Park Therapy

Georgia Reese

For this week’s walk I was planning on going to the Lincoln Park because I have been wanting to go there since the first day that I got to Chicago and I thought this assignment was the perfect opportunity. But, as life goes, my plans were interrupted. The day that I planned to go walking was a day that took me by surprise in my personal life and my plans to do this assignment were rudely disturbed. So today, Tuesday October 11, 2022, as I was getting ready to walk, I looked out of my window and it was raining. Once again, life disturbs my perfect homework plans. This may have been a blessing in disguise because for the past week I have been completely unable to figure out how to actually get to the Lincoln Park, but I know where the park that I did end up going really is. I like to see this rain as fate, stopping me from getting lost once again on one of my walks.

So, the park I ended up going to is one that I have grown quite familiar with. The park is one that is pretty close to my dorm hall and my friends and I often go there to hang out at night. This is actually the first time I have been in the park during the day time, the ambiance was entirely different. At night, it is honestly kind of eerie, but today it was so peaceful and a very beautiful park.

I would say that this park is a commutative space because I have seen many baseball and soccer games for elementary aged kids being held in this park. This park does promote walkability, in my opinion, because there is a sidewalk all around it and a giant open field for people to walk through and create their own paths. There is a plethora of benches and gorgeous autumn trees that provide shade on sunnier days.

The people that I noticed while in the park were who you would honestly expect to see in a park next to an elementary school. Because of the rain, there was no one stopping to play, but many people walked by. I saw a toddler and her mom or nanny, a couple of students, some people walking their dogs, etc. Most of the people had umbrellas, as they had probably checked the weather before making their plans for the day, unlike me.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the peacefulness of sitting in a park in the rain. I have had a stressful couple of days and this assignment really helped me to decompress and be able to start to feel better.

Public art is important to creating communicative spaces because it starts conversations and stimulates the brain. I cannot even count the amount of times I have been with friends or family and pointed out the public art. There are some pieces of art in my hometown that I have stared at since I was a kid and have talked about countless times. These art pieces have created so many conversations for myself and for everyone who has public art in their communicative spaces. Public art is related to social capital because sometimes the art in a community is done by the community members or even paid for by the community. Artists use public art as a form of political or social activism by using their art to express what they believe needs to be known and what needs to be taught to the public. People can look at art and gather the message and, hopefully, learn something new. (158)