Creating Public Art

After reading the article Creating Public Art ThroughIntergenerational Collaboration by Mel Alexenberg and Miriam Benjamin, it made me realize how little I know about the art that is around me. Growing up in Florida and spending a lot of time in Biscayne and spending time wherethe “Legacy Thrones” are located, I never really realizedwhat they meant or what significant meaning they had until now. Reading this article opened up my eyes to how art students are getting involved in the community and reaching out to different types of groups to help create suchsignificant works of art. The process that took to make this project into an amazing piece of work took a lot of effort and it shocks me how I never knew about it. Making the three ceramic sculptures each representing a different group of people is really amazing and the groups that were picked to represent these sculptures are really well thought of since the diversity in Miami is present throughout the whole city. There are many different types of group that make up the population but the three biggest groups are Hispanic,Jewish, and African American. Letting elders be the ones to help make the sculpture makes the sculpture have more meaning too, due to the fact that they are the ones that have experienced more in their culture than anyone else. Having these three groups of women in a room was probably really interesting since they all have different experiences and stories. They also are groups that will not interact with each other on a daily basis since they all live in particular homes. Collaborating together and helping each other, these women made a really successful work of art in which they probably had no training for but together, they learned the ropes of artistry and had an amazing experience together learning about different cultures. After reading about thisproject, it really got me thinking of how little people are involved in their communities. There is not a lot of worksof art like this one. This article really inspired me to try something like this project in my own community.

Alexenberg, Mel; Benjamin, Miriam Art Eduction; sep 2004; 57,5; ProQuest Social Science Premiun Collection pg. 13