by Tia Richardson This article is adapted from my talk for the Tedx UW-Milwaukee Salon 'Our City Our Canvas' December 2, 2015. It shares my process of how I came to discover community art as a sense of purpose in my life. I wasn't always a community artist. It wasn't always easy for me to be outgoing with people. I was, however, always an artist in the traditional sense. I grew up drawing and painting, supported and encouraged by my parents at an early age. Being good at drawing gave me a sense of feeling valued by others, when they appreciated my work, but it only went so far. Like most people I experienced life pains of growing up. For one thing, I was very introverted and insecure. I spent three of the most creative parts of my childhood growing up in rural Janesville, WI, a predominantly white town where my dad worked as an engineer and my mom attended nursing school. Growing up as the only black girl in most of my classes didn't help my feelings of i...

On December 2nd, 2015 I gave a TEDx talk for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee about why community art has become such a passion in my life. You can read the description of my speech on the TEDx UW-Milwaukee website and watch the video there and on youtube beginning in April, 2016. What inspired my speech was a long drive from visiting friends in rural Janesville, WI. to my hometown of Milwaukee, WI where I was originally born and have lived my adult life now for over 10 years. 7 of those years I've been practicing as a community artist, with clients ranging from arts and environmentally based non-profits; public schools, social service agencies to churches - all interested in integrating arts into a mainstream environment. On the drive I was struck by the sudden awareness that we are all Family. That we really are family. Not in principle just because its a nice idea, but in actuality. And, that bonds created between us through shared experiences give rise to a hidden...

'The Flower of Life' mural on asphalt at The Spot 4MKE, 5th and Wisconsin Ave On October 29th. 2015 I completed this approx. 5,000 sq ft ground mural in collaboration with Concrete Dreamers at The Spot 4MKE   in downtown Milwaukee, WI on N. 5th St and W. Wisconsin Ave. An article written by the funders of The Spot 4 MKE - Project for Public Places - was published worldwide and highlights the artwork  here .  The project stemmed from a temporary placemaking lease of a parking lot initiated by Creative Alliance Milwaukee (CAM) with the City. *Note: As of April 30th, 2016, the lease will not be renewed to CAM and the parking lot mural and site will be returned to its original condition and city ownership per the lease agreement. 'The Flower of Life' was a collaborative effort between myself and Concrete Dreamers - Mikal Floyd-Pruitt and Fonde Bridges - for The Spot 4 MKE. This short video highlights their vision for engaging the public in this space by creati...

'Sharing our love of community together'; 'Unifying as a community to create a sense of pride in our vibrant lives'; giving, caring, security - these were keynotes picked up on from a community listening session for an art installation completed over the summer with a team of 8 interns. The project was a summer residency with ArtWorks for Milwaukee, Inc., an arts-based organization that hires high school students as interns to learn job readiness skills by working with a lead artist. For this project, youth helped design and paint a mural, boulders for seating, and a story-pole garden with written statements painted by people living in the Burnham Park neighborhood. This park is a popular mixed-use park that attracts family and kids for recreation - mainly soccer and baseball, and is regularly booked for birthday parties, meetings and other gatherings in its recreational building. During the first week of programming I watched as my extremely shy interns came ...

The Forgiveness mural was a unique and beautiful project. It was my first multi-organization collaboration. Pastor Andrew Warner, of Plymouth Church ; Joseph Stanley, counselor for Pathfinders Youth Shelter , and Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum of Shir Hadash jewish congregation are longtime friends. What makes them special is they all share a space at Plymouth Church, a beautiful stone building on Milwaukee's east side just two blocks from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Pathfinders Youth Shelter has several locations each with a special focus. There is the drop-in center; the group home, and the space at Plymouth Church where youth can come use the large gym for recreation and smaller group activities. In April 2015, the three friends decided to do something they wanted to for a long time - hold a series of conversations. The topic they picked was 'Forgiveness'. They each took a turn leading one of three conversations where members from both congregations o...

The inaugural freshman class of Tamarack Waldorf High School class of 2019 The inaugural freshman class 2019 at Tamarack Waldorf High School, a group of about 25 students, collaborated on this mural together over four intensive days. On the first day students were asked three key questions: As you look back on your first year at Tamarack, what stays with you? What is something new you've discovered? What is one thing you would like to leave behind; to compost for others to discover?   We turned their reflections on these questions into a mural divided into three connected sections: the bottom representing what they want to leave behind; the middle representing what they celebrate about their experience now, and the top what they look forward to leaving as a legacy into the future for those that come behind them. Three working groups in one space was a new endeavor that worked perfectly! We used the gym as our workspace. This was new for me and I worried a...

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...