An Introduction

hello. I am Clara and I pen this post to introduce my work's purpose and point: an in-depth look at a specific location and its culture. As part of a project for my First Year Writing class at Rhode Island College, I will be making weekly visits to the Owen Bell Park Skatepark in Dayville, CT to conduct observations and note-taking.

The Skatepark has been open since April 30, 2009 (as reported by the Norwich Bulletin here), and I find its location, Owen Bell Park, to be a place both close in geography and sentiment, as I played on several soccer teams there as a child. I recall watching the skateboarders and BMX bikers alike ride in the skatepark, and being intimidated by their blasé air and seemingly tacit royalty in the park. Having been piqued, my curiosity led me to respect them just as much as the small clusters of fans huddled around the chain-link fence seemed to. I aim to learn more about the subculture inspiring these fans as well as the story behind the formulation of the skateboarder's interest in their hobby. I am curious about the journey into the subculture and if admission is granted by the mere shared interest or by some more serious type of initiation. Though I am not a skateboarder or biker myself, I went through a perhaps expected phase (shared by any other girl who once identified as a tomboy) in middle school in which I taught myself to skateboard and internally cultivated the goal of being a skateboard[er] photographer (my only real ambition at age thirteen).

From here on, my posts will exhibit any interviews or conversations had with people who are familiar with "skatepark culture," any photographs that may pique one's interest or express something words cannot, and any other remarks or observations that will aid my fieldwork.