Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tia Richardson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Tia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
‘Sherman Park Rising’ is the name of a mural I did in with a community that had experienced tragedy and unrest. Through this mural project community members found a way to express their feelings. A local non-profit that works with residents and police partnered with the city to commission me for the project.
I have background using art as a way to relieve emotional stress from trauma. I’ve found many people don’t see themselves as being creative and yet we all have creative power, or the ability to create something from nothing. I’ve found there aren’t a lot of avenues for people to express themselves as part of something bigger than themselves, which is a need we all have as human beings. I saw a lot of potential in this situation to express that, but there were a lot of challenges that I was afraid of, like how to help people share different feelings and perspectives that may be different. To help with that, I decided to facilitate two community design workshops and created a step-by-step-process that offers people a chance to acknowledge what they believe the challenges are in their community, think of choices they or others can make to help make those better, and imagine a brighter future as a result of those choices. Throughout the course of the project from the first workshops to community painting we had over 150 people come from all parts of the city and beyond to participate. I learned a lot about the community’s willingness to acknowledge painful issues in a constructive way.
This project remains a foundational piece of my work as a community artist to-day, with the other being one I did in Rockford, IL, called ‘Rockford Taking Flight’, which was even bigger in size and scope.
If you’re interested in experiencing the process of these projects yourself, I’ve found film is the best way to share my work. I worked with two filmmakers to document the two projects above and produced them as short films you can watch on my website: www.cosmic-butterfly.com/p/film.html.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I have a background using art as a way to relieve emotional stress from trauma. When I experienced depression growing up art helped me feel better. Picking up a brush, pen or pencil helped me express myself and feel connected. I’ve worked with different groups that do different forms of healing over the years. My work is about breaking down walls of isolation.
Every human mind is creative by nature. Anytime we try to think of how to make something better, we/re being creative. Not everybody sees themselves as creative, or having power to help something get better and make a difference. I want to change that. I want to help people who want to, see that they can be creative and have power. It’s just our mind-set or attitude that gives us that ability, through the choices we can make.
For me community murals offer people a chance to be creative and get outside of their concrete thinking and see that they can be imaginative and share ideas and also help paint and bring the art to life. I love seeing people’s eyes light up when they discover painting is fun, and anybody can do it, and you don’t have to be an artist in order to help. I add finishing touches to the art to make it look professional, and along the way there are those who often want to assist or join in other ways just to be a part of it, and I love that, because that’s what a collaborative effort is all about to me – sharing.
When I’m working with a community I’m working with their individual and collective psyches. The workshops are foundational to this, and to help people work together and share in a constructive way. I’ve experimented over the years with what works and what doesn’t. My background working as an artist-in-residence with different K-12 schools, and later community-based organizations and institutions has helped me try different approaches to working with groups to develop their sense of self-confidence, pride, collaboration and self-esteem.
Community art helps me feel like I’m more connected as part of the human family, and I’ve found it helps others connect, too. We all want to feel a valued part of something bigger and like our contributions matter. I’ve found there aren’t that many avenues for people to do that, and many people don’t see themselves as having creative power. I want to offer others the same chance I had, to express that part of our nature.
Imagine all the richness of our different backgrounds and perspectives harmonizing to create a richer picture, where one doesn’t dominate the other. ‘The Rebirthing of the Earth Mother’, is one example of this. The images in the art throughout all my work are vibrant beacons of light. For me art is a way to express our caring, symbols that remind us of our common good.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
For me its seeing that I can make a difference. Whether its someone realizing they can do art, and they feel a sense of pride in the paint they put on the wall to help make their neighborhood brighter; or seeing someone’s eyes lift up with a renewed sense of confidence, or discovery at something they didn’t know they could do. It’s also the fact that being a community artist isn’t so much about perfection or people having to live up to a certain ideal – they can freely participate and share, and it doesn’t matter their experience level or ability – everyone has equal value as a human being for what they can contribute. It’s inclusive, from start to finish no matter how small a part someone plays it all adds up to something bigger in the end. It levels the playing field, it’s communal, the discovery process of my own ideals and beliefs and limitations are challenged, and its seeing others grow in how they relate to themselves and their community, too. I think the experience of the journey from start to finish is invaluable, not something we can just plan or create from an intellectual point of view; its a discovery process, that’s what makes it fun. And having the chance to offer that to others who are interested, and share it together – and at the end we have a lasting symbol to remind us of that – is the most rewarding part.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
For the mural ‘Rockford Taking Flight’ this was a project where I was asked to work with a whole city of Rockford, IL by the pastor of a church. She didn’t want the mural to be about the church, she wanted it to be about the community. Rockford is a small city that is divided geographically by a river, and socio-economically just like a lot of other cities. It has its challenges and strengths, and I saw potential in that situation. I was an outsider, and I’d never worked outside of my hometown before, so I wasn’t sure I could do it.
On top of that we had to raise $30,000 through Kickstarter because two grants we wrote fell through. We were the first public art project to successfully raise that amount of money on Kickstarter. There were other challenges. Along the way, I realized I had an ideal as an artist about a symbol in the design I thought was important, that got rejected, and I’d made a sincere effort. It was the first time I’d gotten rejected, so that surprised me and realized I had a difficult choice to confront. This project had a lot of potential. But making those decisions is something we’re all going to confront at some point in our lives, the question is how and for what purpose do we make our choices?
I realized I was still learning how to be in service to a community – that’s my definition of a community artist – and here I was struggling inside myself and trying to help heal a community at the same time. For me being a community artist is being in service to a community as an artist, and I will make sacrifices for the sake of togetherness. How we get there though, and what that looks like is different for each person, and I’m just trying to share my experience for others. I do that through writing and film – check out my blog, films, and children’s book ‘Caring All Around Me’ (with an accompanying Workbook to help young peopl learn about healthy relating) – all can be found on my website.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.cosmic-butterfly.com/p/welcome_9.html
- Instagram: @cosmicbutterflydesign
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CosmicButterflyDesign
Image Credits
‘Sherman Park Rising’, photo credit Troy Freund