Mapping Mart

http://www.finearts.utexas.edu/news/news_items/mcp.cfm?calset=aah

Left: “Mr Bacy was a good man. He would let you have credit long as you pay him. I remember going in there getting soda, candy, mostly anything. Hair cuts, eyebrow arch and shoe shines, just a good place to have in Mart. I still miss him.”

(Note: Any help deciphering the handwriting on the right would be most welcome!)

Comments provided in response to the Bacy poster (below) by participants at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) “Your Town” Rural Citizen’s Design Workshop from November 3rd - 5th, 2011.

A Mart Narrative

By Elisa Alvarado, James Barela, Daowz Sutasirisap

An oral history of the forgotten Wise Cemetery and the Smith property located in Mart, TX was mapped according to a narration by owner Jeannie Smith.  This personal account documents the Smith family story, the development and history of the property, and the many glass bottles and marbles that have been found on the site.

Mart Dérive

By Angie Calderon, Michael Jarrott, and Zac Norris

A dérive is a practice in psychogeography in which one goes on an unplanned journey throughout an urban environment, allowing one’s senses and external stimuli to influence the route taken. Upon arriving to Mart on October 10, 2011, we accompanied Mart High School student Daniel Kunkel on a dérive of our own. This book catalogs that journey and the peculiarities encountered.

Path of Projections

By Laura Cole, Chris Davis, and Lisa Rogers

Our Book details a single journey through town with Taylor Kennedy, a senior at Mart High School. Taylor and two other students, Lane Cobbs and Nicholas Allen, also visited us at UT. They provided their unique memories, perspectives, and observations relating to the places we encountered on our route, giving us a more youthful and personal view of Mart.

A Week in Mart, Tx with Logan Evans

By Lauren Griffin, Karen Soriano, and Raquel Breternitz

Because we were interested in discovering and presenting a more personal perspective on Mart, TX, we interviewed a local high school student about his daily life. We converted the information we gathered into a spatial map of the main places he visits diurnally, supported by a schedule of a typical week in his life and a few interesting facts about each place. We also accompanied this infographic and map with a written bio to provide a clearer depiction of his personality.

Trevor’s Mart

By Kirsten Schroder, Kyle Scallon, and Ciara Wilkison

Walking around town with a high school sophomore named Trevor shed light on how Mart is perceived through the eyes of a resident. A taste of his memories, feelings and experiences is exhibited on our map of Mart.

Mart, African American social hubs of the mid 1900s & Bacy Barber Shop

By Lance Green, Nicole DePalma, and Shannon Vanderhill 

Our goal was to provide a map that would encourage the citizens of Mart to investigate their town’s hidden history. From the interviews, articles, and pictures we compiled, we put together a poster that communicates the information we found on one of the locations referenced in our map, the Bacy Barber Shop. We hope to continue this process and eventually have a poster on each of the places we have identified and more places that have gone unidentified throughout Mart, thus, enriching the future Mart with stories from the past.

Tree Coverage

by Kyle Scallon

Studying satellite imagery from Google maps, I confirmed that Mart’s main street, Texas Avenue, where the majority of commercial and retail buildings are located, has no trees lining its sidewalks. There was, however, a significant amount of trees populating the residential areas. I mapped an area that included the commercial buildings on the main street, the residential buildings two blocks North and two blocks South of the strip, and all of the tree coverage in that area. The commercial buildings were represented as grey blocks, and the residential buildings were represented as blue blocks. To graphically represent the tree coverage I utilized a radial circular form and used two shades of green to differentiate between dense and less dense tree coverage. Inspired by Lynn Osgood’s lecture revealing how tree coverage is directly related to the popularity of a city park in Austin, I  added some information from an article by Dan Burden, titled 22 Benefits of Urban Street Trees.

Schools, Parks, Roads and Tax Appraisal Data

by Kirsten Schroder

Studying county tax appraisal data from a website which provides the values of each house in Mart based on sold prices, public records of assessed value, and Texas real estate information, I set out to explore the question of what determines house values in Mart. My research indicated a clear division between the more valuable homes in the north east of the town and lower-priced homes in the south west part. I examined possible influencing factors such as the locations of the schools in Mart, the locations of parks, and roads that Mart’s comprehensive plan delegates as “in need of repair.” I illustrated the price differences with a gradation of color, averaging the house values of each particular block in Mart. Parks and schools are all represented by rectangles. Streets in need of repair are represented by dotted lines.