You get involved in audio.
Susan, would you make a note or stand by Jose's mic and say this is the beginning of non -sync? We're talking to your mic here for a second.
This is the beginning of non -sync audio on Smash Plan 21.
So if you could just explain how you got involved in this in the first place.
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.
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.
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.
So I met with John Weber, Oscar Martinez, and we started doing it.
And the idea was to speak out against Plan 21.
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.
So how did three of you decide to listen to it? How did you work together to decide this final? 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...
with help from different people who would come along every so often.
So did the community have input? Oh, yes.
They had input.
And like I said, some of the people even donated money.
And they paid for the celebration.
How did the community react to this mural? And what happened when you finished? Well, there was about a thousand people here, you know, for the dedication.
It was the biggest one we ever had.
We had the street blacked, you know, from over there.
They blacked this one.
The whole place was filled.
We had a lot of people eating, drinking.
They liked it.
How do you think it affected the issue? The issue? I don't know how it affected the issue.
But I hear there's still people trying to stay here, you know.
And it seemed like the money people got an advantage on because a lot of people are moving out now.
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.
How do you feel about that issue in general, the whole idea of people being displaced? What are your thoughts on that? 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? 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.
They made him move.
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.
After a while the people that lived here moved out.
And like I said, now they're trying to get him back, see.
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.
Like I said, to the crowded neighborhoods.
And a lot of conflict already generated from that.
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.
So you painted this mural ten years ago, has anything happened to it or has it changed much since you finished? 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.
After ten years you're going to have to paint it again.
Not that much.
You've got some around the area, somebody put that up there.
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.
Well see, like I said, after ten years I think it lasted pretty good considering there's a lot of snow hitting and sun.
And we didn't even treat it, I don't recall treating it with anything like a polymer gloss or nothing like that.
Now we're more careful in preparing the wall.
We make sure it doesn't knock a lot of dust off.
If we could afford to sandblast it, we'll sandblast it.
We put a heavier coat of underpaint and get better quality paints now.
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.
So you painted the spawn, you painted these figures here.
What was your inspiration for the lady in pink? Well I don't know, I think it's just somebody from City Hall, I don't know who it was.
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.
They almost look like the Bisco figures in the UE mural.
How did you divide up the drawing and the painting? 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.
We just try to get a fairly good composition on it.
So maybe you paint on one side while the other person on the other? How would you do that? 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.
Sometimes I leave the side and start working on the circle that looks like metal.
Trying to figure out colors and how to make it look like it's solid.
Did you feel that this helped mobilize the community and if so, in what way? 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.
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.
I don't know if you know.
Okay.
This is repeat general sound effects Smash Plan 21, Saturday, October 28 or 29 or 30.
Traffic going by on headwinds.
What are you doing? We were doing something.
Oh, that's what this is about.
We get the.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
