Week Five of Hester Street Collaborative Internship (:

Projects of interest floor map, t- shirts, and garden.
The floor map is coming along really well! In the beginning of the week we bought paint and mixed it to the shade of gray we decided on last Friday. Then we strategically painted parts of the room. The first of the room to be painted was the chalkboard wall, then into the back rack and shelf and under Jess O’s, up to Annie’s desk, back to Jess P’s desk, and then finally Dylan’s desk after he left for a meeting. The gray on the floor looks really great. Yesterday we started to grid the floor with chalk with Larry’s technique. The floor then got a layer of masking tape to mark off the streets. With just the masking tape it’s shaping up. I like the angel/ice cream cone/exclamation mark like taping that Alex and I worked on towards the end of the day. The real streets are a public plaza. This morning the clutter of stuff in the chalkboard corner got moved and the painting began. The blue looks like an atlas sea blue but it looks really great. I can’t wait till the masking tape (carefully) comes off to reveal the blocks. The map shows from the lower East Village down to the curve of the river at the Cherry St. housing. The curve of the map has a lot of river so that will be painted soon as well. The parks will get a layer of green after the blue dries. The bridges will also be painted another color. The floor map is really turning out well. The sad part is the today is Cassie’s last day and she won’t be able to see the full map completed ):
The surveying t-shirts won’t be screen printed since Sadie is probably the only one attending. But Dylan said we might screen print next week. I would really like to see the design come to life.
We haven’t spent much time at the garden sadly this week. Although there is a lot of rain so the plants aren’t suffering. Yesterday we went for an hour before it started to rain…really hard. We mostly swept the garden clean and George was playing with a cricket. Sadie started a bet about the time it was going to rain; Cassie won with the closest bet of 2:17. It severely thunder stormed that afternoon until about 5o clock.
It was a really great experience to work with you, Cassie. Good luck on your SATs and college stuff ~

"It's Week Four"by George

Hey it’s George. This is my fourth week here. We finally started to paint the map of the community on the floor, after we decided on a color scheme. The street will be gray, the blocks will be light blue, the parks are light green, and the river will be dark blue. We brought four gallons of white paint and mixed them to create different colors. We painted a light gray as a base coat. Then we use a chalk line and started to grid the whole office. It took one hour just to grid one third of the room. After we finish the grid we will start painting the streets and blocks on the floor for the map.
Last week we carried over fifty mosaic blocks and grouted them. The mosaic blocks will go into the wall of the new playground in the Sara Delano Roosevelt Park. We also started to make the stencil that we will use to silkscreen the t-shirts that everyone in the office will wear on August 2nd for the AAFE Chinatown Summer Street Festival. Sadly I won’t be there because I will be performing at a concert. The t-shirt design is a tree with many different types of leaves. In the middle of the t-shirt it says “Talk to me About Your Park” in English and Chinese. On the back it has the Hester Street Collaborative Logo.
On Friday someone broke into the garden. They threw the water buckets everywhere. They opened the shed and took the shovels out and they dug a hole in the mud pit which is very strange. The kids left a basketball and a baseball. At the office I planted a jasmine plant in the garden bed in front of the office and I water all the plants and then suddenly after I finished watering it started to rain. Today we are suppose to go to the garden but it’s suppose to rain at 1pm so we might not go.

Cassie's Fourth Week

Hi, this is Cassie on my fourth and final week at Hester Street Collaborative. We’ve worked on some interesting projects in the past week. We finished grouting the mosaic blocks that will eventually be part of the walls in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Some of them had to be grouted several times, so it took us a few days to finish them. Also, we finalized the design for the t-shirts for surveyors at the AAFE street festival on Sunday in Columbus Park. The surveyors will be there for people to talk to about the parks in Chinatown. These suggestions will hopefully be taken into account when fixing up the parks. Our design for the shirts has a tree with many different types of leaves and says “Talk to me about your parks” in English and Chinese. To make the design we traced leaf images from the computer onto a piece of paper that already had the words printed on it from the computer. We then translated this design onto tracing paper with a dark pen so we could scan it into the computer. Once the design was in the computer, we sized it to the size of the shirts. George traced it onto contact paper which we’ll use for the silk-screening to make the shirts. Larry and Alex, two of the college interns, created a stencil by cutting out the parts of the design where we want the color to be when we silk-screen the design onto the shirts. When we silk-screen it, we’ll use a squeegee to drag the colored ink through the stencil onto the shirts.
Another big project we’ve been working on is painting the map of the Lower East Side on the floor. Last week we chose an orientation and color combinations for the map. The colors we chose are grey for the streets, light blue for the blocks, and green for parks. Yesterday we bought paint, cleared off the floor, and started painting the floor grey. We painted a huge amount of the floor in just a short time in the afternoon, and we’ve continued to paint it grey this morning. We have yet to paint under the desks because we need to finish taping up the wires and edges of the filing cabinets before painting. After we paint everything grey, we’ll tape off the grid for the map and then we’ll paint everything blue. The parts that we tape off will be the streets, so when we remove the tape they’ll still be grey. The floor is going to look very cool when we’re done painting everything.
Hopefully by the end of the week the floor will be done so I can see it before I stop working here. It’s been a really fun and interesting experience working at HSC and I hope to keep in contact with the organization and hopefully help out a few times in the fall.

Second Postings ~

So this is Megan again and my second blog posting. The past week has been pretty busy with many projects going on. The map on the floor has to have the orientation finalized if we were to paint it the week Annie is gone. The t-shirt design for the Summer Street Festival has to be finalized and the shirts have to be made before next Sunday. The garden is in pretty good shape although all the fruit on the trees have disappeared…and the peach tree may be sick): On Wednesday, when we went we saw the lower branches were oozing sap that was a yellow-orange-amber color. The eggplant patch has an eggplant though! And there are more and more cherry tomatoes growing (one is almost red)! According to Jess O. there will be strawberries if the flower growth keeps up…that’s what I’m secretly hoping for the most.
With the floor repainting project, it’s been more difficult. The North/South orientation has to be somewhat accurate, with the East River at the front of the room. Also having to systematically move all the furniture and tape off a grid may be problem. Not only would I like to paint the floor, which I must say is the fun part, I’d also like to learn a bit about large spaces and how organizing such a project is done.
The Summer Street Festival is coming up soon. It’s going to be next Sunday at different locations but mainly Columbus Park on Mulberry St. Since I was little I been going to that park but less and less nowadays. It would be really cool to see something I helped design in the public eye. In the process of making the shirts, I also get a chance to use what I been learning to make a simple phrase in Chinese to go on the shirt. Though I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to go home tonight and double check with my grandparents to see if I used the right words :x
So far this week I have been enjoying laying out the mosaic tiles for the walls along the path in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Carrying the mosaic tiles wasn’t the best part…it was a workout to carry them from the school back to the office, then grouting some of them. I must admit it was nice to do something hands on but the grout really dried out my hands… I’m hoping there won’t be enough tiles and then we could make some. It would be fun to learn one more new artsy thing.

George's Second Blog

Hey it’s George again. This is my second blog. I have been here in Hester Street Collaborative for about 3 weeks. Yesterday we carried about forty mosaic blocks from M.S.131 to the office so we could document them by taking pictures of them and grouting them so they could go into the wall of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park. We also started making patterns for the layout of the mosaics on the brick wall. At the office we’ve been using adobe illustrator which is software that helps make advance sketches. We used adobe illustrator to help make a grid of the office which appears over an aerial picture of the lower east side, so we would have a specific floor plan of what we would paint on the floor of the office. We are also trying to find a good color scheme for the map that is going to go on the floor of the office and we also made a calendar out of the chalkboard using painting tape. Last week we finished hanging the signs and we picked three apples and on Friday we had our first visitor in the P.S.134 garden. I didn’t catch her name but she was a nice person. She helped sweep up all the leaves and branches and throw them into the compost bin. Today we are going to go to the garden to fix the chairs and water the plants and sweep up again.

Cassie's Third Week

Hi, this is Cassie again on Tuesday of my third week at HSC. Last week we started a few projects. We painted one of the office walls with chalkboard paint, finished hanging the signs at the P.S. 134 community garden, and started working on the “map-on-floor” project. Right now the floor is just grey, so we wanted to paint a map of the lower east side on it. To get started on this project, we took all the measurements of the office and drew a plan. We chose one of the sketches to use and scanned it into the computer and drew a grid over it to create a scale so we would be able to accurately paint the map on the floor. The next step was to put an aerial picture of the lower east side into Adobe Illustrator and put it behind the grid. We had to make sure to get in a few key spots, such as the HSC office, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and P.S. 134. Yesterday we made different versions of the prospective floor by orienting the map and grid differently, and changing the size of the map. We then chose potential color schemes for the floor by using different paint, mixing colors, and seeing which colors looked best together. In the afternoon yesterday, we went to the garden where we did some maintenance, such as sweeping leaves and bark into the compost bins, picking up trash, watering the plants, and turning the soil. Then we came back to the office and Annie took us across the street to M.S. 131 and showed us to the classroom where a ton of mosaic bricks were being stored. We went back and forth between the school and the office, bringing the bricks to the office so we could document them today.

George's First Blog at HSC

Hi my name is George and I going to become a freshman in Fort Hamilton high school. I’ve been here for about 2 weeks now. I don’t really know what I should write about but I think it goes like this. On the first day everyone went to the P.S.134 garden to help water the plants and sweep the floor and Dylan taught us how to use the watering hose. Days later we started painting the signs with varnish and hanging them up. The other intern and I also created four signs that tell the people in the community when the community garden of P.S.134 is open. To make the signs we had to print stencils and cut them out. I know this sounds like an easy job but it wasn't because the ink on the stencils never really dried. It took about two hours to cut the stencils out and then we use paint and stencil brushes and stenciled the letters into the sign.
Back in the office other interns Megan and Cassie and I helped make step by step sketches and 3D examples for students in the summer school program from NDHS (New Design High School).The purpose of the summer program is that students from NDHS have to make up credits and were trying to make a deal with the community so they could build a boarding school in the parking lot across the street. The students have drawn floor plans and made 3D model showing the plans. When Friday came it was time for the students present they’re structure they had created.
This week we turned one of the walls in the office into a chalkboard, we started to make designs for shirts that we will wear when we ask people questions about they’re parks, and we started to survey the office so we can paint a map on the floor. The map will show all the project sites that Hester Street Collaborative has worked on. Yesterday we finished drilling and hanging up the signs at the P.S.134 garden. The word MUDPIT was the hardest. We had to use a ladder but the signs kept falling onto the ground. It took about 30 minutes just to hang it up.

FiRsT bLoG~ mEgAn~

Hey, this is Megan and this is my first blog entry of the summer. I have been assigned to write an entry on Thursday and so far my mind is full of questions. I’m not entirely sure of how to write this entry except that there’s a lot to talk about in the past week and a half. Even though the time seems short, a lot has been done. On the first day, we jumped into the work after a tour of the workshop. Dylan took us out to the garden and taught us the ropes of the work out there. George started off by watering the plants, Cassie was sweeping, and I was picking up inorganic litter. As simple as that sounds, I was a bit tired by the end of all that. We did a lot in the times we been at the garden including refilling the barrels of water, painting the signs with polyurethane to keep the signs protected from the wind and rain, and much more. With Jess O. George and I started to work on the compost. Although compost breaks down over time, the compost bins had a twigs and branches which didn’t break down as quickly. We watered and broke down the matter more so that decomposition occurred faster. The other day at the garden with Sadie, I found a small apple that had fallen between two branches. It actually tasted like a Granny Smith! I hope by August that the apples will be ready with the weird weather.
Throughout the first week was the second week of the credit recovery program at NDHS (New Design High School). They were working on a project called SPURA which they were proposing ideas for a campus for their school on two current parking lots. The process started out with making models to scale (as much as possible) with an aerial image of the parking lots as a base. George, Sadie, Cassie, and I worked on a sample model the afternoon before. It was interesting to see all the students’ designs and their ideas for the use of the space. After modeling the space, we photographed the models. After all the pictures were uploaded to the computer, they were printed in black and white. Afterwards, trace paper was used to trace out the basic foundation lines of the structures. I chose to draw the space of a fountain that was on Alex and Larry’s model. I pictured it to be a three tier fountain with space for the community and students. I drew a couple of sketches of the area. With one of the trace paper sketches, I made it into a collage with ideas of how the space was going to be used and how it was going to be. With all the color and details, the sketches were scanned into the computer and placed into folders with students’ names. The photographs, sketches, and plans were placed into a template in InDesign, which is the layout program used this time. I learned the basics of the tools. Along with ourselves, the interns, working through the whole process, we helped out the students with their work. It was an interesting experience since they were…unpredictable at times. It was a noisy week but it was full of learning experiences.
I also learned a lot on top of SPURA and the garden. George, Cassie, and I worked on signs for the garden that showed the garden was open for the public. There were color schemes, stenciling and placement involved. It was messy to cut out the letters for the stencil…I had printer ink on my hands for a few days. On Monday, I used a bit of what I learned during the school year to help me draw a scale plan of the workshop. I didn’t think that technical drawing techniques would come helpful. I used a lot of what I learned about dimensioning as well. The plan will be used to help layout an aerial map that will be painted on the floor. I find that ongoing project really interesting since it’s so big and it should be a lot of fun. On top of the heavy lifting and gridding methodically that will need to be done.
So far there’s been a lot done and already a few ongoing projects. Yesterday, we started on t-shirt designs for the Summer Street Festival surveyors. My idea is pretty simple. On the back is a generic phrase that says “Ask me about YOUR PARK” to distinguish the surveyors. The capitalized words are to show some emphasis and importance of a park for people’s needs. Then on the front it says “Park Surveyor” with a hibiscus because it shows that it’s not only summer but its fragile beauty. Even in such a crowded and congested place—there is still beauty to be found.

Cassie's First Blog Entry

Hi everyone, I’m Cassie and I’m going to be a senior at Riverdale Country School. I’m interning at Hester Street Collaborative for five weeks this summer. So far we’ve worked on a few projects. Last week the other interns, Megan and George, and I went to the P.S. 134 Community Garden with Dylan and helped clean it up and watered the plants. A few days later we went back to the garden with Sadie; we painted a clear top coat on wooden signs, made by the students at P.S. 134, so they could be hung up on the fences surrounding the garden.
There was also a summer school session last week at HSC. Students from New Design High School, who had to make up credits, were to create their idea of a boarding school. The project would be built on the SPURA (Seward Park Urban Renewal Area) parking lots across from their school. For years, a multitude of community members have been lobbying to build something on this land instead of just using it as a parking lot. The teachers and administrators at New Design High School thought that a boarding school would be a good use of the land, as many of the students who attend NDHS do not have stable home lives. Having a boarding school in the neighborhood would allow students to focus more on their schoolwork than on their living situations.
We helped the students by making examples for each step of their process in designing their buildings. The first step was making a model using cardboard, construction paper, wood figures, and clay. Once the models were done, the students picked an aspect of their design to focus on and then they drew detailed sketches of what the insides/outsides of parts of their schools would look like. They also sketched a plan (a bird’s eye view) of their schools, and a 3-D image as well. Megan, George and I scanned all of their sketches so the students were able to input them into an InDesign layout on the computer. Finally, each student presented his or her work, explaining why they chose to include certain features in their designs. The designs were all different; however there were many recurring features, such as study areas, gardens, basketball courts, and of course housing.

My time at Hester street part 2

Wow I’ve been here for 3 months I think and this is only my second post ha. Well that means this blog is going to be a big one. A lot was done over the course of the past 2 months. We started a new project which involved making lanterns out of re-used materials such as plastic bottles and bags. It was a rather long project which included lots of testing and innovating. Laquin who’s another intern and I help with the testing for the project. We began by cutting plastic bottles to use as a base for the lanterns. We then worked on the plastic bags by ironing them together to see how well they stick, and also to make them easy to fold over the bottle but we soon found out the bottles wasn’t the best base so we went on to look for something more sturdy yet flexible. We then started experimenting with wires which was much easier to play with.
So sticking with the wire as a base we then tried various shapes such as squares, triangles, and small triangles. That ended up being a success and was used as the permanent base of the lanterns. We then continued to iron the plastic bags and iron them onto the wired shapes giving the various sizes and colors. However these completed lanterns where just used for reference for the neighboring school students to use as a guide to building their own. After words our job became to supply the students with pre ironed bags and pre shaped wires. That part wasn’t the most exciting but at least the project was drawing to an end. Finally it was time have them strung on a wire and hung. Sadly I didn’t get to hang any because I was helping Anne string the last batch of lanterns, but I’m positive they look awesome hanging and all I can say is FINALLY hah. Now I’m just curious what project is next. Oh and excuse the lack of enthusiasm I’m just sleepy lol I’m honestly really grateful to be working this internship. This Abdur-Rahman btw Later xD""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298251431005964450" />

a new experience at hsc

Hi, this is Isabella Wong. I've been here around three weeks. During this period, I'm learning a lot of different stuffs and skills, especially the block design that I'm working on right now. I've find it is fun to play with different colors of blocks, its like a professional verison of "lego", lol.
I'm also learning how to do a design on computer by using graphic design software which is pretty cool. Basically, I like all the projects that I've been doing.
Above this, the most exciting project is designing my high school's cafeteria.
My school is planning to redesign our cafeteria, so me and my intern- partners are working together to design the whole new looking cafteria. In the process, we did documentary which is taking photos from different angles and combined it together by graphic design software. We also created a survey for our student, so that we can know more about their ideal cafeteria. In the survey, we've created about 10 questions which are all about the environment of the cafeteria. This is the first time for me to make a survey and it is also a really nice experience. I see that the software program is very useful and important which can suitable for many projects, including our cafeteria survey.
Even though we are still working on on the project but I feel happy to work with a project thats related to us and our school. I can't wait to see the "new cafeteria!"
Btw! I'm absolutely glad that I can be an intern in Hester Street! lmao" :)

wats goin on at hester st.

Hey Abdur-Rahman here :D. I guess I can consider this my second week here and so far so good. Bin playing with blocks for a while I gotta say it’s not the most entertaining thing to do hah but its for a good cause. First of all the reason I bin messing with these blocks is because I’m trying to put together a mosaic for a project HSC is trying to put together for a near by public school. It’s more complicated then you think but we tried multiple ways of doing it. We tried different sized blocks at first to see which fits together and is able to show the image more clearly. Also colors played an important role we decided to stick with more vibrant colors rather then dull ones because they tend to blend into each other. Second thing we tried was using symbols. African symbols gave us a good idea how to simplify the images at the same time carry some sort of meaning. Last of was the paper cut outs we used to make chalazas that version simplified it the most. So using those experiments I came up with a theme for my mosaic that was inspired through my cut out test drive hah. I chose to go with a step pyramid. My reason for doing so is that I wanted the steps in the pyramid to represent a person taking steps to go higher and higher in his/her life to final reach the top therefore achieving his/her goals in life whatever that maybe. Still the concept of my mosaic was easy to come up wit but getting it to look decent is steal a pain in neck hah -_- but I’m betting the school students will figure out some way to breeze through the whole complex world of the mosaic *dum dum dum* hah. But for now I’m just gonna do my best to make a mosaic that’s actual useful to HSC. I’m not really to found of not being able to complete any task I’m given
On the other hand there’s one other project were doing over here. One I’m very interested in seeing the out come of. The project is a renovation of my schools cafeteria my schools MCNDHS by the way. Isabella, Jun and myself are working together on this project. So far we’re still beginning but we have a decent draft so far of our survey :D. We made sure the survey covered the most important questions such as what the students think of the cafeteria how it makes them feel. Also what is it that they dislike weither it be the color of the walls or the long cramp lunch tables. I personally think this cafeteria was crying for a face lift hah. The survey is important because not all the students eat there only its also used for other things. Some people have art classes there others have tutoring sessions. So I’ think they’d appreciate more comfortable surroundings. So hopefully we can start as soon as possible but for now we still need to finalize the survey.
Now for the last activity I participated in at HSC was the stripping of the signs at the Allen st. malls. I found that pretty fun because I didn’t have to sit in place and play with the blocks hah but it was a shame they had to come down. They looked better hanging there then nothing at all. But they had to come down Maybe HSC will put something up again. So ya that was pretty much my first couple weeks at HSC and I’ll update again some other time when there’s more to write about. LATER xD

Introducing SPURA to me and you

Hi I’m Kashawn Henry, a new intern here at HSC. The other day Johnathan, another intern, and I went to a community meeting with Anne about Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA).It has been 40 years since the city took ownership of a piece of the lower east side known as SPURA. Bordered by Essex, Delancy, Grand, and Willet Streets, SPURA is the biggest plot of undeveloped land south of 96th street which is perfect for this new project for our principal. We went to this meeting because our brilliant principal Scott Conti envisioned a project; he calls it, New Design House (NDH). New Design House is a home for children who have unstable home environment. We went to the meeting because we needed an idea for where NDH would be located. In the meeting we did this Activity which involved money. They gave us 20 stickers and each sticker represented 1 million dollars, they also gave us this paper that had a bunch of different things we would want in the neighborhood such as affordable housing and new schools, day-cares, new movie theaters and markets. Half of my money went toward affordable housing and new schools because if you think about it NDH is a combination of both of those. We are currently still working on where to put it and a design for the interior of the building.

my Experience with (SPURA)

For the past two weeks kashawn and I have been developing our skills on making floor plans on paper. We need this skill to help us plan out the floor scheme for new design housing. NDH is a project that kashawn and I are developing for our principle and his idea of housing several students to help and support them through high school.
Last Wednesday kashawn, Anne, and I attended a community meeting for the Seward Park Urban Renew Area (SPURA). The SPURA site is a part of the lower east side that is government owned; meaning that the community can have a say on what they would like to see in the area. SPURA is located between Essex and Delancey; willet and grand.
When participants arrived they were all given separate numbers depending on where they lived in the L.E.S. because I live in the les I was at table 3 while kashawn and Anne were at table 4. After receiving a number we sat with our groups and introduced ourselves to one another. When the group introductions were done we sat and listened to two speakers talk about the S.P.U.R.A site and its background history from two different points of view. Hearing all the information about the history got us to thinking about what this area can be used for since it hasn’t been used in almost 40 years. When the speaker’s were done with their presentations we participated in group activities in which we had to do as a group and no one was left out.
For first activity was look at a bird’s eye view map of the S.P.U.R.A site and the surrounding areas and mark off what ever you know on the map such as convenience stores or schools and parks etc.…
The second group activity we all were given 20 yellow dots which represented a million dollars each. We were given a list of potential things we can do on the site and added what ever wasn’t on the list that we felt should have been on it. They told us to use up all your money on what we thought we would want to spend it on. So I added the project that kashawn and I are working on the NDH and other stuff. When every body spent there money we were told to calculate the total and report out to everyone what were our top three money makers.
My group’s top three money makers were NDH, affordable housing, and mixed income housing each have a specific reason for being chosen.
NDH was chosen because I explained that NDH is going to be a housing complex for students that have unstable houses or live in foster care. To change the statistics of teen’s dropping out all they need is a strong foundation to stand on. That is what this house is going to be the rock of support under the 60 selected students of new design high school. So everyone thought that the project was a good idea and altogether 15 million dollars was spent on it.
The affordable housing was chosen because honestly who doesn’t want affordable housing and we spent at least 10 million on that. Mixed income housing was chosen because it would be able affordable housing for everyone. No one has to feel like there getting kicked out of there homes because they don’t have the money for it. For example if you charge one person 2500 for rent, then charge a single mother with four kids 800 on rent to work with living situation and leaving enough money for food to be on the table. My group and I came to realize if mixed income buildings were built that it would balance itself out cause of the mixed income being brought into the neighborhood.
It was fun being there even though at first I thought I was going to be board but learning more about the area I live in interested me a lot. Doing the activities I just lost track of time I even forgot for a second that I was with Anne and kashawn. When the night was coming to an end we meet at the front entrance and expressed how we thought the whole thing went and kashawn and I both said that it was fun. Also nerve racking because we both had to stand up and present our top three choices to a room of people we have never meet before but at the same time a learning experience.

lequin's 2nd blog Its My Park Day

Hey this is lequin again here to tell you about what’s been going on here at Hester Street collaborative hmmm where to start well I guess you can say Sara D. Roosevelt Park is watched by its community to assure a better park. Also we as a whole help rejuvenate the park. How one might ask this is being done well first advocated for money, next they created a plan to fix the park, and then we did some creating for example we did stencil project which was making a design for the kids to paint with. The process was complicated yet easy. The first step was to Google search for leaf images and then traces them on thick card stock. After that I laminated it with contact paper then cut the shape out. That wasn’t really a slice of cake, and whoa was it dangerous. This was all for a big event called Its My Park Day on October 25. More on what happened during it’s my park day from what I hear it was great people were helpful, and they did lots of activities like scavenger hunts stenciling, bulb planting for spring, also it’s a semi-annual event that bring together the community. Oh yeah the shirt design if your wondering what happened. The t shirt design is being looked at by the school. Also in the future I will be learning how to print the design on to the shirt once it’s been checked.

T shirt design

Hi there this is Lequin Robinson here with news on what I’ve been working on for the past six weeks. Now where to begin lets see ill start from week 1 man was that week pretty rough trying to draw the letters for the p.s.134 community garden (t) shirt design and also trying to make it almost perfect. Then after that week 2 was even more exhausting doing the lettering that says (at the p.s.134 community garden) that took me at least 25 tries, but it was completely worth it cause I get to improve and learn something new. Soon after that I got to the computer and that was a whole other level of work although it was my first time using adobe Photoshop and illustrator, and just struggling to learn the keys and tools but that too is pretty fun, and this is weeks 4-6. But if I learned anything this past 6 weeks it would be that you shouldn’t be quick to want to give up on something that may help you on the long run.

Building the Tool Shed

Hi, this is Mandy and Connie. We are volunteers here at Hester Street Collaborative. Yesterday, we brought long beams from the P.S. 134 Community Garden to Hester Street to measure and cut them into smaller beams so that they can fit into the tool shed in the garden. Jess cut the wood into long rectangular pieces and small square pieces. Each rectangular beam had to have 2 square pieces to support it. Mandy and Claire drilled holes into these beams. The holes on the beams were all in different places because we had to eyeball where the holes should go. Because of this, there had to be sets of 3 pieces of wood. We created a system where we had to label each set of wood with a letter of the alphabet.

Today we went to the garden to work on installing shelves and hooks to organize the tool shed. In the center of the shed, there will be many hooks to hold shovels, trowels, and rakes. There will also be a total of 8 shelves, 4 on each side. On the right side, the first shelf will be 3 feet from the floor and the others will be 1 foot apart. On the left side, each shelf will be 1 and a half feet apart. Today we (with another intern, Claire) worked on creating the support beams needed to hold the shelves. We had many problems in putting the nails into the beams. Two beams split in half because to too much pressure. Later on today, we will be returning to the garden to continue to work on attaching the support beams to the shed.

Today will probably be our last day posting a new blog (Mandy and Connie) because tomorrow will be the last day we will be working here at Hester Street Collaborative this summer. Good bye and have a nice summer. :]

Finishing our designs

Hi, my name is Helen, i am one of the interns in Hester St Collaborative Design. Yesterday I've been working on t' shirt design and figuring out how to draw the letter H for "WatcH Us Grow". The design for the letter H was suppose to be a butterfly on a branch to make it look like an letter H. I tried out different ways to draw the butterfly and the branch together. It didn't work out because it doesn't look like an H or the butterfly is too big. My co workers, (interns); Melissa, Angela and Vivian were also drawing out the design and finishing the sketching as fast as we can because Vivan and Melissa last day of work is tomorrow. I am going to missed them a lot because we always have fun together and helped each other out.

So yesterday, i finally drew out a nice butterfly on a H instead of a butterfly trying to look like a H on a branch. I feel so proud of myself and my co workers. We basically gather our thoughts and design together and even our supervisor put in their designs. Its our master piece and the best design ever made. I had a lot of fun working in Hester Street Collaborative because i get to experienced a lot of things and doing something crazy such as working on the garden. I've never done that before and I'm glad i did. Afterward, we put all the letters together and scan it on the computer and print it out. This process sounds easy but its not from hours of drawing then we have to put it together. I'm glad we're finally finished with the design. Now we have to trace the design on a contact paper so we can silk screen it on a shirt. So I'll have to go and trace now!

t-shirts and shed plans

Hey, this is Connie and I'm a volunteer at Hester Street Collaborative. Other volunteers are Mandy, Daniel and Alex. Here at HSC, we are learning a lot of new things. For one, I have never made a t-shirt design before and here I experienced the process of silk screening. Everyday HSC is filled with something new to do.
At the P.S. 134 garden, there is a tool shed. Over the time, supplies and miscellaneous objects were piled and thrown in. Right now everything in it is a mess. So, one of our projects is thinking of a way to organize the tool shed. We had to draw out plans and side-views of the interior shed. Using our plans, we decided to put three to four shelves on the three sides of the interior shed. To organize everything, we will buy tubs or crates and label them.
This is Vivian. As with the silk screening, a design was picked out of the interns' and volunteers'. We worked on the design and finalized it. Everyone's been working hard and the table is now covered in layers of tracing paper.
For me and Melissa, this is going to be our last week at HSC. I'm going to miss all the fun projects we did and going to the garden. But, before I leave, I have to finish a research project. My project will be planning a proposal to build a stage at Sara D. Roosevelt Park. On every other Friday, there are performances at the park. The first one was a puppet show and I went to a Chinese Culture Dance Performance. I noticed these events are done on a soccer field. Therefore, I want to design a stage for these events because they seem to have this every summer. If there is a stage, it can be more presentable and not blocking children from using the soccer field. The stage will have to be versatile and able to be used for any kind of performance. I will show a plan of my design using Illustrator.

Silk Screening! :D

After weeks and weeks of sketching, we finally silk screened our designs on paper, wood, and cloth. All of the designs came out better than we thought it would. All the work must had paid off from drawing our design on contact paper and cutting them out with exacto knife. We were so excited silk screening our designs and getting paint all our fingers. Throughout the process, we felt that we have achieved and learned a lot about designing. It also brought back our childhood memories, and for us to think once again like a child. As a child we think things simple and adorable, so our main theme is all about the kids. We had to focus on the phrase "Watch Us Grow" at the P.S 134 Community Garden. Even though the thinking part required a little brainstorming, seeing our designs come out nice made our day!!
Yesterday we started to brainstorm about our research projects. We split up into two groups. Melissa and Vivian went to SDR to take pictures of the part to build a stage for the performances. We, Angela and Helen, went to SDR to take notes of everything that takes place in the park, like the different activities that difference ages groups do. The park was long! It was about 6 blocks long. While walking from the beginning to the end of the park we noticed a lot of things we didn't know about the park. Theres a community garden that is taken care of by communtiy workers. We also learned that the houses from Grand going down to Delancy, the 6 blocks, there are different types of people living on each block. While we were exploring around the park, we saw people performing in front of the kids and the parks are open for everybody. We also saw a huge garden; which took up a whole section of the parks. But no one really takes care of it. And Helen thought of an idea to write her research project on the community gardens that no one takes care of. And as of Angela, she took notes on the different activites and different age groups in the park. Now we should get started on the project. We only have 2 more weeeks!! :(