A Deeper Dive into My Essay and Field Guide

Why is public art important? Can public art be more than a mural, if so what else can it be?

Public art is important for so many reasons. One reason is that it brings a sense of community and belonging to the residents near this art. Public art allows artists and community members to present their struggles in a way that people will look at and pay attention to. Public art sparks conversations. These conversations can be about the meaning of the piece or what the artist was trying to portray. This is shown when reading the articles about murals around Chicago. They sparked conversations and got people thinking, talking, and writing about them and their meanings. While most think of public art as murals, there is so much more it can be. Murals are the most popular such as the Black Lives Matter street mural in Uptown or Hector Duarte’s murals in Pilsen. Regardless of this, public art can be more than just a mural. This is shown in Gallagher, Zagacki, and Martin’s article. The theme of Gallagher, Zagacki, and Martin’s article is Millennium Park. They speak about how Millennium Park has visitors from all over to see the variety of public art installments the park offers. Public art is everywhere and can be a multitude of everything.

Word Count: 199

Composition #1 Plan of Action:

1. Come up with a list of ideas.
2. Review the list and decide which ideas belong.
3. Start a rough draft.
4. Read through previous articles and readings to find quotes.
5. Review my previous Medium posts.
6. Finish up the rough draft.
7. Start the final draft/clean up a rough draft.
8. Finish the final draft.
9. Prepare for the presentation.

I have completed the first two steps of my plan. I have not completed the last seven steps. My next step is to start my rough draft, which I plan to start tonight. I still have a bunch of steps before I complete my essay. I think I know which photos I will use, one of them is below. I feel as though I have plenty of photos to choose from. I think that I will not need to take more pictures. Some of the readings that I feel are most relevant to my essay include Solnit’s “The Solitary Stroller and the City” and Elkin’s “Radical Flâneuserie”. Solnit’s article is about a new place and walking around to discover this new place, which is what I have been doing on all of my walks. Elkin’s article is all about the term “flâneuse” which is something she describes as someone who investigates and gets to know the city around them. Here is a quotation that I plan on using from Elkin’s article, “The flâneuse is someone who gets to know the city by wandering its streets, investigating its dark corners, peering behind its facades, penetrating its secret courtyards.” This supports my essay because it is all about women who are discovering the city and being free to do so. I will use the Choose Chicago website to speak about Chinatown and about how I can learn more about the city around me.

A picture of downtown Chicago from a bridge in Lincoln Park.

Composition #2 Plan of Action:

1. Make a list of pages.
2. Pick a theme.
3. Start picking images.
4. Make maps/take pictures of maps.
5. Decide on writings.
6. Start printing and writing in my guide.
7. Finish guide.

I still have to do every single step. I have not started nor thought about my field guide. I need to research some more field guides to decide on mine. I might need to walk around, aimlessly to come up with better ideas. I want my field guide to be something that someone new to Chicago could use and figure out. I want to invite readers by making a colorful, warm field guide that is tourist/new to the city-friendly.