Surayya-4/19/09-MFTA

Our last three visits were: Wednesday, April 8, Wednesday, April 15, and Thursday, April 16.  On April Eighth we went to MFTA just like we had been doing for the last couple weeks, taking the V or E train to 36th street in Queens.  While we were on the train, Sadie, Maddie, and I were trying to figure out what we were going to do today.  We assumed that it would be sorting books (because moving furniture would be very difficult for us, and) no other activities became obvious to us.  After we got there and signed in, sure enough, we were sorting books.  Our job was to pick a shelf, look through each book from one end to the other, to see if it really had to do with art.  This was very difficult because more likely than not, it had to do with art.  Meanwhile, Johnese is also handing us new books that have recently come in.  The job was very overwhelming and although, between the three of us we completed 8 shelves, I didn’t feel that we had accomplished that much.  While we were sorting, Maddie found a very old, very vintage looking piano book, she asked to have it, and later gave it to her little sister.  As always, our time ended shortly, only having about an 1 1/2 each week.

On April 15 we took the trip to 36th street as always.  After we signed in, we got to work, knowing that we only had an 1 1/2 to work.  The first thing we did was get two long carts (we were wondering what it was for because we hadn’t found out what our activity for the day was going to be yet).  We then follow Chelsea (Johnese wasn’t present because of unknown reasons) to a huge pile of plastic bins on a very high shelf.  Ahmed was on a ladder and handed the box to Chelsea, who handed it to Sadie, who handed it to Maddie, who handed it to me so that I could organize it on the long cart.  We did this until there was no more space left on the cart.  We then took it to an aisle, where we organized and stacked the boxes on the shelves.  While we were doing this, we were also telling Chelsea about our ideas for the next day (our shopping day; the day where the organizations came in to shop).  We also told her some of our ideas for the Teach-In.  After hearing our ideas, she let us walk around and take some things that we could use for our final project.  She let us take stuff until the end of the time.  Before we left, we told her some of the questions we were thinking about asking for the survey we were putting together for the shopping day.  She told us something’s we should change and what was good.  After that, it was time to go.

On April 16 it was the shopping day and we got to leave school at 12! The whole day we had been feeling ambivalent about.  It was our last day, but we also knew it was going to be the most fun, and we were excited for that reason.  Before we left school we made photo copies of the survey.  We spent the whole time that day interviewing people.  This was the data that we had in the end:

SURVEY

1.      What organization are you from?

·        Art organization (1)

·        School (2)

·        Theatre Company (1)

·        Ailles (art organization)

·        Tonville HS

·        P.S.

2.      What is your most needed item from MFTA?

·        Love and respect

·        Fabric

·        Architectural Samples

·        Trim

·        Art Supplies

·        Paper

3.      What is something you love about MFTA?

·        n/a

·        free

·        all the availability

·        unpredictability

4.      Have you seen something that has inspired you?

·        things from a Macy’s parade made a Christmas scene (bows, reefs, ornaments)

·        hanging lantern (instillation)

·        mask

·        oak tag makes her students work larger

·        Yes (4)

·        No (0)

5.      What do you do or where do you go when you don’t find what you’re looking for?

·        Buy it (2)

·        Rosebrand (fabric

·        Build it Green

·        Find things on street

6.      What is something that you would change about MFTA?

·        Nothing (2)

·        Closer to Staten Island

·        Give wish list to donors

7.      Were you surprised by something you saw?

·        Been there since their first store in Brooklyn, 30 years ago

·        No (3)

·        Finding heavy black curtains for theatre

Once we were finished we shared our results with the Director of MFTA (the above is only the results from my survey).  She thought our results were very interesting.  We than said our sad, last goodbyes to Johnese and the MFTA staff.