Friday, July 15, 2011

My first week


Julian D. Brown

Hester Street Collaborative

On Monday, July 15 was my first experience at Hester Street Collaborative. Three other interns and myself sat around a table joined by 5 other staff members of the workshop & gave a brief Introduction about ourselves. Then we played a game, more of an ice breaker so that we could get familiar with one another. Each Intern paired up with a staff and told them our interests. After doing that we joined in a together to share about our partner, we told two truths & a lie, and the audience had to guess which were Fact & which was False. Later on that day we were given a tour around the shop & the area of Hester Street as well as all the organizations Hester St works & collaborates with. Later on during the day, we went out with a staff Member to a garden owned by a middle School that Hester St Collaborated with as our first task. We were given a tour around the garden and history facts. We watered plants, cleaned up around the area, Swept, learned names & functions of each plant, & I’m just looking forward to planting some new plants.
On Tuesday, July 16th we worked on the next project which was Silk Screen Printing, coming up with a creation or design that expresses who we are individually. So we worked on just our designs & coming up with a theme for the remainder of the day. We found ideas from things we worked on before in the past & looking into Catalogs, magazines & Graffiti Books. Then we started taking notes on the steps that it takes to get your work on a shirt as seen in store’s & perhaps TV. We then copied our pictures on the computer using Photoshop & adobe Illustrator to perfect & add to our pieces. (How Cool!)
On Wednesday, July 17 we spent all day getting to know & being familiar with using the tools of Silk Screen Printing. After displaying our creations, we chose colors that will reflect our designs. We worked with:
• Lighting Adjustment in Room
• Exposure Light Unit
• Silk Screen(300-200 Grid)
• Emulsion
• Paint
• Squeegee
• Scoop
• Tape
• Dryer
• Water
• T- Shirts
We then processed these steps to the shirts of our requested choice. Completion to us as Artist!
On Thursday, July 18, we took a tour all through the Park of Allen Street to see what works we should fix. We were educated on the past Years of Immigrants that started to come to the United States as well as New York from their countries.
On Friday, July 19th we went to the Hester Street Park to take down a couple of solar panels that were up from the Chinese New Year celebration last year. Now just looking forward for a new project to start & promote.

Sharon's First Blog


Sharon Lee July 15, 2011

Hester Street Collaborative Blog for July 11th Week

On Monday, July 11th, Simon, Vincent, Julian, and I learned about our staff working with us in this organization. We introduced ourselves by names, our schools, and the staff told the four of us what their roles in the organization were. We also learned more about each other with a game called “Two Truths and a Lie.” We continued working on our logos and after lunch, we went with Jess to the garden near P.S. 134. Jess taught us a little bit about the plants growing there; we watered the plants, painted some kind of waterproof oil on the wood of the tables, shoveled compost from the bin to the pit in the middle, and talked about what we could do next time. I learned more about the staff and the organization I was working for. Also, I learned the significance of our roles in beautifying the garden next to the elementary school and what we could do the next time to help this garden that was usually uncared for.
The following day, we decided on what design should represent our logo and started to finalize it. We finalized it by putting the design into the computer, fixed it with the Illustrator program, transferred it to a transparency sheet, and prepared ourselves for the printing process the next day. On that day, I learned how to use Illustrator and how I might be able to use it the next time I might need it for something.
On Wednesday, we put our transparent sheets onto the silk screens that we cleaned and put Emulsion on from the past Friday. We put the screens onto the Exposure Unit while stacking three heavy cement blocks on the screen. After that, we washed it, blow dried it, and put tape on the edges of the frame and silk screen. I started to mix colors to get light purple at first then changed my mind to making light blue instead. The four of us tested out our designs, printed it on our shirts and our notebook covers. TA-DA! That day was the day I learned something interesting and fun that could be pretty useful—printing T-shirt designs.
Yesterday, we went to the garden to continue what we started on Monday like watering the plants again, pulling weeds, moved the compost in the bin into the pit, and watering that pit as well. Later on, we went to the benches on Allen Street where we observed the peeling paint, the deflated tires and recorded what we need to fix. Our actions helped me learn how our community isn’t cared for that much based on our work on the garden and we had to do to fix the benches on Allen Street.
Today, we went to the corner of Hester and Chrystie Street to take down the solar panels used for the lanterns in the past. Today wasn’t really much of a learning experience because all we did was take down solar panels.

Simon's first blog


I’ve just completed a week and a half of working with Hester Street Collaborative (HSC) as an intern. I can already tell and say that I’m going to like the upcoming weeks I have with HSC. The other interns and I are having a great time. We are workers from SYEP and we get paid for what we do, but we are interns for HSC and that’s what makes this different from all the other experiences I’ve gone through for SYEP. This is something on the next level of learning.
On Wednesday, July 6, Vincent (my co-worker) and I took at tour around the office. We learned about the goals and motives of HSC. They want to help the community create a community that is compatible with them. I guess what I mean is that the city wants to help the community but it isn’t working out. The city has created a design and a plan for creating parks but this is their idea, not what the community wants. HSC hears the voice and the ideas of the community and bring it to people who can make it happen. I feel like as if I’m going to be part of something big, maybe not now but I believe that this organization will achieve its goals. Not only because it’s to help others but also because of the kind-hearted people that work here. They truly want to help and make a change for the community, and I feel like I need to help HSC in every way I can while I’m here to bring them even if it’s just a few inches closer to their goals.
Two more co-workers joined us from the SYEP program the following week. On Monday we introduced ourselves formally (not really) to each other, the staff of HSC and the interns. The reason I say not really formally is because the atmosphere was not tense or anything. It was pretty chill and everyone was enjoying the game that Gauri had set up for us. The ice breaker game was “Two Truths and a Lie.” I was paired up with Dylan and we learned about each other. We got a little bit carried away on sticking with one topic and we quickly changed so we could get at least two truths. We met back at the meeting table and played the game. Everyone saw through my lie because it was outrageously ridiculous. But the others were harder to guess. Overall we got a little bit closer to each other and the results were good.
After the introductions we went to the garden next to P.S.134 with Jess to water the plants. We learned briefly about the plants grown in the garden with Mauricio but we went more into detail and the history of the garden with Jess. After discovering the past of the garden, we went to work. We watered the plants, added nutrients to the compost of the garden, and added a new coating to the benches in the garden. We left and just worked on making a logo for ourselves for the rest of the day.
Mauricio, our supervisor and also our teacher, taught us the silk screen process. We needed to learn this so that we can make ourselves logos that would define who we are and how we connect to it. This project was to prepare us to create some sort of logo for HSC that we could put on post cards, gift cards and other things that we can give to our funding partners. I found this project very enjoyable. I was able to create a design using something I grew up with and it means a lot to me. To be able make this design and create a shirt using it, I found this project to be overwhelmingly exciting.
His method of teaching is very unique and effective. Mauricio started from the last step of the silk screen process to the first step. So the steps to the silk screen process goes as the following, well from what I remember. I may be missing some steps so don’t put your trust in me. We first cleaned a screen and applied some emulsion. This prepares the screen for print making. The screens were left in a room for a couple of days to dry up. While they were drying up we came up with our logos over the weekend.
The logo I came up with was very simple and yet attractive according to my co-workers. I bet they were just being nice. It was sunglasses with the word (I made up it when I was younger) on the lenses. It read NAGAROMO. It means something like have fun but make wise decisions too. We finally used Illustrator to add some finishing touches onto the design and we printed it out on the transparency. We then proceeded to execute what we’ve learned from Mauricio and printed our design onto the t-shirts. I was satisfied with the outcome because it was much better than I had expected.
On Thursday, we went to the garden again to water the plants. We finished adding the nutrients-filled soiled into the compost and we watered it. After that we went to Allen Street to check up on the “mallterations” to see what paint and how much paint we needed to fix up the benches made by the previous interns. The benches need a lot of repainting and some of them need new tires. Finally after a long afternoon, we called it a day.

Vincent Zhen Post 1 - SYEP 2011

Vincent Zhen
7.15.11

Blag 1

Hester Street Collaborative is stationed in an office half sub-surface. The small staff of about 5 hinted at a tight community. Mauricio is this year’s SYEP mentor. A day long introduction of how the company works started with past projects, their participants, what it entailed and its outcomes. After this was a briefing on what we as SYEP members would do to assist and participate in HSC’s projects. There was an introduction of all the SYEP members and HSC staff as well.
Our first project was the silk screen project. The first half of the day was dedicated to making personal logos. Before this was a short lesson on typography and alphabet design. The second half was used to take these personal logos and create a final design by taking our raw designs and scanning them into the computer. We used Adobe Illustrator to take these raw designs and creating a smoother version. A 2.0 if you will. Using the Live Trace software in Illustrator, we could sand the rougher edges of our designs which were later transferred into a transparency.
The next day we could put the design into a shirt by process of seriography (Silkscreen). The process is done as follows:
Clean the screen (wash and dry)
Apply emulsion (emulsion is photosensitive)
Use a scoop to apply a thin screen of emulsion onto the screen
Tape transparency onto screen
“Burn” screen (put weight on top of screen for pressure)
Wash screen and dry screen to wash off ‘loose’ emulsion
Tape edges of screen to ward off unwanted splotches of paint
Test screen picture (flood and press ink)
If satisfied, press onto desired medium.

Tips:
Keep lines in transparency thick enough to allow ink to seep through easily which will reduce faded lines in medium.
Center the picture on the shirt using a piece of tape as reference.
Do not apply pressure when flooding. Just allow a smooth fill.
Apply pressure only when pressing.
Make sure the squeegee is wide enough to press the entire picture.
Make sure the color has enough contrast against medium.
Cover any and all exposed unused emulsion. Most light will harden emulsion or at least reduce photosensitive quality.


We visited the garden about 3 times. The garden is usually tended to by the school right next to it but since school is out during the summer, it is our responsibility to uphold the garden for the children next school year. We learned about several different types of plants the children were growing; grapes, cherries, mint, cabbage, etc… We watered the plants, got rid of some weeds, filled the watering barrels, and moved the compost from a couple basins to a pit. Along the way we found worms and a dead mouse.





This is my design for the personal logo project. This was put onto a shirt and later put on the cover of my notebook.