View Murals in Spanish Harlem Saturday with Puffin Walking Tour

Some artwork is too grand to be contained in a gallery, which is why this Saturday anyone interested in learning about murals will go to where the art is and view paintings in a way their creators intended them to be seen – splashed on buildings, sidewalks and courtyards.

Sponsored by the Puffin Cultural Forum, the “Murals and Mosaics in Spanish Harlem” will be led by artist George Zavala. Participants will meet at noon at the East Harlem Café and spend about two hours viewing the historic murals that were created from the late 1970s to the present.

According to the Puffin’s event calendar, the tour will begin with the “Spirit of East Harlem” at 104th Street “and include a visit to the Modesto Flores Garden at Lexington Avenue and 106th Street with depictions of Frida Kahlo and Julia de Burgos painted by local artist Yasmin Hernandez, and the ever-changing Graffiti Wall of Fame on Park Avenue and 106th Street.”

Merri Milwe, artistic director of the , said she’s seen many of the murals that’ll be featured on the walking tour on the different occasions when she has gone to visit Zavala, who is a friend of hers. She asked Zavala to not only help with the walking tour but also to tie it together later in the month with an art show focused on labor in the United States.

“The idea for the show having to do with unions and the labor movement in America came from Perry and Gladys Rosenstein (president and executive director, respectively, of the Puffin Foundation),” Milwe said. “And when I realized that I was going to be putting together a show that was going to be dealing with those issues, the only thing I could think of that represented that was murals.”

Zavala said there are close to 100 murals in East Harlem, but the walking tour will focus only on a few that are located on sides of buildings and in courtyards. Zavala said he’s part of a crew that’s working to restore some of the murals in the area and that this will be the first time he’s ever given a tour about the murals.

“The underlying theme for most of these murals involves the Latino immigrant experience coming into the barrio – some of them feature well-known patriots and poets from Puerto Rican history,” Zavala said. “The Puerto Rican community started coming into the barrio in the 1930s, and in the ’40s and ’50s there was a big influx of Puerto Ricans coming into Spanish Harlem. That was actually when it started becoming Spanish Harlem; it was basically Italian and Irish before that.”

Reservations are recommended for the walking tour, and there’s a $15 suggested donation.

‘THE WRITING’S ON THE WALL’ EXHIBIT

From Nov. 20 through Jan. 5, the Puffin Cultural Forum will host “The Writing’s on the Wall: Labor in the U.S.”

Curated by Zavala, this exhibit will include the works of artists Virginia Ayress and Mike Alewitz and will focus on the history of labor, unions and workers’ rights.

The opening reception for this exhibit will begin at 5 p.m. on Nov. 20 and will feature the contributing artists, as well as speakers and activists who will discuss issues such as unions, labor, and jobs in the U.S. from the beginning of the labor movement in the 1930s to what’s happening today in Wisconsin (collective bargaining rights) and with Occupy Wall Street.  

“One of my ideas for these two artists (Ayress and Alewitz) to talk about on the opening night and to try to show through their work is that I don’t think you can separate the immigrant experience from the worker experience, especially in the United States,” Zavala said.

Speakers will include Hetty Rosenstein, New Jersey director for the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and CWA's District 1 organizing director; Joshua Freeman, author and professor at Queens College, CUNY; and Esther Cohen, an activist, writer, teacher and curator.

Cohen said she plans to describe a project she started 10 years ago called “Unseen America.”

“The notion of the project is that people tell their own stories through pictures,” Cohen said. “And what I wanted was to create a visual history of this country from the perspective of nannies and home-health workers and cab drivers and teachers and nurses – all the people who make this society work. [On Oct. 27], the 900^th class, which is restaurant workers from Windows on the World (which lost 73 restaurant workers when the towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001) … we did a class with survivors from Windows on the World about what it looks like to be a restaurant worker.”

The project that features the Windows on the World workers will be up through Jan. 27 at the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

“I’m really interested in people telling their own stories – workers depicting their lives from their perspective as a way of everyone understanding what it means to be a restaurant worker or a taxi driver or a home-health aide or a construction worker,” Cohen said. “I’m really interested in people telling their stories as a way for all of us to understand what society is about. Workers often aren’t present in the media, and I’m convinced that we have to figure out ways of telling workers’ stories.”

FIVE-WEEK MURAL WORKSHOP

Beginning on Nov. 19 and continuing over the next four Saturdays (for a total of five sessions), those interested in creating a mural can join Zavala for a hands-on, collaborative workshop.

The cost for the workshop, which will take place from noon to 2 p.m. each Saturday, is $75 and includes all the materials needed to complete the mural. Participants will share ideas and create sketches that ultimately will be painted on the main back wall of the Puffin gallery.

For more information about Puffin events, visit the Puffin Cultural Forum.