Friday, December 19, 2008

to give...

tis the season, eh?

what a great snow fall we had a couple days ago. I was lucky enough to visit a day care center yesterday; I read one of my favorite children's books, "The Snowy Day" to each of the classes I visited. Peter is the main character and he wears the sweetest little red snowsuit on his adventures.

'he made a smiling snow man and he made snow angels....crunch, crunch, crunch, his feet sank into the snow'...;-)

I'd like to wish you all a happy holiday season, and ask you to consider taking the time to check your mailbox in the next couple of days. Mikey and I are hoping to raise a bit of funds to compensate Joe on his efforts at Rosedale Middle School this fall.

He has visited the 8th grade art class twice a week for the last month and says the ideas and collaobration efforts are coming along beauitfully. I hope to ask him a few questions about his experience so that I may share them with you.

As for raising of funds, we will send out letters asking for small donations of $25 dollars. All we need is 30 people to donate and we'll have Joe taken care of and ready to work next spring.

We will not let the the grant news bear down us....we're hoping for snow angels.

cheers.
~A

Monday, December 8, 2008

cheers.

Mikey Fletcher.
happy birthday.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

grant rescinded

the grant from the kansas arts commission was pulled back....
due to this very uncomfortable economy we are currently living in...
ah,...tough news to receive, eh?
si'.

mural update

A year ago today, the corner of 42nd and Mission Rd sat empty, riddled with trash, the wall bore chipping white and yellow paint, and a deep frost spat out by Old Man Winter covered the cracked asphalt.

Once again, Old Man Winter has officially arrived but, the 42nd Street Mural Project is far from cold.

The spring and summer months brought sweet change to the empty lot. White primer covered the cracking paint, tree limbs were pulled out and thrown away, and a garden was created with help of a local church, several local neighborhood youth and a small grant from the Thrivent Foundation.

But the ascetic enhancement, alone, was and could not be enough. The scope of our efforts had always included creating a youth collaborated mural.

Our original plan was to create, during the summer months, a large scale youth inspired mural with the help of Joe Faus.

Our funding hopefuls, however, always seemed to fall short. So in mid summer, when City Visionaries, an art organization that creates murals in KCMO, decided to sponsor (monetarily) a a portion of the project, we knew we had to shift our originals plans a bit. With limited time and funds, Mikey was able to secure the help of a local artist by the name of Holly Swangstu. She was a friend of Joe's and agreed to do two art enriched focus groups with youth from Rosedale and in turn take their ideas and create a collaborative 'art frame' for the site.

This endeavor would indeed leave a large portion of the wall white yet we believed the creativity displayed would yield a hopeful approach to the future of the lot.

Holly efforts have done just that.

After meeting with 6 to 8 young people, all of which attend school at Rosedale Middle Holly was able to pull the 'groups' ideas into a collaborative art piece.

By the end of august, at last, there was color on the walls of 42nd and Mission Road.

The work however isn't done, for there is still a plethora of white space on the walls. Holly's frame, though, has become the catalyst to an idea Mikey Fletcher likes to call the revolving mural...