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WHAT MAKES US KEEP READING?

It's a question I had never formally asked myself until I started working on the Place It! book: Why do I keep reading a book to its end? And why would I return to a book I've already read to read all or parts of it again? And have these reasons changed in the day and age of short attention spans and a world in flux? 

One of the fundamental challenges of any form of creative work you share with a broader audience is that you have no idea how people will respond to it, and yet the audience is almost always there, floating in the background of the creative process and later as recipients of the final product. Bands make wild, reckless early albums, ostensibly making the music first and foremost for themselves and fueled by a particular brand of creativity - one brimming with newness and possibility. Then enter being discovered and suddenly there are fans, previous albums, and accompanying expectations that invariably factor in to the creative process - however much the band might try to ignore them. What will make people keep listening? What will make us keep making music? Suddenly the creative process risks becoming less wild, less reckless, less all of the things that drove people to the music in the first place.

These questions began running through my mind most notably when I began working on Chapter 2 of the Place It! book, a chapter that starts out by introducing the reader to a place and neighborhood most have not heard of but that is the setting for the narrative arc of our book: South Colton. Not just "What will make people keep reading this?" ran through my mind but also, "What would make me stop reading this part of the book?" It was not hard to answer at all: a list of demographics, summing the neighborhood up by way of figures, charts, and graphs. In essence, presenting a place devoid of memory, stories, lives, landscapes, streets, sidewalks, storefronts, all the things and more that make a place a place. 

So I had to figure out how to keep telling a story, only this time about a place with a complicated history whose story could easily be told through the lens of struggle and being short-changed but that is much more layered and can be found within everything from the memories of the people who live there to the ways in which they have adorned their parkways. 

-John

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JAMES INTERVIEWED FOR LA TIMES ARTICLE ON RETHINKING PUBLIC SPACE 

Entitled "Nine ideas for making our city's public space more race equitable" a recent article in the LA Times featured some of the biggest urban thinkers and artists of color - including James - on changes big and small we need to make in the public realm. To read the full article, click HERE

Out of this article has been borne a task force moderated by LA City's Christopher Hawthorne on immediate ways in which these ideas can now be translated into tangible and real changes within LA's public realm.  

Photo courtesy of Nick Swartsell, news editor of Cincinnati's CityBeat.

-John and James

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VIDEOS

I think I knew on an intuitive level that video would ultimately become a medium James and I would turn to. Coronavirus then pushed that inkling over the edge and into reality. James has been making videos highlighting current and past workshops, while I have been translating my landscape work and ideas over the past 15 years into four-minute shorts - videos James describes as "landscape comedies." The underlying impetus behind each of our sets of videos is the desire to reach broader, more diverse audiences, to spark curiosity and wonder about both cities and the natural world.

In my case, I am so keenly aware of how the landscape world has a real diversity problem. You could chalk it up to a staggeringly expensive design education (a formal landscape education I forewent for that very reason) coupled with, upon graduation, landscape jobs that are very low-paying - where they even exist at all. No doubt these elusive, less-than-lucrative positions reflect an era in which horticultural knowledge is hugely undervalued and in which our economy is unable to capture the intrinsic value of nature and natural systems. But it's more than this. It also stems from a profession that increasingly feels like it is made up of professionals only talking to each other and all saying similar things, all the while our country becomes ever more diverse and comprised of populations who relate to nature in oftentimes differing and layered ways.

Writes James Hitchmough, author of Sowing Beauty, on a growing insistence amongst landscape professionals of the use of only native plants despite the potentially limited appeal of this approach amongst diverse audiences: "We know from research that [Bangladeshis in East London] and many other primarily urban-based ethnic groups are less well represented in visits to the countryside, and that notions of identity in these urban-based cultures are not strongly formed by romantic notions about... native landscapes. The tendency is to believe that these notions should be instilled through education, but this is surely just cultural hegemony that is out of kilter with the realities of migration and the future of the global city."

It's an observation that squares with our own work with diverse audiences across the country. Indeed, both James (Rojas) and I understand even more how the entry point to exploring nature, and exploring cities and urban planning, should be curiosity and joy, not a set of rules. Let folks explore, make mistakes, grow, and create meaning in the ways that are personal and exciting to them.

Anyway, enough talk. On to the videos.

To watch John's videos, you can click HERE.

To watch James's, you can click HERE.  

-John

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WORKSHOPS

We have been busy doing Place It! workshops online, and they are continuing to be a welcome respite for folks from endless hours of screen time and Zoom meetings. Recently, we did a workshop with landscape students at the University of Washington and their professor, Jeff Hou. The above model is Jeff's, which he describes as "a mini train ride for kids during the pandemic when all playgrounds are closed." Above his are some of the other students' creations they made in their dorms, apartments, and homes. 

Other workshops we've led over the past month have included "Community Dialogues on Homelessness" hosted by the Universal Human Rights Initiative and Calvary Baptist Church; "Front Porch Talk: Race and Place It" organized by Madeline Spencer of Placemaking US; and a Safe Routes to School Workshop for the Spare the Air Youth Program Technical Advisory Committee Meeting.

We do miss being all together, face to face, for the workshops, and really look forward to that day when we'll be able to do these again, but the online workshops have served as a useful and refreshing interim solution.  

-John and James

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Well, that's all for now. As always, we'd like to thank everyone who donated to the campaign and helped us reach 110% of our goal. The writing continues. Stay tuned for Tales of Writing the Place It! Book Issue 3, and stay safe.

-John and James

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