Community Art at the Jimmy Banks Memorial Stadium
- Elisabeth Gasparka
- Apr 3, 2024
- 2 min read
The arts. Sports. Oftentimes, they are thought of as in opposition to each other, but the pursuit of arts and sports have a lot of overlap. One remarkable local "artist" in the field of soccer and coaching was the late Jimmy Banks.
Banks was a trailblazing Milwaukeean who was discovered in his young teens, playing pick-up soccer outside the Westlawn housing project where he grew up. He went on to play professionally for the Milwaukee Wave, and then for the U.S. Men’s Soccer team—where he was a starting player in the 1990 World Cup. His ascendant career was followed by a whole other career—as a leader, coach, and mentor in the Milwaukee community to young players of diverse backgrounds, including the MSOE Men’s soccer team and leading the Simba Soccer Club. Banks passed away in 2019, but his impactful legacy lives on. To commemorate his work, values, and spirit, Milwaukee Public School’s Custer Stadium, where he played as a school kid, has been renamed the Jimmy Banks Memorial Stadium.
Now, a mural celebrating Jimmy Banks will be added to the facility. Community artist, Tia Richardson, who will be leading the artistic arm of the project, and Banks’ son Jordan Banks—who is himself a soccer player, coach, and educator—joined Elisabeth for a conversation about the mural project, which is seeking support.
In the conversation, they speak about the importance of representation for young Black kids growing up in Milwaukee, youth development, and the value of creativity, public art, and the many rich connections that exist between art making and sports—which both foster self-exploration, collaboration, relationship-building, and skill development. Richardson and Banks hope that the spirit of the mural will inspire youth who play on the Jimmy Banks Memorial Stadium field for generations will see the mural, think of Banks and what he accomplished, and expand their own concepts of themselves and the positive impact they can have within their communities.
You can support the work and learn more at Friends of Jimmy Banks Memorial Stadium’s website.
Check out Tia Richardson’s artwork and follow her on Instagram at Cosmic Butterfly Design.
Read:
Full Interview Transcript (Click to Expand):
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Welcome to Creative MKE, a conversation show from Imagine MKE, where we talk to creative leaders in Milwaukee to highlight all the incredible transformative power of their work in our region. We hope that after listening, you'll be able to imagine our city's arts and culture ecosystem, and all the awesome artists, organizations, and creative assets within it in a new way. I'm your host, Elisabeth Gasparka. Hey there. Welcome to Creative MKE Today. My guests are community artist and muralist, Tia Richardson and Jordan Banks, a youth soccer educator recently, Custer Stadium, a multi-purpose, MPS stadium on Milwaukee's North side was renamed in honor of Jordan's late father Jimmy Banks. Jimmy Banks was a trailblazing Milwaukeean who played for the Milwaukee Wave and the US men's soccer team, and who competed in the World Cup in 1990. Banks also had a rich career of coaching soccer for MSOE and leading the Simba Sport Club for youth in Milwaukee. Among other impactful mentorship roles that he felt friends of Jimmy Banks Stadium is currently raising funds to complete a mural inspired by Jimmy Bank's Life and Legacy, which will be spearheaded by Richardson with input from banks', family, and the community. In our conversation, we speak about the importance of representation, youth development and creativity, public art, and the connection between art making and sports. Creative. MKE is supported through a partnership with Shepherd Express. For more than 40 years, Shepherd Express has proudly advocated for arts and culture in the Milwaukee area. You can hear more podcasts like this one podcast at shepherdexpress.com. Stick around for my conversation with Tia Richardson and Jordan Banks. Welcome Tia and Jordan. To kick us off in our conversation, I wanna invite you each to reflect for a few moments on a Milwaukee arts or cultural experience from your life that left a strong imprint on you.
Jordan Banks:
I would say in the most recent years, seeing a Bucks win a championship. And seeing how many people came down here. and seeing how many people came just to support Milwaukee in general. That was really nice to see. Of course, outside of Wisconsin, people are gonna look at Milwaukee like, oh, there's just cows farms and nothing but grass. People just liking cheese all the time. That part is true, but still, yeah. That was really nice to see.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Yeah. Amazing moment of pride. That definitely lives on, in all of our hearts and minds.
Tia Richardson:
I'm remembering a time, this was early in my career, and so there was an artist that came to town to visit who was brought through someone I know who is a friend of mine and reached out to this artist who's globally known, and she's a community artist and she's worked in third world countries and had done work with survivors of the Rowandan Genocide. And she's based in Pittsburgh where she, she was brought to Milwaukee and did a workshop with a group of artists that I was a part of. And so it was myself and a group of us, maybe three to four, who got to work with her. And it was my first time really working with a community artist, someone that does art and, and including people from the community. And so I learned a lot with that project and it, it, it really opened my heart and mind to see who in my community locally is kind of interested in the same things I'm interested in. and I, I just met so many people through that project and also found a new sense of respect for my fellow artists. Like people that I hadn't worked with that closely before. and got to see their leadership on that project. Yeah. I found kind of like some inspiration and it brought it back home, how much I wanna support what we do here.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
So the two of you are here because you are both instrumental parts of a team that is helping to advance a new public art project that's going to commemorate the life of your late dad, Jimmy Banks. the soccer player from Milwaukee. And this is a very exciting project that's really just getting off the ground this summer. And Tia, I wanna invite you to weigh in. You've talked about this sort of nascent experience in your public art career. Can you speak to the impact that you've seen of some of the public art initiatives that you've been part of over the years within the Milwaukee community? Are there any other projects that you've, you've been part of that are sort of in this same vein?
Tia Richardson:
Recently? I'm still finishing up a mural honoring the legacy of Al Jarreau. Who a lot of people may not know. He was born in Milwaukee. He's a world renowned jazz singer songwriter. So that was also a community involved project. Yeah. That was the first one where it's kind of uplifting like a cultural icon in a way. So, so I went deeper into, not just about his, his life, but I went more in the direction of drawing inspiration from his music. He was a songwriter. some of his lyrics are really powerful and just drew me in. And so I got to learn a little bit about him through listen to his music, talking to neighbors, and also focusing on some landmarks in that neighborhood specifically. I'm learning because a lot of murals that focus on historical figures or icons, I've seen them draw in a lot of references from their life, photos, landmarks, things they've done, moments in their life. And I took a different approach with this. Interesting. I'm not quite sure how people were respond to it. So far it's been good. So with this, with the Jimmy Banks mural so far, just the meeting I had with the, the team lead, I felt moved by how connected they are to him and his legacy and what all that represented. So like I'm looking forward to digging in more and really hearing more what, what, what touches people in their own minds About his legacy. What is it for them? And everyone's gonna have a different perspective. And yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna look for kind of like what, what is, what is at the heart of this For the community? 'cause We all have our own ideas individually, but as a community, what's kind of seeming like it lies at the heart, if that makes sense.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Absolutely. Okay. So you're not at the stage yet where you're gathering source material, but you're figuring out how you're gonna gather that source material and from whom and what that's gonna look like. That's exciting. But speaking of your late dad, Jordan, I'm wondering if you can just take a moment to reflect on his, on his legacy. He was a world class athlete but what was his, what was his mark within the Milwaukee community?
Jordan Banks:
I'm glad you asked about that, because a lot of people don't know about his story as much as they should. But he had a huge impact to the community. And it's funny because literally every single day I'm hearing more and more stories about how they went here and went there and we had, we did this thing. We had a lot of fun doing this. It's just nice to know like there are like multiple parts about his life where he's made an impact to people. Like not only him as a soccer player, not only him as a coach, but just him as like a family member and just overall being a good friend to people too. So, like, for me growing up, like I didn't find out from my dad that he played in the World Cup. I found out from a family friend, he was like, yeah, when your dad played in the World Cup did this, like, that was awesome. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, your Dad played in the World Cup. Like, from there, like, I kept hearing more and more stories about him, like playing in, like, I never got to actually experience seeing him play. But I've seen him like coach since I was younger, so, like, he started coaching around the time, or he started coaching at MSOE around the time where I was born. So he started around 1999, so yeah. But from there, he's just had so many experiences with like coaching coming across like hundreds if not thousands of different players and all of 'em have something good to say about him. And yeah, it is just nice to see like how players have developed as like, not only as a soccer player, but just as a human being. Playing under him, you know? because he'll come across different players from like different cultures, different communities, and then there are times where they'll all combine into one and they'll kind of play with each other, compete against each other. either make friends, make friendly competition, stuff like that. And that's really good to see. So
Elisabeth Gasparka:
It sounds like he modeled in his leadership a high degree of humility, right? Yes. He wasn't very forward about his accomplishments necessarily, but more focused on the strengths of others and the people that he was bringing together. Is that fair?
Jordan Banks:
Yes. Yes. That's a, that's a great way to put it, by the way. So, yeah. And it was nice to see him take people from all different types of communities and culture and kind of bring each other together so that they can have a different experience of people outside of what they're used to, you know? Especially, and that's really big for people in the black community. He brought them, they're able to compete against each other, and you can show that there's black people in the community that can play soccer if you take time to actually teach them things like that. That's really good to see. Plus it takes them away from a lot of the bad situations that they could have been in. because without soccer, they wouldn't have known that black people play soccer in the first place. Because to a lot of people, like soccer is more like a white sport or it's a European sport. or like they played in other countries, but we don't play it here in the us which is not true.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
So how did he come into playing soccer initially? What do you think drew him to that sport in particular?
Jordan Banks:
I'm pretty sure him being at Westlawn and growing up there, all they would do is just go outside, play sports and just find out one day, hey, yeah, I'm good at playing soccer. Oh, okay. I saw this on the television. One of his favorite players was Pele. And so seeing him like juggle dribble through players and stuff like that, he'll just try and model after what he did. try and juggle, try and dribble through players, try and do tricks and stuff. Then he'll get his friends and they'll try and do the same things. Eventually he got discovered, so,
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Wow. Yeah. And he got discovered pretty young, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he saw that where he felt that natural talent within himself and he cultivated it. by playing with his friends often. And in researching your dad a little bit, it also sounds like he was known for just really honing in on the particular strengths of the players that he was working with and being able to create like, magical lineups. So as we're describing sports, it, I can't help but kind of go back to art making and thinking about art making and the particular kind of work that you engage with Tia. How is mural making at the scale that you work at, like a team sport?
Tia Richardson:
Well it's for them, I'm working for the community art offers this possibility, this potential for people to express themselves and discover their own unique potential within them. So it's about self discovery and how we can all be part of the same community, but have our own individual perspectives. Strengths, abilities, experiences that we draw on in life. So art can bring those together and it can help us understand ourselves in a new way. it can help us discover things we didn't know about ourselves or about our community. It's a discovery process. So like a, like a team sport. And I'm, I'm listening to some of the things Jordan was saying, and I'm like, that sounds like art <laugh>, your dad sounds like an artist. how, how he's taken different pe different player strengths. And he's see seeing patterns emerge and where one might be good over here, one might be good over here, but then when you put those together, these elements need to relate together in a way. So with community art, I'm trying to draw people together and see how, how we relate to each other. So, you know, it can help us understand our relationships to one another. So as a community, that's really important. Then as a team, the, the more you understand each other as a team, the better you play together. And hey, that's like right in line with what a community's about. And so I work with all ages when we talk about like, playing together. Well, well, don't, we want isn't a better community one where we live, work, and play together better? So if we can do these things, then it, it, it could mean, you know, a better outlook for everybody. More possibilities. People can see themselves in things they wouldn't have before. It gives us new things to look at. Imagine You know, new futures, new possibilities. And I, I think this is a great example too, where, you know, he didn't know what he could be until he saw it. The image of playing soccer, he was exposed to it. So art, art can offer people exposure to things when they, when they have that experience, it, it gives, it gives them something to look to. Well, it's looking inside first. And then how can I express that outside? And how can I use what I've learned to shape my world?
Elisabeth Gasparka:
I love that.
Tia Richardson:
Or my community, et cetera.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
strikes me that both sports events and public art have a function of creating shared culture and shared histories for people across all demographics. Right. Everybody remembers where they were when the bucks won the championship, right? And when that parade was taking place, if you were lucky enough to be on the streets of downtown Milwaukee you'll never forget that day. Right. Never. And that's, that brought together people from all over the city to experience that. And public art is the same way. I mean, we, we drive past or walk past the same murals and they become part of the, the fabric of our lives. Right?
Tia Richardson:
Yeah. Culture, culture is how we express ourselves. So we are adapting to our environment, to our experiences. So like sports helps a person. And I, I ran track when I was younger. So it's an individual sport, but I can relate to that idea of getting better and becoming better as a person when you have a good coach. I just, I think it's a great metaphor for life, <laugh>. And so it's with art and with sports, it's, it's digging deeper. It's how, how can I be better? And helping people go, going back to, again, discovering their strengths. Maybe, maybe things they didn't know they can have. For me as an artist is important to, to help people see that, that they can be creative and they do have that, that raw potential that's inside every human being. So there's a spark in every human being that's, that's wants, wants to help things, and wants to, and, and cares, cares. And so art can help bring that out. And somehow it's intentional. And I'm hearing in, in Jimmy's story too, where it's that, that in intention of drawing that out of people or just help empowering people. I guess that's what I want to do is, is help empower people to discover their potential.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
I love that. Yeah. It sounds like you are coaching in your own way, <laugh>. So you Jordan, you are also a soccer coach. in some capacity. can you speak to the art of soccer? How does, how does soccer function as an art? Or does it?
Jordan Banks:
When I think of art and soccer, I think the first place we could start is the relationship in between the players and the coaches. And just the relationships with each other. Or even like with the soccer ball itself, knowing how comfortable you can be with a soccer ball, where you have to look at it while you're dribbling, whether you can look up while you're dribbling and stuff like that. This also reminds me of a question that I'm at that my dad asked my brothers a long time ago, and he asked me the same thing, like, what is the objective of soccer? Or like, what's the main goal of soccer? And it's like, and I kept saying like, oh, it's like 11 V 11 is like, like how would you describe soccer, basically? Right. So I would think like, oh, it's 11 V 11. You just, the team that scores the most goals or conceived the least, like they win the game. like seeing which team is better. And I like try and come up with different answers, like, Nope, nope. <Laugh> and other brother jc, he had the perfect answer. And it's a game of little battles in between each other. So it's not just 11 V 11. Right. So you're thinking about one V, one, two V, two Three V two four V two. How you can create those situations where you're at an advantage to the other team. Right? But then also thinking about how you can build those relationships with the players around you seeing who you can play with Who may not be at their best right now, who's emotionally available to even be able to compete at a level like that and things like that, you know? So thinking about how people build those relationships with each other and then try and work together to try and compete and complete an objective together. that's where you see a lot of the art. And if you ever want to see where like soccer is at its highest like, peak when it comes to art, you can easily just watch the World Cup final game from 2022. It's literally like, literally just watching a movie <laugh>.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Yeah. And wow. You blew my mind when you mentioned the soccer ball at the beginning of your answer, because I've never thought of a soccer ball as like a tool. The way, you know, like a paintbrush or paint is when you're a painter.
Jordan Banks:
And like with one of the programs that I work with, which is Little Kickers, we we're focused on child development first more than soccer development. We're just using soccer to kind of teach tools at an early level. So we're starting at 18 months. At 18 months. There's no way that they're gonna scrimmage against each other. <Laugh>. And we know that. Right.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
That'd be really cute to watch.
Jordan Banks:
Exactly. Right. So literally all we do is we just work on their basic coordination and their listening skills. And we're not really coaching the kids as much. We're really teaching the parents how to get the kids to be more involved in it. Right. Interesting. So we're doing simple stuff like, let's pop bubbles. Okay. Take the squishy ball. I want you to do a big kick. Okay. Let's go through the obstacle course, want you to get a soccer ball and then kick it into the goal. And then we just celebrate all these little accomplishments. And as they go up and up in their ages, we start doing more things where they can develop a little bit more skills. So now it's like, okay, instead of using your hands, now we're gonna use our feet. Don't do big kicks. Do your little kicks first, and things like that. And then trying to do two things at the same time where you're taking a color spot, trying to drive around and do your little kicks going around in circles and things like that. knowing when to stop, stuff like that. <Laugh>. And then you're developing a good relationship with the kids and then also with the parents, but also making that relationships better for the kids and their parents. 'cause They're learning how to listen, learning who to listen to. Things like that. So
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Communication skills. Right. The arts and sports. Both really foster a high degree of communication skills. and collaboration.
Tia Richardson:
And coordination.
Jordan Banks:
Yes.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
I would love to hear from you, Tia, a little bit more about your process for approaching the creation of this mural in honor of Jimmy Banks. What is that gonna look like compared to previous public art projects that you've done? And how will it be different?
Tia Richardson:
One way it'll be different is by doing personal interviews more so really talking to people who were directly affected by, or impacted by him and his legacy, or who worked with him, definitely his family. And then apart from that, what I've done in the past and what we intend on doing this way is more of a community engagement workshop for people to collaborate together. So we wanna have community members come together in a workshop and share ideas, and we wanna chance for the young people who are currently being coached to have a chance to participate. And in those workshops everybody gets a chance to freely express their ideas. And then I'm gonna use those to draw inspiration from further design. Once the design is complete, there'll be opportunities for people to come help paint it on a series of paint days that we'll, we're gonna schedule and all that will be opportunities for the community. Those who like knew Jimmy or were part of the legacy that he built or part of the soccer community to today can, can be a part.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Awesome. So how can the public support the creation of this new mural?
Jordan Banks:
Easiest way you can do it is to donate. We have a website you can go to www.jimmybankstadium.org. You can go and donate on there. And also just spreading the word and just getting a word out there, telling his stories, figuring out a way to convince people like why this is a good story to tell. Right. Because this is something that definitely should be advertised more in the community, especially for like the black community.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
So I wanna talk about how this, how this mural is gonna exist after it's created and it's up at Jimmy Bank Stadium. What do you envision as the, the new chapter for this stadium? Once the mural is created, how are you hoping the public will will interact with it?
Jordan Banks:
I just hope they start asking questions, really start to understand why he has such a big impact in the community. And hopefully it just helps inspire them, whether they do something they inspire themselves to do better, maybe they will train a little bit harder. Maybe they'll work a little bit harder to get more money or to get into a better situation. Or maybe they'll do something that's bigger than themselves. Right. So maybe they can think like, wow, I wanna have an impact like this whenever I leave. So how can I create something where After I leave, I can still have an impact when I'm gone. You know what I mean? Yeah,
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Absolutely. Yeah. So inspire them to think about their own legacy. Tia, any thoughts you wanna add?
Tia Richardson:
I would say it, it kind of comes full circle for me. Again, when I had that experience, I shared earlier with the, with the art project, it opened my eyes to my, who's, who's here in my community, who can I be proud of? How can I see myself going places? What do I wanna do? It inspired me. Mm So I feel, I feel that I would want this mural to be able to inspire people as well. And see, see themselves potentially, potentially in a new light and what they may be able to do if they're interested in soccer, but more so that community aspect, that teamwork aspect, those principles that we heard about and elevating those. Anybody can come there and hopefully be inspired by a lot of these principles that Jimmy Banks use that the sport embodies. Well I wanna lift all that up and representation, having a, having a role model, having that representation as well.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Well, it's been really fun to chat with you all. We just have time for one more question here. So I just want to put out the context that right now Wisconsin is 49th in the nation in terms of per capita investment in the arts. So I wanna invite you each to kind of take a step back and imagine, if you will, what a future for our arts and culture would look like if there was more support infused into Milwaukee at the individual artist level and at the institutional level. What would that mean for our city?
Tia Richardson:
It would look like wide broad recognition and support for individuals who want to start their own creative businesses out apart from a nonprofit environment. It would look like buskers. It would look like arts programming or creative programming, not just visual, but creative programming in different neighborhoods in the city. It would mean equitable distribution of funds for creative programming and neighborhoods. There's so many creative things people wanna do in the city for their community. So it would just broaden access and it would lower the bar for competing for dollars, especially among nonprofits. it, it would create a more sustainable way for people to engage and participate in the arts.
Jordan Banks:
So it would be very, very nice to see a little bit more support for different art programs in the city. Because I feel like for a lot of kids, the only way that they would do anything artistic is if they're in a coloring book. where you have to color in between the lines. Right. Right. What about teaching them how to color outside of the lines or create something for themselves? Right. I'm thinking in of it in a way where they're learning how to problem solve and create something for themselves at an early age.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
That's so fascinating to hear your perspective also as someone who works directly with the youth and is trying to help with skill development. And that all fleshes out the picture, that fleshes out the picture because we know that, you know, exploring the arts for children leads to more creative thinking, more critical thinking, being a, an excellent communicator. All of these are, are very valued skills in the workforce.
Jordan Banks:
And that reminds me, I, in middle school, I really got into like band and drumline. Mm And because of that I developed like a lot of skills from like problem solving, creative thinking and stuff like that because I had to teach myself like how to play the quad and stuff like that for drumline. <Laugh>. Yes. And so I like practice every single week how to do this and how to like sight read and then I have to figure out how to teach someone else how to play the same things. And then at the same time learn how to do it while I'm dancing, going into formation, doing certain steps and things like that. So I definitely think it would be nice to have other kids also get that same experience that I got. Right.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Seeing themselves in their most realized version of themselves. Right. Yeah. That's what we want for the youth in Milwaukee. And that's what we want for the whole community. Well, thank you guys so much. I share this, this vision with you and it's been really fun to hear from both of you today.
Jordan Banks:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Elisabeth Gasparka:
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the show, please share it with others, post about it, leave a rating or review or contact us. Creative. MKE is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Elizabeth Gaspar. It is recorded in beautiful downtown Milwaukee with engineering support from the good folks at Podcamp Media. Creative MKE's theme music was written and produced by Bobby Drake. To get involved or learn more about the work of Imagine MKE, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or visit us on the web.
