Murals 1/13 Sandra. Curie + Cooper

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you you you you you okay tell me tell me about let's start you back further then you can walk to it but come this way yeah there you go then you can turn around and go back and talk about it I tell you what yeah go ahead okay so just can you tell me a story about this mural well I can tell you how I got started what happened was I was introduced to Dr.

Michaels by one of the teachers Francisco Mendoza who comes here and he introduced me to her and he told me about how she had worked on the school and how she helped the students develop the artwork and to paint a lot more murals so we met we talked about art we talked about a lot of other things and that's how we started to build this mural she asked me if I wanted to work on it and I said sure and what happened was we were all thinking about how can we make this mural powerful how can it bring something pleasant to everyone in the office because the office was pretty hectic and we decided to make it a scene from Paris which it is it was a scene from Paris and we talked about how come we wanted to make it how everything had to be structured how everything had to be man made I had a lot of trouble with it because I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted this to look if I wanted a fountain if I wanted a round or square if I wanted to just place it there and it took a while to develop everything and find out how we wanted everything to come by I started working on it outside it was pretty hot weather like 90 degrees close to 100 degrees and we would just prime it so it's kind of interesting how this is all grass and if you look real closely right around here you can see that this is real grass because while I was painting outside on the grass the grass got stuck to it so some of it has a lot of grass and by the grass that's when I started picking it up and making it into grass because I wasn't sure what I wanted this to be and it took me a long time to make this grass the way it looks because at first it looked watery and so on Dr.

Michael started liking it and we started building things up we added the flowers in last I would go outside and look at the flowers and that's how we decided to make the flowers look the way they are now and it took a while to also think of the fencing right here it looked pretty plain and what happened was the mirror the circle right there was just coming out so we decided to put a fencing around it and hopefully it'll land it down and that's what it did, that's exactly what happened another thing is I had a dream about these swans so I wasn't sure what I was going to put there when I was sleeping I had a dream of some swans in a pond and a fountain just the way it is so when I went back to school when I went back to work the next day I painted in the swans and that's how they started building up and I put a lot of gold around them making them very bright because that's what I enjoyed the most I enjoyed the swans the most and that's what I wanted to show people the swans to me are a symbol of calmness and beauty and things like that would you sort of walk us through it as if we were going to walk through this place how I imagine it what walking through here is like to me, when I was painting it I did walk through it I was actually there I would come in through here I wanted to make, enter the people into it that's why I made that road right there so people can walk inside and wonder what it's like to be in there because everything else is so pleasant, everything else is so calm that you want to see what's beyond that point and that's what it all draws you in there so I would walk around here and look at the swans, look at the fountain feel real calm, probably sit on the grass if you want to look at the flowers and take pictures that's what I kept on imagining while I was painting the mural and that's what I wanted the viewer to feel I wanted them, let them feel around and go around and walk around there and Lord knows what's beyond that and it was up to the viewer to imagine what else you could see the gates are also a symbol of luxury, you know, luxury people would the gate, what happened was I wanted to make the person feel like if it was a luxury place I wanted to make it feel when you enter this you feel like if you're going to go into some type of paradise like if you're going to go into some place so rich that you can just lie down and have a great time on the grass or just have a picnic and that's what they symbolize, I would make them glow to show the richness of them it all worked out pretty much the way I wanted it to work out I wanted people to feel comfortable in the office I wanted people to actually want to come into this office and not argue and not look at the students really mean or feel the paper shuffling I wanted them to come inside for the first time, you know, the first work day and they'd look at it and they'd feel pleasant inside and that's exactly what happened, I started, teachers started speaking with me they started telling me how well made it was, how they felt about it and how it made them feel and that's exactly what I wanted and that's what happened so it was important to me to establish that too let the viewer, the teachers and everyone feel that and that's what they felt Can you describe the first time you came to Cooper and how you sort of decided to come here and try and paint? Well, I saw all the murals so I saw all the murals around Cooper it was fascinating, just the artwork itself was fantastic and it was a privilege to me to actually be able to work here when I came here, it wasn't as I expected because I didn't expect so many murals I didn't expect so much art so I wasn't really motivated but once I came here I got so motivated I came up with all these ideas and the teachers helping me and the students are always complimenting or just telling you what they think so I gathered all the ideas together once I gathered them, this is what I came up with I had a lot of sketches and I picked this one the students helped me, the teachers helped me and it was just what I wanted Were there some students who helped you paint on this? and if so, what did they do? There really weren't but there were two girls who were interested in seeing me paint and I like for people to paint and be creative I like to see that I have at least five or six layers of paint on this different paints they put the first layer was like a wash it's just a regular wash of acrylic and they just touched it up around here and I just let them feel the brush and see what it was like and some of them were muralists too and they just touched it up and on top of that I just went over the whole thing on my own my best friend Tina also helped me with these because I had a deadline to meet and I wanted her to feel it too to be a part of it because I think it's special to be a part of this mural you feel it, you actually feel you actually feel like you're there and I wanted someone to share that with me so I chose her so it was pretty good What things have people said to you now that the mural is hung and finished? They thanked me for it they tell me it's exactly what they thought it would be they tell me it makes the office a lot more different a lot more happy, cheerful people they compliment me on it, they don't believe that I did it a lot of people would just come up to me and say I went to Cooper and I saw a mural and then I had your name on it and that's just pretty much what they say I'm going to go back to the office Well the first time I entered it was very busy there were students sitting down a number of chairs that were around the teachers were running in and out and the secretaries were busy typing or answering phone calls it was hectic when I went to ask for Francisco Mendoza or when I would talk to someone they were pretty busy so I felt uncomfortable, I felt like oh no I'm imposing they're going to think what is she doing here and things like that that's the kind of thought that I had that's what they made me think but towards now when I came back right now it was cheerful, everyone was happy it was more calm I'm not saying that maybe the mural did it but it was different because they were pretty loud before

Identifier

F.2021-10-0048

Date Of Production

January 13 1989

Abstract

Silent footage of high school artist Sandra Antongiorgi walking with with a classmate in the hall at Marie Curie Metropolitan High School in Archer Heights, followed by sync sound footage of Antongiorgi describing a mural she painted at Cooper Dual Language Academy in Pilsen.

This footage was shot for an unfinished documentary about the visual language of murals in Chicago's Hispanic communities.

Format

16mm

Color

Sound

Silent

Reel/Tape Number

1/1

Has Been Digitized?

Yes

Notes

The digital representation attached to this record consists of a 16mm negative picture element (F.2021-10-0048) synced with portions of a separate ¼" magnetic audio reel (Dobinsky 095).

Element

Negatives

Genre

Documentary

Form

Unedited

Subject

Art
Street art
Hispanic Americans
Schools

Related Collections

Susan Dobinsky Collection

Related Places

North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago ➜ Lower West Side

North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago ➜ Archer Heights

Main Credits

Dobinsky, Susan (is co-producer)

Dobinsky, Susan (is filmmaker)

Bayly, Ronn (is co-producer)

Regele, Susan (is co-producer)

Kurtz, Julia (is co-producer)

Participants And Performers

Antongiorgi, Sandra (is participant)

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Murals 1/13 Sandra. Curie + Cooper

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