Urban Gateways Artists Wired

[Rachel] I am child world

A while back, I did a couple of one-off workshops in poetry at Family Focus Oak Terrace at with a group of 2nd-4th graders. I shared the work of Krista Franklin with them and we talked about her intriguing pieces, what they brought up for us, and what kind of methods they might include. I then gave them clipped-out words, magazine pictures, and other goodies to play with and create their own poem/collages. One student stood out, especially to the teacher. Afterward the teacher spoke to me, saying that this student had been through some traumatic times, and about how it did his heart good to see Tyrek so merrily creating, coming through such a sad time. I had noticed how hard he'd worked on his piece, and with focus and joy, but I wouldn't have known anything was out of the ordinary unless the teacher had spoken to me.

"Take that with you and keep it," the teacher said, meaning this story, saying that we don't always have a chance to know whether we're having a positive impact or not. He kept telling me, just know that you did something good today, take that with you.

[Kevin] Musings from artist Jason Jägel

"Music and listening to records is unique for me, an experience I can have and be directly inspired by while simultaneously making work. Lyric fragments or biographical information are recorded within paintings. Rhythms and time signatures create an atmosphere that facilitates how marks and images flow through me. Enter a rhythm while working and something new and unexpected will follow...

The music I like most enduringly is often music that I didn't like so much when I first heard it. For me, pop music is disposable after a possible initial attraction but the most unique artists sustain my interest. What I take from that is my need to learn an artist's unique language in order to properly understand what's happening. The work opens up over time and, with levels of discovery, becomes richer. The best artists are experts—connoisseurs in an idiosyncratic field, in touch with a host of ideas and history whose combination is unique to them. I may not know if I'm aligned with their taste until I take the time to absorb the spectrum. I'd go as far as to say that art is meant to be a testimony to the indelible singularity of each individual. By that notion art is inherently political, offering testimony to a foreign worldview possibly intimidating or threatening."

– Jason Jägel, excerpted from an interview conducted by Gabe Scott (Juxtapoz magazine, Issue no.108)