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...

Connecting the PAST to the PRESENT: Voting and Education Rights Washington High School 9th graders completed this dual residency during June of 2014. Milwaukee-based poet Darlin' Nikki Janzen and myself led the youth in considering how the demonstrations around voting and education rights that took place during Freedom Summer connects with their lives in the present. I took photos of them and placed them inside the historical black and white photos.  They traced outlines using a projector and filled in the shapes with acrylic paint and sharpies.  Colored images and text represented the past connecting with the present.

Tia Richardson and Rebecca Hall at Greenfield Bilingual School during American Education Week MEDIA COVERAGE: Milwaukee Public Schools coverage:  http://www5.milwaukee.k12.wi.us/dept/superintendent/2013/11/mps-educators-honored/ Fox 6 News video footage :   http://fox6now.com/2013/11/19/celebrating-american-education-week-in-milwaukee/ On November 19, 2013 I was invited to participate in American Education Week by being an educator for a day in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). The invitation came in the form of a phone call from Milwaukee Teacher's Education Association (MTEA) communications coordinator Kelly Dawson Salas. I accepted, and was informed I would be paired with an art teacher and shadow or lead a class. At that time it was unknown which school and which teacher I would be paired with. One week prior to the call I had already completed two presentations at MPS Greenfield Bilingual school as a SHARP visual literacy presenter. The morning of my first SHA...

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3rd, 2013 3 - 6pm  *POTLUCK! Bring a dish to pass Aztec Ink Tattoo Shop (enter through back) 1230 S. Cesar Chavez Drive Milwaukee, WI *As of 2014 Aztec Ink has moved to a new location! Find them at 2971 S. 13th St, Milwaukee, WI The STITCH Milwaukee Community Mural project began as a dream to bring people from different parts of town that normally don't cross paths together. It began as a series of summer open mics that began five years ago. This year the STITCH community wanted to do a collaborative mural project alongside the open mics. They created a video ( here ) to share the vision for a successful indiegogo campaign. In July of this year after attending my first STITCH open mic I knew I wanted to be involved. I volunteered my time over the next three months to help co-facilitate the dreaming process with Jeannette Martin - a founding STITCH organizer - that happened between a number of participants who didn't initially view themselves a...

Student's work from first two weeks; binding with needle and thread Last week I began an 8-week residency through Woodland Pattern Bookcenter   with Pierce St. Elementary School 4th and 5th graders. We are handmaking our own 8"x8" books from start to finish, from binding with needle and thread to decorating our hardboard covers with tissue paper and scrap material collage. Kate pfeiffer-Sloan, education coordinator at Woodland Pattern, is collaborating with me during the residency on a poetry and writing component with the students. Our pages will be art-filled and poetry-filled cover to cover! Each student will take his/her book home at the end. Each of the 8 students will pick their favorite spread and I will compile those into a real published Shutterfly 8"x8" photo book that the class can take home as a gift containing each of their classmates work. There are also challenges that come with doing any kind of classroom work. We take 15-20 minutes at...

This summer I had the opportunity to travel through Peru for two weeks with two inspiring friends, one of whom is a gifted visual artist, and the other a gifted restorative justice facilitator. While there we made many new and old acquaintances, being that one of my friends had been to Peru once before. JOURNEY THROUGH TIME  We made our first stop in Lima, staying at the home of our friend Frances, a nun.  From there we flew to Cusco - the capital of the ancient Incan Empire - before heading off on a four-day hike through the jungle along the Urubamba River to Macchu Picchu led by Samuel, our tour guide. At Macchu Picchu we basked in the glow of the Andean wonder, rising at 4am to hike the one-hour climb up Macchu Piccu mountain, stone steps carved into her mountainside. I sketched atop the Sun Gate, and spent the day wondering at how the ancients lived in community with each other. From there we headed back to Cusco, and at the invitation of Samuel, travelled to his ho...

"Everyone in the community has a voice. If we put our voices together we will be heard. Words have more power than you think. They give influence and lead others to action." ~ Anquiette, North Division High School This 8'x12' mural was completed in 2008 with the vision and planning of youth from North Division High school's after-school Community Learning Center. It was made possible by support from the Reality Check Coalition, aimed at reducing drug and alcohol abuse. The mural talks about using the creative arts and education to stay off the street, based on lived experiences the group shared. It currently is installed on the west-facing wall of Magic Foods liquor store on 16th nd Locust, Milwaukee, WI.