- Hi, I am Hermene Hartman, (uplifting music) and you are looking at "N'DIGO STUDIO."

And we welcome you, we welcome you to our living room, and today we're going to talk about a historic community on the south side of Chicago: Woodlawn!

It is being defined by challenges, but most of all, it is changing.

And we are going to see a new future in Woodlawn.

At the heart of this transition, stands the Obama Presidential Center.

It's a landmark project that will bring visitors to Chicago, and it's also bringing about a modern day Renaissance.

It's the 17th such presidential center in America, and it will be unique.

But from the Obama Center, we will see new life, new businesses, new opportunities.

So join us as we talk about the Obama Center.

It's going to be more than brick and mortar.

It's going to return a neighborhood where Barack and Michelle Obama's journey began.

And so now we're gonna talk about the reshaping of local life and what that transformation really, really, really will look like.

N'digo Studio, N'digo Studio Funding for this program has been provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission, Community Trust.

CineCity Studios, Lamborghinis Chicago, Gold Coast and Downers Grove.

Commonwealth Edison and Broadway Chicago We're going to talk to Congress.

She is the founder of the Urban Market Exchange, and Quandra has been in corporate America as a human resource person, and now you're bringing all of that energy and all of that education and all of that talent.

You're bringing it home, bringing it to Woodlawn.

So tell me, Quandra, what is your vision for the Urban Market Exchange, and why Woodlawn?

- Why Woodlawn?

Why not Woodlawn?

- [Hermene] Why not Woodlawn?

- It's an amazing historical African American community right there in the heart of the South side.

I wanna see more minority businesses back in our community.

I wanted to see that local economy back in our communities where we could walk, work, and play.

That's something important to me.

As a child, my mom would always talk about Woodlawn and Bronzeville and how they had so many beautiful shops and theaters.

And unfortunately when I was born, I never got a chance to see that.

I saw the devastation, I saw the broken windows, the devastated buildings, the vacant lots, and it just inspired me to want to see more of those local businesses back in our communities.

- So how has your corporate experience turned you into an entrepreneur?

- That is a great question!

(laughs) - [Hermene] They're different.

- It's very different!

I actually never saw myself as an entrepreneur.

Always, I felt like my mom and my sisters were the hustlers.

They were the entrepreneurs of the family.

I always wanted to be like them.

But one day I just got that tap on the shoulder, I call it being fired.

Why?

Being black?

And I got that letter saying you being laid off, and so.

That'll do it.

And I did it.

So I went to an entrepreneurial course at the YWCA, and I saw all these amazing entrepreneurs sitting there talking about their challenges and how once they left these, programs, they had nowhere else to go.

And then I ended up going to Sunshine Enterprises, and once again, and the stories continue about wanting to scale their business and grow their business, but they just didn't have a place to do it.

And one day during a pandemic, I was actually on phone with Johan's.

He was asking me about a makerspace of sorts.

Regarding how can makers come to sunshine and have something?

And I was like, well, sunshine doesn't have something, but I think I can do it.

I think this is something I can do.

And so we purchased the building and that's and the rest is history.

And so now you're in the process of renovating the building.

Yes.

The Obama Center opens in spring of 26 and you will open in.

March of 2020, while at the same.

Time, not same time.

All right.

That's good.

Dana, you are a fine art is your work is absolutely beautiful and can be found at Chicago Public Schools, Boys and Girls Club, Metropolitan Family Services Gallery, Dinard, Navy Pier, and you've been a featured artist with the Chicago Jazz Festival?

Yes.

So tell me about.

Well, tell me why you two are going to be, in the urban market exchange and what that means to you?

Because this is important for artists to have a place.

What does that mean to you?

- So, looking back on my journey, I've always had to kind of take the pieces and then put them together and make them apply to, you know, whatever I was trying to do at the time, I could never really find a direct path.

I went through the program at Sunshine, that's how I met Quandra.

- So wait a minute.

You all keep talking about Sunshine.

What is Sunshine?

- So Sunshine is a not-for-profit in the Woodlawn community where we help small businesses in disadvantaged communities grow and strengthen their business.

- Okay, so they're looking for people who really want go into business, right?

- [Quandra] Absolutely.

- Okay.

- It's a 12-week course, and then when you, actually, the best thing about Sunshine is after the 12-week course, they have programming so that you can tap in.

So whatever your business needs may be down the line, you can always reach out to Sunshine and get more help.

And so, Quandra, my nickname for her is The Plug, because whenever I needed help, she was the person I would contact, and Yohance, he was one of my mentors as well.

- So were you all in the program together at the same time?

- [Quandra And Dana] No.

- So I graduated and eventually I ended up getting a job at Sunshine.

And so coming from that mindset of I know these entrepreneurs, the type of resources they need, I hit the streets and I talked to every organization I could about the resources they could bring to our entrepreneurs.

And so when Dana called and she needed something, I was on it right away to give her that support.

- So Dana, you are an artist, a fine artist, and most of all, you like painting children to show joy.

- Yeah.

- Tell me about that, what stimulates that?

- I grew up in Woodlawn, technically Woodlawn, and I went to school in Hyde Park.

And so the Museum of Science and Industry was maybe a 15-minute walk from my house.

And back when I was young it was free and- - It's not free anymore?

- No, ma'am.

- Oh, okay.

(Dana laughs) Okay, it was free when I was a little girl too.

- Yeah, it was free, and then the beach was right there.

So that was something that I did with my friends all the time.

We would walk to the museums, play, go to the beach.

That was my childhood on the south side of Chicago.

It was beautiful.

And when I, I actually started my children's series when I was watching the news one afternoon, and there were three stories of about young Black men, 12 to 14.

And they had mug shots of these children.

And I was like, that's not what I saw growing up.

I'm a Black woman who grew up on the south side.

I wanted to depict the joy that I experienced, so.

- So you like, you like doing children.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, they're beautiful.

- Thank you.

- Beautiful paintings.

- Yohance, before art, Pulitzer Prize, Peabody.

Tell me about that Peabody and that Pulitzer Prize and how it came about.

- Yeah, so I did some time and prior to having done my time, back in the late nineties, there was a, try to get a quick version.

There was a little boy, his name was Lenard Clark.

He lived in Stateway Gardens.

He got beat like within inches of his life by a mob of Italians in Bridgeport.

- [Hermene] They beat him up.

- They beat him up.

And these particular Italians had ties that went back to like Al Capone.

So this was like Italian mafia.

It wasn't like a hit.

They were just trying to keep, you know, Bridgeport historically racist, almost like a sundown town of a neighborhood.

They trying to, you know, just keep Black folks outta the neighborhood.

So they just targeted a 13-year-old boy, beat him almost to death.

- Wasn't he riding his bike?

- He was riding his bike.

He was actually went to Bridgeport to get air for the tire in his bike because air in Bridgeport was free, but air in the projects that he came from cost 50 cents or something like that, right?

And so I investigated that case back then.

It was a lot of different forces, kind of trying to push that story from coming to light- - Were you a reporter?

- I was a reporter, kind of like a renegade rogue reporter.

I've been writing all my life.

I was, father taught me how to read and write really early, play with his typewriter as a little kid.

I've always been artistic and creative, always been into writing and storytelling.

Landscape in terms of journalism at the time, I couldn't get that story out like I wanted to.

And fast forward, I got a little deeper into the streets.

I did some time behind that.

When I came home, I got in with this newsroom called The Invisible Institute, amazing newsroom also in Woodlawn.

And I was able to create a audio journalism, investigative journalism podcast with them about that story and that story- - "You Didn't See Nothin," that was the name of your podcast.

- "You Didn't See Nothin."

- What does that mean?

- When this boy was attacked, you know, he's in Bridgeport, so it's mostly Italians and Irish folks.

Police show up on the scene and the crowds of people outside who were talking to police and reporters are actually trying to cover for the young men that beat this little boy up.

There was a Mexican guy there who was starting to tell the police what he saw, what happened.

'cause he wasn't a Bridgeport native, right?

And as he's telling the police what actually happened, in a very threatening manner, Bridgeport residents, like, "You didn't see nothing!"

Right?

And that was like a veiled threat.

Like, you know, like basically, "Shut your mouth, you know what I mean?

Before we shut it for you."

And so to kind of put that in context of the storytelling, we chose that title because this happened in '97 and you didn't see nothing.

So many people didn't know about it because the story wasn't properly told.

So it was maybe double, triple entendre there in terms of the picking a name.

- But you got a Peabody and you did seven episodes.

- Yes, there were seven.

It was a seven episode limited series.

We won a Peabody and a Pulitzer.

- Wow.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

- That's no easy feat, And it's a wonderful feat for an independent news person.

- Yeah, no, I appreciate, and I just, I do wanna say that, like, I would just want to give like a lot of props to The Invisible Institute and the audio team there.

'cause it's, like, no way I could have done that without them.

But yeah, super grateful.

- So while you were incarcerated, you learned something.

Tell me what you learned.

- Yeah, I picked up leather work.

- Leather work!

You a leather artist.

- I am, I am.

When I was in federal prison for drug charges and they had a hobby craft department.

It was really designed for guys to just kind of, it was actually kind of a money scheme.

I tell people this and they get to thinking, "Oh, you know, some good programming in prison for folks," it ain't really how it is.

You know, we, it was something for us to do, I'm thankful for that.

we would order leather from and tools from.

For instance, if I get $100 worth of leather, I got to pay like $140, and the prison system's getting $40.

So it was a real way to kind of tax us.

Right?

So it was a it was a money scheme for them.

You had to buy the leather.

Oh yeah.

And there was no formal training.

We had taught, we kind of taught each other.

We did have access to tools, right?

And so guards would allow us to use the tools under supervision, because you got you dealing with sharp objects or whatever.

So there was always a guard there to let you take tools out and guards there to take them, you know, from you when hobby craft closed.

In terms of learning how to do it, I just had to learn by watching other inmates who had done that 10, 20 years or whatever.

So they were very skilled, but they were self taught.

- There's no teacher, teachers?

- There's no teacher, right?

So what I tell people- - So you just learning through trial and error and self-taught.

- Exactly.

- And watching others do.

- Yep.

- Wow!

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So I owe a lot to the guys I was locked up with, you know, because- - So now you're doing shoes.

- Yeah.

So now I make shoes- - And purses.

- And purses and bags and leather artwork.

- And you are original, these are bespoke things.

- [Yohance] Yes.

- So there's no, everything's an original work of art.

- Everything is an original work of art.

However, I have gotten to the point where some of my, like, more popular designs, I'm now getting them manufactured by a manufacturer who still hand makes them in Portugal.

And so when I'm here, I'm making something as a commission.

One on one.

But I do have shoes being manufactured because I just can't make, with so many shoes in a day, you know?

So what does it take to make a shoe?

How long does it take?

And then how much does it cost you?

It depends on the process and the materials.

It can, it can it can make a pair of shoes in eight hours.

That's a day.

That's a to day's work.

Yeah.

If it's, if it's, but obviously that requires having already sourced auto materials and, you know, and it can cost from, for me to hand make a pair myself can cost anywhere, upwards of $500.

And that's like $500.

It's pretty inexpensive for me to spend a whole day making a shoe out of leather, but it can go up to a couple grand.

A couple of grand for some tennis shoe.

Yeah.

Depending on, like, sometimes people might want, like, real ostrich or real eels.

I can try to price up some.

Sometimes somebody might want to, a very intricate design.

This is going to take more time, right?

If I'm planning an entirely new silhouette and I gotta create a whole new sketch, they might want to brand it so it can.

It can get expensive.

Now, who's your customer?

My customer is, generally, it's interesting cuz I got, I got a, I got because of my, my own background.

One of my, one of my customers is actually, straight.

Do you know, people who have been through, what?

Some of what I've been through.

Right.

You know, I did I did time and I was, I was at the time, for what reason?

So people walk that path and, you know, and that's one of my customers, because I started working at Chicago.

So Shoemaker, which is up in Ravenswood, also wound up getting, like, some kind of, gold calls, white women type customers.

That just kind of happened by, by chance.

And so I got this real interesting kind of mix of audience right now.

It works beautiful.

- Dana, how do you choose what you paint?

I know that the children are of specialty and an interest, but you do other things too.

How do you make those decisions?

- (laughs) So I think that's always the artist dilemma.

I oftentimes, I'll have dreams about the next series, the next thing I should tackle also, you know, I understand that my artistic platform gives me a voice.

So if there are things that I feel like society needs to address, I'll put those things within a series as well, so.

- Now, Quandra, you're providing a hub for artists.

- Yes.

- And you're not looking at just the beauty of their art.

- Right.

- But the business of their art, - The business.

- So they will individually be entrepreneurs in your space to sell their work.

- Yes.

- How will that work?

How will you recruit?

What other artists are you looking at?

How's that going to work for you?

- So every market exchange, our target market is artists, makers, and creators.

I'm hoping to just, through the work that I do at Sunshine Enterprise, reach out to other artists.

- So you're gonna stay at Sunshine too?

- I'm there, yeah, we're there.

- And you're gonna do Urban Market Exchange?

- Until something, until I hit that first $1 million.

- Oh, oh, all right.

(Quandra laughs) Okay, you all gotta be busy so she can make that money.

- I definitely have help.

I have worked Yohance, I've worked with him at Sunshine, and he has been an in inspiration for me.

Same thing with Dana and other artists.

Like, everything I'm wearing, the majority of the stuff that I'm wearing today is made by an artist.

- Mm.

- And so, and they could actually come and make these items at the Urban Market Exchange as well.

So I'm hoping that the work that I do within the community, with these entrepreneurs, they will see the value and wanna sign up.

- So will they actually have workspace at Urban Market Exchange, or will it just be a store with retail?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

So we have private studio spaces on one side, Then we have a cafe so that the community can come in and see what the artist is doing.

So we're gonna have like a glass wall between where the cafe is, and then on the other side is where the work studio will be, where the people from the community could come in, see the artists working.

We are gonna have a retail popup store.

So the things that they're making in the center, they can also sell.

And in the back it's gonna be specialty room.

So we're gonna have a sew machine room with specialty equipment like 3D printers, laser cutters, things of that nature.

Sewing machine, podcasts, and videographer room.

Those are our specialty rooms.

- Are you an artist yourself?

- I am not.

(laughs) - You're not.

So, why did you want to do this space for artists?

What was the stimulation for that?

- I think in combination with the conversation I had with Yohance that day, it was right at the height of the pandemic.

And we Sunshine, we were really trying to help our makers and our entrepreneurs keep their business, like we were, like, it was like a fight and flight type of situation.

Like, we were on damage control.

And so we got an RFP from the state of Illinois, because at the time there were no PPE gear in minority communities.

And so they were really trying to get protective mask and things into our communities.

And they reached out to us saying, "You need somebody to make 3000 masks.

Do you have anyone?"

And I reached out to a few makers, but they could make a hundred or 200 masks.

There was no way they could make 3000 and make that RFP.

And so I said, "You know what?

We had a maker space.

They could have went in there, made those 3000 masks and made their money."

But we didn't have anything like that in our community or at our disposal.

So that kind of got me thinking like, what if we, if I can provide specialized equipment to scale these businesses - [Hermene] Hmm.

- Not just help them, give them some free courses, but no, to really give them the equipment they need to grow their business.

- Hmm.

What other kind of artists we have?

- So I'm hoping artists like Dana, jewelry making.

So we're gonna have a jewelry row that jewelers, who like to make stuff like this, Lala wasn't here today, wasn't able to be here today, but she made this beautiful necklace, this beautiful bracelet.

People who cobbler who wants to come in and make shoes, t-shirts, people who wanna make t-shirts, 3D printers, you know, a lot of the makers need prototypes and we also wanna work with the youth.

We would love for them to come in and maybe- - Will you teach them?

Will you teach, will you have a space where young people can learn leather making?

They can learn painting?

- Absolutely.

And I'm hoping these artists will want to provide programming.

That's my gift to them.

- Okay, now, in the customer for the exchange, who is that customer?

'Cause you're not just looking at people living in Woodlawn to be your customer.

Who else is your customer and do you think the Obama Center tourists will be attracted - [Quandra] Oh... - To Urban Market?

How do you see that synergy?

- So I feel like the customers would be the entrepreneurs and the goal is for them to come into the center, make their products and their services, take some, we will have business support services there too.

So we have teamed up with a non-for-profit YWCA Breedlove program that will provide the business support services for the entrepreneurs.

But while they're there, we're hoping that they will also have classes and workshops for the community.

So if you are a tourist and you want to come and you want to see the amazing things that we're making, an urban market exchange come, come to the cafe, have some coffee, donut or whatever, pastry and watch the makers actually work.

Or buy something in our retail store.

So that's our goal.

Or take a class.

And so the customers are mainly the entrepreneurs, but we want to open it up to the community so they could come in and take class given by our talented, makers.

We want them to also share their skills and talents with the community.

And we're what?

Where is, your address?

What is your.

Is 67, 100ft off the roads.

So you'll be right on the corner.

Yes, ma'am.

That is terrific.

And when you talk about the food, will this be like a restaurant, or is we just talking about coffee and sandwiches?

We want to actually open up the cafe to, once again, local entrepreneurs.

So if there is someone who wants to test their market to see what works well, they can definitely come in and sell their food.

So, a free market exchange will not be running a restaurant, but, we hope a local bull based business will do will do that.

Contracted out.

Yes.

And also we're based on a membership model.

So we have, just a classic membership where if you just want to come in and use the Wi-Fi, go to the business center.

We have printers and and computers and things.

Or if you want to actually use the conference, we have a conference room, we have storage space, we have machine that could work on and they have access to that as well.

And then we have the top tier.

We can bring the studio as well as work on the equipment.

That's terrific.

Congratulations to a lot of work.

It is a lot of work, a lot of work.

And the best in a long.

Time coming.

So you will be selling your where your art will you also be teaching others?

And are you excited to do that?

- Absolutely.

I had a gallery space at Navy Pier for the last two years, Women's Live Artist Studio.

And through that space we did a lot of workshops and hosted the community as they came through.

And so I'm looking forward to doing it on the south side.

I don't think there has ever been a space like what Quandra has created.

And I think for a lot of the makers in the community, it's a place where they can be seen and they can see a path to truly building seven figure businesses, and talking to other artists.

I wish I lived down the street growing up and I wish I had this type of venue when I was growing up.

So I'm really excited to pour into the younger ones coming up.

- So you'll be mentoring, teaching, and the whole mentoring process.

What about you, Yohance?

- Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to it.

So, like I said, when I came home, I started teaching at this school up in Ravenswood.

When I got there, I would see one Black person every few months.

And I was teaching several classes a day.

After I'd been there for a few years, you know, I put the word out, and now they have like tons of Black folks coming, but it's up in, it is far, right?

It's all the way in Ravenswood.

So it's kind of far for you average outside.

And it's like, it's expensive.

It's relatively expensive.

And so I'm really looking forward to providing, you know, this type of tutelage and mentorship for brothers and sisters on the south side who either can't get all of that way or can't necessarily afford, you know, the kind of exorbitant prices that they may charge up there.

I feel like what we doing here is kind of like almost a second Chicago Black renaissance here, right?

Like, I was telling my buddy on the way over here about the conversation we gonna have today, and it made me think about like how valuable it's going to be for artists and makers just to be making in community with each other, right?

You are an artist, you are an artist, you're an artist, I'm an artist.

I'm making stuff.

The inspiration is bouncing off the community.

- The comradery!

- Yeah.

- The comradery.

- The exchange.

- I'm watching what you're building.

It is inspiring.

It is sparking thought.

All of that is infectious, it's contagious.

So we wanna create a spirit there.

And in terms of target, you know, I think that the community is the first target, right?

But I think that, you know, with the Obama Center being in Woodlawn, you know, when you got these type of transitions, unfortunately it's gonna come at someone's expense.

And oftentimes it's the residents.

There's a lot of displacement in South Shore, Woodlawn behind that, and I'm hoping that what we bring there is an investment in people who would otherwise be getting displaced, right?

And then I think that, you know, after we have kind of built what we're building, I think that other people will just wanna see what's going on on the south side of Chicago, where you got like, some just brilliant minds and artists creating stuff.

- You know, I'm sure you all know Studio Museum of Harlem.

Is this kind of a Studio Museum of Harlem in Chicago?

- Okay, I like that.

(laughs) - In Woodland, that's kind of, as I hear you speaking about it, and talking about it, and what it will be.

I think, and you know, Studio Museum of Harlem, they just, they're building a new, they got a new building too.

So my point in the discussion is that when an institution comes into a neighborhood, the neighborhood changes.

It's a renaissance, a real renaissance for the community.

Not to fight it, but to embrace it.

But it's gonna bring something new.

And like you said, there's gonna be some displacement, there's gonna be some change, there's going to be some differences, but there's also going to be some newness.

Congratulations to you all.

I can't wait to see it and to be somewhat, I don't know how, but somewhat involved.

- Love it.

Love it.

- Thank you.

Thanks for being with us and thank you for the beautiful work that you're doing.

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Funding for this program has been provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission.

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"MUSIC".

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