Falling in Love with Fresno

A couple of weeks ago we had a speaker come talk to us about downtown revitalization named Craig Scharton.

In his vision, he wants to make downtown Fresno the hot spot of all the cities in the valley. He is helping us out because we are working on our mural project, which involves the history of Fresno, architecture, and revitalization. Personally, I would love to see it get more popular and if we increase the night life here a lot more people would come.  Craig wants to put more night clubs and restaurants in downtown Fresno. If he succeeds at this more people would stay here in Fresno instead of leaving. In doing so, once there are more people here, we could conserve what we have, instead of moving to places and taking over.  We could be eco friendly and make downtown bigger. I would love to see that. Another thing that Craig wants is to, basically, make you fall in love with downtown Fresno; always have something nice around every corner of the city.  I love it already, as it is, because of the bigger buildings, more space, and because there is more activity going on there than anywhere else. Craig also said something about cleaning up the graffiti here in Fresno because it makes it look "dangerous". Personally, I think it gives it character and it shows people that visit that aren’t from here, that we have a lot of artists and an artistic culture here in Fresno. Anyway, I support what Craig Scharton does and what he wants to do and I think it would be for the better.

                                                                                                             -Bruno Gonzalez

More to Architecture and Design than meets the eye...

Kiel Famellos-Schmidt, the Muralistic’s latest guest speaker, came to Edison High to speak about his profession and how it relates to revitalization. He explained to us what architecture is and how it works. He went through the process that he goes through before an actual building is built. One of the steps in his process caught my attention. Before his visitation at Edison High I assumed things about architecture and didn’t really think much about the process. He went into detail about how he works with geographers and communities to make sure that the building is built to survive the conditions it is around, and for it to benefit the community around it. Another thing Kiel talked about was a mobile work station, which is a small shed like station that people with special skills such as skills used in construction could go to, to find work and have shelter instead of standing in parking lots when it is raining or standing in the blistering sun. These stations are made for communities and benefit communities by providing work for those who are unemployed and basically making an office for people to go to if they are in need of people skilled in certain areas. After Kiel’s presentation I felt more positive about me wanting to become an architect. I think we all learned a great deal from his presentation. Erik

Freezing for arts sake...

So on the Muralistics' latest endeavor for research on our mural, we embarked on a walking tour of downtown Fresno, to become better acquainted with our lovely town, and soon to be cultural arts mecca. We started off our day at the Iron Bird Cafe, from there, equipped with our umbrellas and beanies we walked around the cafe and surrounding buildings learning about the history behind the murals in that area as well as the new architecture. We later went and visited the site of our mural, and discovered a dilemma with painted brick that we will soon be faced with.Then, headed to Arte Americas and met  Nancy Marquez, who gave us a really fascinating tour of the place, along with a very informational history lesson on the district we will be painting our mural in. She told us how downtown was once a lively and fun place were people went for all sorts of entertainment. Fascinated, we continued to tour the surrounding area, talking about its history and the art. After a much needed warm tea break we visited the old crumbling cultural arts mural, and saw how it served as a metaphor for the crumbling cultural arts district. Finally, we had some relief from the elements and took shelter to talk about our day and how it was a very fulfilling trip. Many of us had known little to none about our hometowns downtown and how it once thrived. We were all inspired to bring back the roar that downtown Fresno once hailed. Though the weather for the day was not ideal, the experience was more than we could have anticipated.  Micheal