Photo Essay - Artist Statement

From doing this photo essay I was able to learn things about Johnson’s Park that truly made me understand how important this project really is. After seeing the park and where the park was actually located, it was amazing to me to see beautiful piece of land in the middle of a very urban area. It was like a mini Central Park for Milwaukee. After talking to a couple members of the community, my group members and I were able to hear the stories and experiences they had in this area. We talked to one man who bought his lot for a dollar, which was something that the city offered when they were rebuilding the area!
What inspired me to really get started on this essay, was a woman we came across while exploring the park. This woman ran a daycare right out of her home in the community. She had built her house recently, and was kind enough to let us in to see her daycare facility in her remodeled basement and also the rest of her home. The house was a beautiful and she went on to tell us how much the area has changed over the years. She felt confident in raising her family in an area that was once considered very dangerous. She told us how great it was for her to be able to sit on her porch at night, and not worry about her safety.
I put this essay together by just going to the park taking a bunch of pictures of the park and the houses that surrounded it. It was fairly simple to use my camera to take pictures, but I’m thankful to have it because it would have been hard to describe the things I saw with only words. By taking pictures I didn’t have to explain things in detail because I have nice illustrations to go along with my poem.
I choose to do a poem because I thought it would be something that was a lot different than what I was used to doing. The whole idea of Johnson’s Park and how far this neighborhood had come reminded me of a fairy tale, so what better way to tell the story! It was definitely harder to write a poem about my experience there, but I like the way it turned out; even if it was a little dorky.