WEBVTT 1 00:00:09.260 --> 00:00:11.000 You get involved in audio. 2 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.400 Susan, would you make a note or stand by Jose's mic and say this is the beginning of non-sync? 3 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:23.660 We're talking to your mic here for a second. This is the beginning of non-sync audio on Smash Plan 21. 4 00:00:25.060 --> 00:00:29.120 So if you could just explain how you got involved in this in the first place. 5 00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:38.900 Well, at that time I was a member of the Chicago Mural Group. So they were doing different projects in different parts of the city. 6 00:00:40.080 --> 00:00:50.820 It just happened that this was one that was going to be made. And I didn't attend so much of the meetings that had been taken, that they had been going to. 7 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:59.440 They just said we're going to do a mural. And I skipped all the meetings and stuff like that. Since I worked during the daytime, I said I'll just go and start doing it. 8 00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:15.040 So I met with John Weber, Oscar Martinez, and we started doing it. And the idea was to speak out against Plan 21. 9 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:27.360 And we just started doing the sketches and whatever it took. And then mostly we just drew on the wall. We didn't have so many sketches on paper. We just started doing it on the wall. 10 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:35.180 So how did three of you decide to listen to it? How did you work together to decide this final? 11 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:48.180 Well, see, like John wasn't involved in working on it. He was mostly involved, I guess, in organizing the thing. And me and Oscar were the ones that were executing the... 12 00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:52.180 with help from different people who would come along every so often. 13 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:55.480 So did the community have input? 14 00:01:55.480 --> 00:02:06.240 Oh, yes. They had input. And like I said, some of the people even donated money. And they paid for the celebration. 15 00:02:08.180 --> 00:02:12.840 How did the community react to this mural? And what happened when you finished? 16 00:02:14.140 --> 00:02:19.560 Well, there was about a thousand people here, you know, for the dedication. It was the biggest one we ever had. 17 00:02:20.340 --> 00:02:25.620 We had the street blacked, you know, from over there. They blacked this one. The whole place was filled. 18 00:02:26.780 --> 00:02:31.760 We had a lot of people eating, drinking. They liked it. 19 00:02:33.420 --> 00:02:36.200 How do you think it affected the issue? 20 00:02:38.660 --> 00:02:45.140 The issue? I don't know how it affected the issue. But I hear there's still people trying to stay here, you know. 21 00:02:45.140 --> 00:02:52.060 And it seemed like the money people got an advantage on because a lot of people are moving out now. 22 00:02:53.760 --> 00:03:03.860 But like I said, it's been ten years ago. And I just hear now that there are still some people, you know, fighting against what they call the Master Plan 21. 23 00:03:05.100 --> 00:03:10.660 How do you feel about that issue in general, the whole idea of people being displaced? What are your thoughts on that? 24 00:03:10.660 --> 00:03:17.860 Well, it's been going on for a long time because the first guy to be displaced was that, what's his name, that came to Chicago? 25 00:03:18.500 --> 00:03:29.360 The disabled. When he had the settlement. And then they displaced him and built a fort up there to protect what property they had took from the Indians. 26 00:03:30.580 --> 00:03:31.620 They made him move. 27 00:03:32.420 --> 00:03:45.940 Then of course the people that came in here from the South, from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Appalachian whites and blacks started settling in the areas of downtown and close to downtown. 28 00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:53.920 After a while the people that lived here moved out. And like I said, now they're trying to get him back, see. 29 00:03:53.920 --> 00:04:02.120 In the meantime, the people that can't afford to stay here, or won't afford to stay here in about twelve years, they keep moving west. 30 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:10.620 Like I said, to the crowded neighborhoods. And a lot of conflict already generated from that. 31 00:04:13.760 --> 00:04:18.500 Like the races from those neighborhoods are complaining that they don't want blacks or they don't want this or they don't want that. 32 00:04:19.460 --> 00:04:25.160 So you painted this mural ten years ago, has anything happened to it or has it changed much since you finished? 33 00:04:26.320 --> 00:04:35.500 Not really, I don't think so. We should come back and redo it again because it's kind of peeling off. Like rework it again. 34 00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:40.260 After ten years you're going to have to paint it again. 35 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:46.280 Not that much. You've got some around the area, somebody put that up there. 36 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:56.680 You mentioned that you didn't quite do the base the way you like to do now. Talk about how you now do the base so they won't ship it. 37 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:05.440 Well see, like I said, after ten years I think it lasted pretty good considering there's a lot of snow hitting and sun. 38 00:05:05.960 --> 00:05:13.620 And we didn't even treat it, I don't recall treating it with anything like a polymer gloss or nothing like that. 39 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:24.440 Now we're more careful in preparing the wall. We make sure it doesn't knock a lot of dust off. 40 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:35.200 If we could afford to sandblast it, we'll sandblast it. We put a heavier coat of underpaint and get better quality paints now. 41 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:42.520 Like a lot of times we're using house paints or whatever we could get. But now if we can afford it we get better lasting paints. 42 00:05:45.820 --> 00:05:56.020 So you painted the spawn, you painted these figures here. What was your inspiration for the lady in pink? 43 00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:04.860 Well I don't know, I think it's just somebody from City Hall, I don't know who it was. 44 00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:15.780 But at the meetings on TV you would see a lot of fancy dressed women talking about the plan or talking about renovating the area. 45 00:06:17.340 --> 00:06:22.220 They almost look like the Bisco figures in the UE mural. 46 00:06:28.660 --> 00:06:32.340 How did you divide up the drawing and the painting? 47 00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:47.320 No, like I said, first we did the circle and then from there we started. See we weren't using the geometrical lines then, we were using the lines that I use now or the other people are using now. 48 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:52.460 We just try to get a fairly good composition on it. 49 00:06:54.060 --> 00:06:59.000 So maybe you paint on one side while the other person on the other? How would you do that? 50 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:04.120 I might be painting on one side and he would be painting on the other. Sometimes I get up on the scaffold and work up there. 51 00:07:04.160 --> 00:07:13.680 Sometimes I leave the side and start working on the circle that looks like metal. 52 00:07:14.960 --> 00:07:17.460 Trying to figure out colors and how to make it look like it's solid. 53 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:28.200 Did you feel that this helped mobilize the community and if so, in what way? 54 00:07:29.520 --> 00:07:44.960 Well, like I said, it might not have mobilized that much but a lot of them began to understand what Plan 21 was because they would ask or people were here passing out pamphlets and telling people what it was about. 55 00:07:45.580 --> 00:07:53.440 They told them then that in a few more years they were going to be moved out of here. A lot of them began to see that there was a fact. 56 00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:56.700 I don't know if you know. 57 00:08:06.260 --> 00:08:06.600 Okay. 58 00:08:08.300 --> 00:08:17.740 This is repeat general sound effects Smash Plan 21, Saturday, October 28 or 29 or 30. 59 00:08:17.740 --> 00:08:35.600 Traffic going by on headwinds. 60 00:08:39.020 --> 00:08:44.160 What are you doing? 61 00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:48.980 We were doing something. 62 00:08:49.900 --> 00:08:51.480 Oh, that's what this is about. 63 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:52.300 We get the. 64 00:08:52.300 --> 00:08:52.300 65 00:09:01.300 --> 00:09:02.020 Hi. 66 00:09:54.100 --> 00:09:55.500 Hi. 67 00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:57.000 Hi.