the project
A project of Artmakers Inc., The Federico García Lorca Murals celebrate the multiculturalism of the people of Bushwick, Brooklyn—a neighborhood primarily inhabited by people of Latino heritage as well as young emerging artists.
The murals are based on the poem Ciudad sin sueño (Nocturno de Brooklyn Bridge) / Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne) by Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca (1898-1936). Each mural includes a stanza from Lorca’s poem, in Spanish and in English translation, as well as a feature of the poet’s face—his eyes (mural #1), his lips (mural #2), an ear (mural #3), his entire face (mural #4). Honoring the neighborhood's residents, the murals also include an American flag with flags of their homelands in the white stripes, the Brooklyn Bridge, and maps of Puerto Rico, the world and Bushwick that indicate places of origin and current residences. www.lorcamurals.blogspot.com
The Federico García Lorca Murals aim to bring poetry to the streets, specifically work by a Hispanic writer to predominantly Spanish-speaking Bushwick. The response to the murals has been overwhelmingly positive. Passersby stop and admire the works, often thanking Artmakers for bringing beauty to their neighborhoods. Proud to share a common heritage with Lorca, they take time to read the poem. Unlike contemporary media which often tells people what to think, poetry is subversive in the most positive sense; it encourages people to think—not only to imagine its imagery but also to consider what the imagery means to them. The Federico García Lorca Murals bring people together, helping to reduce the loneliness and alienation that is the human condition. Through conversation, Artmakers muralists have learned about people’s lives and the problems they face—loss of jobs, rising costs, and gentrification.
The Federico García Lorca Murals creative team includes Camille Perrottet (mural designer/lead artist), Jane Weissman (project coordinator/artist), and artists(assistant coordinator/artist), and artists Jules Hollander, Nick Pelafas and Kayla Welbanks. Volunteer painters—mural colleagues and community members—are very welcome to assist them. Video artist Julia Reagan and photographer Anna Bonnet will complete the video begun in 2011 that documents the making of the murals.
the steps
The Federico García Lorca Murals are located in a 15 square-block area bounded by Starr Street to the west, Myrtle Avenue to the east, Wycoff Avenue to the north, and Knickerbocker Avenue to the south. This area is served by the Jefferson Avenue and DeKalb Avenue stops on the L line and the Knickerbocker Street stop on the M line.
The first mural, completed in October 2011, is located on Starr Street, between Wycoff and Irving Avenues (10’ x 95’). The 2012 murals are located on the Himrod Street walls of 399 Knickerbocker Avenue (8.5’ x 88’) and 408 Knickerbocker Avenue (8’ x 60’) and are directly across the avenue from each other. The location of the fourth and final mural is on the Stockholm Street wall of the Rite Aid store at 355 Knickerbocker Avenue.
Artmakers is committed to making the murals better known to both the immediate neighborhood and a wider audience. School groups—especially literature and Spanish language classes—will be encouraged to visit the murals. Artmakers will contact Brooklyn Community Boards 4 (Bushwick) and 3 (Bedford-Stuyvesant) for introductions to schools within walking distance of the murals. Teachers will be provided with a study guide and an invitation to contact Artmakers artists to join them on their walks.
MURAL WALK
THURSDAY, JULY 18 from 10 AM to Noon,
in conjunction with Lorca in NY: A Celebration.
INFO: www.lorcanyc.com/program
Led by Artmakers muralists Camille Perrottet (mural designer) and Jane Weissman (project manager). They will be joined by Electa Arenal, translator and professor of Hispanic literatures, and Edward Hirsch, poet and Lorca scholar, who will offer insights on Lorca's life, the poem’s surrealist imagery, and Lorca's notion of duende—the mysterious creative force that propelled the poet to search for images resistant to rational analysis.
why we're doing it
The Federico García Lorca Murals speak to the lives of the people living and working (many at Wyckoff Health Center) in Bushwick, most of them immigrants—many long established in the neighborhood, others recently arrived. Lorca lived in New York for nine months from June 1929 through March 1930, and he shared the loneliness and alienation experienced by immigrants new to the city. Lorca saw much that was wrong with the New York and his work is filled with surreal images that speak to ills that still exist today: slums, poverty, racism, mindless consumption, and violence. These feelings are expressed in Ciudad sin sueño (Nocturno de Brooklyn Bridge) / Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne. Selected for the Brooklyn reference in its title, the poem has great universality in that it explores modernity and what it means to be human, to desire. This and Lorca's other poems written during this period were posthumously published in 1940 in Poet in New York, one of Lorca's most significant works, and one of the most important books published about New York City. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Lorca was murdered by the Franco's fascist forces, his body thrown into an unmarked mass grave. English and Spanish versions of the poem can be found at http://www.fromthesquare.org/?p=914 and http://www.poesi.as/fglpny13.htm.
budget
TOTAL BUDGET: 11500.00
To Be Raised In-KInd
6000.00 5500.00
PERSONNEL
Lead Artists
Camille Perrottet (mural designer/lead artist) 3000.00
Jane Weissman (project manager/artist) 2500.00
Assistant Painters
Kayla Welbanks, Jules Hollander, Nick Pelafas
$15 per hour with a $1,000 cap 3000.00
Video Documentation
Julia Reagan and Anna Bonnet 500.00
Administration/Fundraising 350.00
MATERIALS
paint, primer, brushes, rollers, masking tape, chalk,
markers, gloves, buckets 500.00
LUNCHES 1000.00
DEDICATION/FUNDING EVENTS 300.00
PUBLICITY 150.00
| SUBTOTAL = | $3,000 |
| ioby Platform Fee | $35 |
| ioby Fiscal Sponsorship Fee (5%) | $150 |
| 3rd Party Credit Card Processing Fee (3%) | $90 |
| TOTAL TO RAISE = | $3,275 |
updates
The mural takes shape!
Posted 07/02/2013 - 2:18pm
The wall -- Federico García Lorca’s face nearly complete:
The mural takes shape. From right to left: Brooklyn Bridge, the poem "Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne)", García Lorca’s face, map of Bushwick:
Kayla laying in the last section of García Lorca’s poem "Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne) / Ciudad sin sueño (Nocturno de Brooklyn Bridge) to the right of FGL’s face:
Camille sketching in the Brooklyn Bridge:
The Brooklyn Bridge at night, in process:
"Bushwick: the streets where we live and work" Once the street names are painted, neighborhood residents and workers will stencil colored dots on the map to indicate their buildings:
photos
This is where photos will go once we build flickr integrationdonors
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