North Philly Village

Today we went on another site visit to an organization in North Philadelphia called The Village of Arts and Humanities. It was in a very poor neighborhood with a very rich history! We had a fabulous tour guide named Johnny who has been working for the nonprofit for two years. It provides children in the area with a lot of cool after school activities. Before he came out here, he was from the Bay Area! He showed us five out of twelve art areas which were created by barefoot artist Lily Yeh, who also founded The Village. There were a lot of mosaic sculptures, which were mostly created by Lily Yeh and "Big Man." Big Man was a drug addict but when Lily Yeh introduced him to mosaic art, he instead got addicted to that and spread his art everywhere. He even got invited to London, which was one of the few times he left his neighborhood. He preferred to stay at home and whenever anyone wanted to have a meeting with him, he had them meet on his own stoop. Now his stoop is covered in mosaic and is used for a memorial for him.

One of the "Art Parks"

The town also had an awesome urban garden using recycled materials in really creative ways. They used the food they grew to feed local children and teach them how to use crops to make useful things like lip balm or pizza. On our way back to the Metro, we observed the differences in the neighborhood where we were and the neighborhood surrounding Temple University. The streets with student housing were way nicer than the rest of the areas.

In the afternoon, we watched and analyzed Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" and then split into groups by race and gender. I think Professor Lamas was making a point about people in our class tending to stick to their own gender and sometimes their own race or language, too. I was in a group of white girls with Nicole as our leader. She brought us to the Bio Pond which was beautiful and we discussed how the class has affected us. Then, we went to the movie theater. I saw "The Heat" starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, which I really enjoyed. I then did some laundry and am now about to get rested for tomorrow's trip to New York!