by Meg Hadzinsky
A new, public mural adorns the formerly blank, cement wall along the south side of Tremont’s Lincoln Park Gazebo. The public mural project is the work of Angelica Pozo, a resident of Tremont as well as the founder of Tremont Artist In Residence program, also known as Tremont AIR. We caught up with Pozo during the final public tile decorating session, held at the iconic Literary Café, to find out how she involved and reflected so much of the Tremont community in this piece of public history, now on display.
The Tremonster: What was the impetus for the Tremont Artist in Residence Program?
Pozo: I would say the impetus for this project came almost 10 years ago. Tremont Gardeners first started in 2006. They were gardening in Lincoln Park and one of the Tremont Gardeners said, ‘Angelica, what would it take to have a mural put here? That was when I really started thinking about it.
The Tremonster: What were your first thoughts about this ambitious, neighborhood-wide project?
Pozo: What it would take; what we have available…here in Tremont, we have a lot of artists as well as the general public who, especially once you’re an adult, don’t get a lot of art experiences since they were in school. I wanted to do a project that would engage at all those levels.
The Tremonster: How have you engaged Tremont at all levels for this mural?
Pozo: We have tiles being created by the general public – numbering over 700 tiles that will be in the mural that we’ve been working on – those do not require any skill level. They’re very simple, and we have shapes that people can follow. The glaze colors they use is in a glaze pan, so they just squeeze them on in a linear fashion, so it’s a very accessible process.
The Tremonster: Have you engaged Tremont’s art community as well?
Pozo: Yes. Those [general public] tiles are surrounding ‘historical’ tiles, or tiles that will have historical images of Tremont. Those artists – from professional to amateur artists to students from Tremont Montessori School – are depicting on tiles, historic buildings or older buildings still in use.
