ATX Squared (2018)
is a community photo project geared towards documenting the 12th and Chicon neighborhood of east Austin, a historic and rapidly changing area. Each photographer is assigned a three-block square to focus their photo-efforts and explorations over ten days. My assigned square boundaries were between 12th, 14th, Comal and Salina streets.
Delphina Perez
opened Mustang Paint and Body Shop in 1981 during the early 1980s recession.
“I don’t know, I guess everything is okay (laughs). I mean you can’t stop growth, that’s one thing you can’t do. ‘Cause I came in here - when I first came in it was a slump. No money. I didn’t even know how I was going to make it. But I did.”
J.T.
has lived and worked off of 12th street his whole life. In 1969 he started his own auto body and paint shop, J.T’s. His business ran off of personal relationships and word of mouth advertising. Forty-nine years later, he is closing his business and working up to the last minute.
“All I know, I told him to give me three months time to get outta here, and he gave me three months. That’s what I’m concerned about, when my three months is up (laughs). What y'all gonna do?"
Natasha Harper-Madison
is an East Austin-native living on 13th Street with her husband and two young daughters. She is running for City Council this November to represent District 1 after years of being politically active in her community.
“Austin is an old enough a city to have made a lot of mistakes and a young enough city to get it right and do better.”
Bramel
lives off 13th and Concho streets with his wife, Abigail, and two-year-old son, Cohen. With another baby boy on the way, he wants to buy the house they are renting and add on a workshop to repair the vehicles he uses for pizza delivery and tree cutting services.
“Everything is sky high. Everywhere is high. It’s like uh, I don’t know, it’s out of reach pretty much. Even with a $250,000 loan.”
For more information on the ATX Squared project, visit their instagram.