Hello!

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My name is Julian Hansen, a senior at the University of Michigan studying International and Comparative Studies with minors in Energy & Science Policy and Writing (for which I created this assignment). If you care to read on, you will learn more about me, what I look like, think about, dedicate my time to, and hope to do in the future throughout the 14 pieces that accompany each of the poles that I have painted. 

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A little bit about me: I was born to a mother and a father and an older brother and younger sister (who was born after me) in a suburb west of Boston, MA called Belmont. The current population of Belmont is 26,000 and I live on a dead end road. 

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My upbringing was great—stressful in all the ways it should be. Getting good grades, making the soccer team, rowing team, basketball team. How to B.S. my way through a piano lesson that I again did not prepare for. Fighting over who had to walk the dog before dinner and trying not to let our parents see us laugh when they got mad. 

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I happened to show up at the University of Michigan in a similar way that I happened to inherit someone in my family's orange hair: luck, a couple genes, and a whole lot of mystery. I got good grades in high school, applied to U-M as an afterthought, and then 6 months later was flying to a previously forbidden region—the midwest—to us east coast elite. Oh it was glorious to be over 750 miles away from a home that was too blissful to be reality. Oh how glorious it was to experience new experiences, meet new people, and eventually make my home in the middle of the country that is so often overlooked. 

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I rowed my freshman year and quit my sophomore. I started two organizations: the Climate Action Movement, and Live in Color, both of which you will read more about, if you dare. I learned to journal everyday, to cook, to garden, to take out the trash every week. I got a job, wrote organizational constitutions, made friends with people of the older generation. I went for walks, road my bike too fast and too far. I learned how to be a real person. I learned how to be a self-sufficient animal after 18 years. 

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I'm proud of what I've made of my college career and proud of what I've become—who I've become. 

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Now that you know everything there is to know about me, here's a little about my project: 

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Friday November 22, my journal reads: "painted one of the big tree boards! Stressful but v.v. fun! Painted v. quick, cold but v. fun! Finished painting, closed paint cans, went back home." For context, these tree boards are boards that protect three trees from construction going on on campus. Each tree is protected by 4 of these 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide boards. These tree boards were the first non-commissioned murals that I painted. 

 

From that day, I’ve looked at my surroundings and the built environment differently: I’ve looked at it as a canvas. From that moment, everything became paintable. Trash can tops, bike racks, cement benches, parking garage stairs, sidewalks, road blocks. 

 

I was walking home one day after painting and arrived back at my house. In front of my house my driveway is bookended on each side by a tree and a telephone pole. At a glance, they look similar. Both tall, grey, green, brown. Both vanish above my frame of vision. Both there, unmoving, taken for granted. Both ignored. I was in a different mood that day, however. I was noticing. Nothing could evade my lets paint that attitude.  

 

And so I did. There are 16 telephone polls on Dewey Street. I live on Dewey Street and I decided to paint each one of them. 

 

Accompanied by each pole is a contemplation about the topics that flood my head when I paint, the ways my painting mirrors my philosophies on life, or other bizarre things that tie painting to me, and visa-versa. 

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In the end, I painted 14 of the 16 poles. Through this process, I was able to learn a surprising amount about myself and the work that I do. 

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Not only did I gain a insight into my own work, but I believe that this project benefitted the people who are walking these streets everyday. 

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In the end, this project transformed Dewey Street.