeh  trained 5 Milwaukee-based artists - Gabby Tesfaye, Vedale Hill, Fonde Bridges, myself and Mikal Floyd-Pruitt - and over 20 community members in her practice of community building through the arts! With movement, music, voices and working together, in one day we transformed an area under Milwaukee's Holton Street Bridge into a splash of color, rhythm and harmony! This 20-min video describes why I am inspired by Lily's work. During Phase I we were led through a workshop of imagining, envisioning, and collaboration. We even created a group poetry and performance piece together that we performed for the whole room. The artist team helped community members paint cardboard and duct-tape it to metal poles, benches, and even created some freestanding structures. The design was to be temporary, to demonstrate and put into practice 'Urban Alchemy' through working together.   Some of...