VISUAL ARTS Quinn’s desire to honor his childhood continues to breathe its own life through his art. Each piece is deeply connected to people’s humanity. He grew up witnessing “addicts of all kinds, drug addicts, alcoholics, hustlers,” and his friends as “all gang members and drug dealers.” However, at a young age, he recognized that these circumstances and “things of that nature were also just a shadow of no form, no solidity, and no concreteness—that no one seemed to have cared about them over time” was the reality shaping their lives. The final pieces presented that night represented his last living family member: his nephew, whom he is no longer in contact with. “Through [this painting], my nephew will live forever,” he said. The painting reflects his lost relationship to his unnamed nephew who broke his trust and lied. Quinn introduced him as “blood without commitment.” Then, Quinn turned to the audience and explained, “I imagined that... the pain of this betrayal is made permanent.
So, this is really a true visual reflection of how I feel.” In describing his painting, Quinn speaks with humbled compassion about its subject. Quinn’s work engages in realities without judgement, reflecting “another world that expresses real complexity and the rainbow light spectrum of humanity.” He encouraged the room to accept that “when you look at this work, you're not just looking at a reflection of this guy that none of you have ever met. You are, in fact, looking at a reflection of you. This is what you look like as well. Your identity is as complex and jarring and confusing and crude as this.” In sight, each portrait is a map from Quinn’s artistic and human dimensions. Quinn emphasizes that complexity with his choice of materials. “I found these ways to combine these wet and dry materials together, which is not a particularly easy thing to do,” he said. It also allows him to connect to his childhood. “I love to draw. When you work with a paint stick, it's a tool
that you hold. There's no brush, but it feels like drawing. That allows me to do the sort of things I've enjoyed doing ever since I was a child.” Despite his paintings’ visual complexity, Quinn stressed they are not collages. He explained that this was how his childhood experiences and memories artistically present themselves, and encouraged the audience to carefully listen to each painting—his life experiences in that present moment. Memories of growing up in the Robert Taylor Homes continue to influence Quinn’s artistic impulses. Quinn explained, “I just operate from the vision that is from my upbringing. Because growing up in the Robert Taylor Homes, you couldn't really make plans every day because the violence was so high. So, the moment you stepped out your door, you had to be able to think fast on your feet. That is evident in my studio practice and it works for me.” He went on, “and while that history is behind me, while it may seem that on some
level that I am indeed disconnected from it, I am still at the same time very much connected to it.” A final question perfectly ended the night. An audience member asked if he ever felt that he “needed to leave Chicago to find his voice, to find his [place],” leaving Quinn in deep reflection. After pausing, Quinn concluded, “No, I did not feel that way. But when I left Chicago, that’s when I felt like [I was escaping] from poverty.” “But you can't run away from yourself.”¬
programs coordinator at Gads Hill, said the organization has partnered with The Resurrection Project, the Pilsen Neighborhood Council, and other neighborhood organizations to maximize the impact of their outreach efforts. Fear of deportation has been a significant barrier to convincing many immigrants— documented or otherwise—to fill out the census. “A lot of families fear that this is information that is going to be used for other purposes” such as identifying those who may lack immigration documents, Garcia said. In February, the Trump administration announced it would be sending Customs and Border Patrol tactical units to Chicago and other sanctuary cities, a move that could exacerbate fears and depress census responses further. “Immigrants are really under siege,” Garcia said. “Some of our communities are really scared. Immigrants have been an easy target for this administration, and as such, that is our fear—that they are not going to participate even at the sixty-five percent that they participated in 2010 because of the constant attacks.” Rubio added that when outreach teams
have talked to families, they have often heard concerns about whether the census asks for place of birth or citizenship status. She and her teams have reassured them it does not. Since schools closed March 17, Garcia said the organization has been able to stay in touch with 996 families, or about eighty-five percent of their clients. “We are very confident that a significant percentage of [these] families are going to fill out the census form, because they have been reminded constantly, every week” by outreach staff. Gads Hill also followed up with email blasts to former after-school program participants to ensure they knew how and when to fill out the census. “The consequences are so deep and long-lasting,” Garcia said. “I feel that every organization that has a strong relationship and trust with the communities we serve has to be participating in the census.” ¬
Images from Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s “Soil, Seed, and Rain” are available for view on the Rhona Hoffman Gallery’s website, rhoffmangallery.com Jocelyn Vega is a contributing editor to the Weekly. She last wrote in March about census outreach efforts by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Census Spotlight Gads Hill Center
BY JIM DALEY
O
n March 10, a parade of dozens of young people marched down Ogden Avenue in Douglas Park on the city’s Southwest Side. Decked out in bright yellow t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Count Me—Inclúyeme,” the grade-school children, led by after-school educators from the nonprofit family resource organization Gads Hill Center, carried brightly colored crepe-paper pom-poms and handmade signs that read “Census 2020: Children Count.” The vibrant parade would be the last census outreach event Gads Hill was able to hold in person. The following week, an order by Governor J.B. Pritzker closed schools across the state in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Since then, Gads Hill has transitioned to doing census outreach primarily online. Founded in 1898 as a settlement house—a social reform movement championed by Jane Addams—on Chicago’s lower West Side, Gads Hill Center provides after-school programming and resources to families in Pilsen, North and South Lawndale, Little Village, Brighton Park, and Chicago Lawn. “Our mission is to build
opportunities for children and their families to build strong lives through education, access to resources, and community,” said executive director Maricela Garcia. In addition to allocation of Congressional representation, the census determines the community’s access to resources, which affects the center’s mission. “Billions of dollars in federal money is calculated based on the count,” she said. Garcia said the community the center serves is at risk of being undercounted in the census. In 2010, the census response rate was between sixty and sixty-five percent in the communities Gads Hill serves. Gads Hill works with immigrants, families who are in transition from homelessness, and people who don’t speak English—all groups that are at risk of being undercounted. The organization also serves children less than five years old, “which is also a historically undercounted population,” Garcia said. “We’re very concerned that the communities that need the most programs and investments in their neighborhoods are the ones that are historically undercounted.” Rosa Rubio, the community
Jim Daley is the Weekly’s politics editor.
APRIL 15, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
