full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Amanda Williams: Why I turned Chicago's abandoned homes into art

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(lhtguaer)

This is exactly how I derived my palette. I would ask friends and family and people with backgrounds that were similar to mine for those stories and memories. The stories weren't always happy but the coolrs always resonated more than the pcrduot itself. I took those theories to the street. "Ultra Sheen." "Pink Oil Moisturizer." If you're from Chicago, "Harold's Chicken Shack."

(Laughter)

"Currency Exchange + Safe Passage." "Flamin' Red Hots." "Loose Squares" ... and "Crown Royal Bag."

I painted soon-to-be-demolished homes in a much-maligned area called Englewood. We'd gahetr up as much paint as I could fit in my trunk, I'd call my most trusted art homies, my amzinag husband always by my side, and we'd paint every inch of the exteriors in monochromatic fashion. I wanted to understand salce in a way that I hadn't before. I weatnd to apply the colors to the biggest cnvaas I could imagine ... houses. So I'd obsessively divre up and down familiar streets that I'd grown up on, I'd cross-reference these houses with the city's data portal to make sure that they'd been tagged for demolition — unsalvageable, left for dead. I really wanted to undtneasrd what it meant to just let color rule, to trust my istictnns, to stop asking for permission. No meetings with city oaflcfiis, no community buy-in, just let color rule in my desire to pinat different pictures about the South Side.

Open Cloze


(________)

This is exactly how I derived my palette. I would ask friends and family and people with backgrounds that were similar to mine for those stories and memories. The stories weren't always happy but the ______ always resonated more than the _______ itself. I took those theories to the street. "Ultra Sheen." "Pink Oil Moisturizer." If you're from Chicago, "Harold's Chicken Shack."

(Laughter)

"Currency Exchange + Safe Passage." "Flamin' Red Hots." "Loose Squares" ... and "Crown Royal Bag."

I painted soon-to-be-demolished homes in a much-maligned area called Englewood. We'd ______ up as much paint as I could fit in my trunk, I'd call my most trusted art homies, my _______ husband always by my side, and we'd paint every inch of the exteriors in monochromatic fashion. I wanted to understand _____ in a way that I hadn't before. I ______ to apply the colors to the biggest ______ I could imagine ... houses. So I'd obsessively _____ up and down familiar streets that I'd grown up on, I'd cross-reference these houses with the city's data portal to make sure that they'd been tagged for demolition — unsalvageable, left for dead. I really wanted to __________ what it meant to just let color rule, to trust my _________, to stop asking for permission. No meetings with city _________, no community buy-in, just let color rule in my desire to _____ different pictures about the South Side.

Solution


  1. scale
  2. understand
  3. officials
  4. gather
  5. instincts
  6. laughter
  7. amazing
  8. paint
  9. colors
  10. canvas
  11. drive
  12. wanted
  13. product

Original Text


(Laughter)

This is exactly how I derived my palette. I would ask friends and family and people with backgrounds that were similar to mine for those stories and memories. The stories weren't always happy but the colors always resonated more than the product itself. I took those theories to the street. "Ultra Sheen." "Pink Oil Moisturizer." If you're from Chicago, "Harold's Chicken Shack."

(Laughter)

"Currency Exchange + Safe Passage." "Flamin' Red Hots." "Loose Squares" ... and "Crown Royal Bag."

I painted soon-to-be-demolished homes in a much-maligned area called Englewood. We'd gather up as much paint as I could fit in my trunk, I'd call my most trusted art homies, my amazing husband always by my side, and we'd paint every inch of the exteriors in monochromatic fashion. I wanted to understand scale in a way that I hadn't before. I wanted to apply the colors to the biggest canvas I could imagine ... houses. So I'd obsessively drive up and down familiar streets that I'd grown up on, I'd cross-reference these houses with the city's data portal to make sure that they'd been tagged for demolition — unsalvageable, left for dead. I really wanted to understand what it meant to just let color rule, to trust my instincts, to stop asking for permission. No meetings with city officials, no community buy-in, just let color rule in my desire to paint different pictures about the South Side.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
color theory 3
color palettes 3
federal housing 2
color palette 2
south side 2


Important Words


  1. amazing
  2. apply
  3. area
  4. art
  5. backgrounds
  6. bag
  7. biggest
  8. call
  9. called
  10. canvas
  11. chicago
  12. chicken
  13. city
  14. color
  15. colors
  16. community
  17. data
  18. dead
  19. demolition
  20. derived
  21. desire
  22. drive
  23. englewood
  24. exchange
  25. exteriors
  26. familiar
  27. family
  28. fashion
  29. fit
  30. friends
  31. gather
  32. grown
  33. happy
  34. homes
  35. homies
  36. hots
  37. houses
  38. husband
  39. imagine
  40. inch
  41. instincts
  42. laughter
  43. left
  44. meant
  45. meetings
  46. memories
  47. moisturizer
  48. monochromatic
  49. obsessively
  50. officials
  51. oil
  52. paint
  53. painted
  54. palette
  55. passage
  56. people
  57. permission
  58. pictures
  59. portal
  60. product
  61. red
  62. resonated
  63. royal
  64. rule
  65. safe
  66. scale
  67. shack
  68. sheen
  69. side
  70. similar
  71. south
  72. stop
  73. stories
  74. street
  75. streets
  76. tagged
  77. theories
  78. trunk
  79. trust
  80. trusted
  81. understand
  82. unsalvageable
  83. wanted