September 2010
Chicago In War: November 2010 (call for art, essays)
Posted September 30, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Calls for Art
Chicago in War is a series of events, art shows, and performances that explores the continued rupturing of the traumas of war in everyday America.
We are seeking your participation.
Chicago is in a war. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have and will continue to leave deep scars in our hearts and minds; and for some of us these scars are emblazoned on our physical bodies and memories. Too often these occupations are swept from our conscience, into the alleys of our streets, into the corners of our city and our collective minds. If they are ever to come to end, their myriad effects must be recognized, unearthed, uncovered, demystified , and exposed!
We are calling on you to help bring the wars into the spotlight, gather the people, open the spaces and ask our city to listen!
collage of the week (51)
Posted September 30, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds Collective Projects
CUP Benefit Thurs 9/30
Posted September 29, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
Join designers, artists, community advocates, and other urban enthusiasts at the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) benefit for an evening of conversation, cocktails, appetizers, and a chance to spend some quality time with recent CUP projects.
Thursday Sept. 30, 7-11pm
Old American Can Factory
232 Third St., Brooklyn
What's on tap: a host of Brooklyn Brewery beers, wines generously provided by the Fearless Critic, and tasty treats from Breuckelen, Tanoreen, Cannelle Patisserie, and Brooklyn Brine. Plus, go face to face with the Sewer in a Suitcase, the Affordable Housing Toolkit, and lots, lots more!
Please come out to support CUP's work and to meet other folks that are curious about the city, how it works, and how it can work better for all of its residents.
You can get tickets HERE. For more information, or to purchase tickets by phone, please contact CUP at 718 596 7721. (Please note you must be 21 or over to attend.)
Tickets will also be on sale at the door, but we encourage you to buy early!
Installing Rowboat Lookout Tower
Posted September 28, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Over the weekend with the help of family and friends I installed a "Rowboat Lookout Tower" on 35th and Capitol in Milwaukee. This is part of a project organized by In:Site, a public art org in Milwaukee.
Raising the boat
There is No Way
Posted September 28, 2010 by roger_peet in How-To
I've really been enjoying Icky's process posts on his excellent blog, Blackout Print, and I thought that I'd make one for this blog here. I use a variety of techniques to make my prints, but the method shown here is probably the one I use most. The print shown in production here is called "There is No Way", and is based on a slogan/phrase I wrote down years ago, in combination with a bunch of ideas that have been lurking in my sketchbooks for similar stretches of time. The print is available in the Justseeds store.
New Mexico #2: Tinkertown
Posted September 27, 2010 by pete in Inspiration
I am going to try and do a semi-regular post on things that interest me in, of, or about New Mexico. I'm still very much learning about this place so let me know if there's anything you think I need to check out. This post is on one of my favorite places in New Mexico, Tinkertown. I visited here in 1996, and named my dog "Zarata" after one of the carvings in the circus scene. Tinkertown is the creation on Ross Ward, who passed away in 2002 from Alzheimers. Tinkertown is located on the east side of the Sandia Mountains on the road that leads up to Sandia Crest.
JBbTC 25: Roman Cieslewicz pt.3
Posted September 27, 2010 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers
Here's the final installment (for now), on Polish poster artist and designer Roman Cieslewicz. In 1968 Cieslewicz was invited to design the cover style for a new line of philosophy, history, and politics books edited by Christian Bourgios. He brought his bold graphic style to the "10/18" series, using flat fields of color to render stylized portraits of the authors. The style is reminiscent of both Cuban poster artists working a little earlier in the 1960s, and the Chicano artist Rupert García (who developed his similar style, likely from the same influences, half way across the globe. His covers of Ho Chi Minh and Marx (sorry I wasn't able to track down color images) are particularly resonant with García's work.
Rebel Diaz Video "Libertad"
Posted September 24, 2010 by k_c_ in Film & Video
Hip-Hop activists Rebel Diaz, based out of the Bronx, have a new video- Libertad.
collage of the week (50)
Posted September 23, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds Collective Projects
RESOURCED in Critical Views exhibit Sept. 25-26
Posted September 23, 2010 by molly_fair
Critical Views 5: A New Generation
September 25-26
11 AM – 6 PM
at Red Sun Press
94 Green Street
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
This weekend, prints from the RESOURCED portfolio by Justseeds members Santiago Armengod and Favianna Rodriguez will be exhibited in a political art show put on by Red Sun Press. This show highlights emerging artists illustrating contemporary struggles for social justice, the environment, and economic and political change. If you are in the Boston area, come check it out!
Pittsburgh! Justseeds at EEFC Art Harvest
Posted September 23, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Events
Image: Abby Gordon, RUST 2008
Justseeds will be representin at the East End Food Co-op' s Annual Art Harvest. This is a block party with live music and local foods as well as arts n' crafts.
All ages, all fun! Come peep our prints and say hi.
Sunday September 26
12:00-5:00pm
East End Food Co-op
7615 Meade Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15208
412-242-3598
Signal Slideshow & Reading (Olympia)
Posted September 22, 2010 by icky in Events
Just a quick note that I'm doing another slideshow and reading from Josh and I's new journal, Signal, this weekend. I'll be in Olympia, WA at one of my favorite bookstores in the northwest, Last Words Books.
The particulars:
Last Words Books
211 E. 4th ave
Saturday September 25th
7PM
If you're in the South Puget Sound, please come down!
"The Roar" at video_dumbo, Dumbo Arts Festival
Posted September 22, 2010 by shaun
If you're in Brooklyn this weekend, I have a piece ("The Roar", 2009) in the "Faunatica" program of video_dumbo, curated by Caspar Stracke and Gabriela Monroy as part of this year's Dumbo Arts Festival. Faunautica is a 68 min. program running on the opening night of the fest, Friday, September 24, at 122 Water Street between Washington and Adams.
New Mexico #1: Earthships
Posted September 21, 2010 by pete
I recently relocated to Albuquerque from Portland and am spending some time checking out the amazing things New Mexico has to offer. I recently took a trip up to Taos and not only is the Rio Grande gorge phenomenal, and Taos a great small town, but outside of Taos about 10 miles is an Earthship community and Earthship World Headquarters. Here you can take a self guided tour of some earthships or even stay the night in one.
A earthship house is made up of rammed earth and tires. The tires are stacked (staggered) like bricks. Each tire has earth pounded into them until firmly packed. Once the tires are packed, they are very difficult to move and form quite a dense wall. The walls are load bearing and provide thermal mass which is an important attribute to any energy efficient house. Thermal mass stores heat and releases the heat slowly. This keeps indoor temperature constant while outside temperatures fluctuate. On top of the tire walls the builders use concrete and cans/glass bottles/plastic bottles to form the remaining walls. Once the walls are in place, the walls are quite often plastered over and appear very similar to an adobe style house.
JBbTC 24: Roman Cieslewicz pt.2
Posted September 20, 2010 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers
Part two on Polish poster artist and designer Roman Cieslewicz. Before leaving for Paris, Cieslewicz was the art director for the Polish cultural magazine Ty i Ja (You and I). He did most (maybe all?) of the covers between 1960 and 1963, then sporadic covers after that into the 1970s. His covers on the early issues are almost all straight photo-montages with humor or a sense of the unreal created by a playful use of size and relation between elements. In the later issues he brings in a lot more illustrative elements, and flat uses of color, making them look for poster-like.
Tonight: Educators Happy Hour At Paper Politics
Posted September 17, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Events
We are happy to present this evening by and for educators at Paper Politics: An International Exhibition of Socially Engaged Printmaking. Please come have a bite and a drink and network with other educators working with art and social change---share lesson plans and strategies, see and use the Mobile Silkscreen Unit in action, and enjoy a presentation and discussion with Justseeds' Shaun Slifer and Bec Young, editors of Firebrands: Portraits of the Americas.
Firebrands, Celebrate People's History posters, and other pertinent Justseeds goods will be available for purchase.
Most crucially, see Paper Politics and learn how to bring your students to engage with this exhibition of over 300 handmade prints on issues of our time.
Paper Politics Educators Happy Hour
Friday September 17
5:00-8:00pm
Space
812 Liberty Ave
FREE
(donations requested to cover the cost of refreshments)
6:00 Live silkscreen demonstration with Mobile Silkscreen Unit
(hands-on silkscreen printing ongoing)
7:00 Presentation & Discussion with Shaun Slifer and Bec Young, editors of Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas (2010, Microcosm)
collage of the week (49)
Posted September 16, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds Collective Projects
Tonight: Art in the Contested City
Posted September 16, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
Art in the Contested City
Emily Foreman
Drawing from her own practice and from first-hand research, artist/activist Emily Forman will take us on a visual tour of the contested Neoliberal City, highlighting the ‘uninvited participation’ of its discontent inhabitants; grandmothers, squatters, and artists, joined together in a shared struggle for spatial justice.
First we will go to Chicago, where the mythic ‘Department of Space and Land Reclamation’ catalyzes a flurry of public interventions around hyperreal governance and runaway gentrification; and where an anonymous PR campaign nearly threatens to implode the City’s careful rebranding of its controversial public housing policies.
Then we visit ‘Miles de Viviendas’, a social center and ‘Pirate University’, housed in a squatted police barracks in seaside Barceloneta; where the neighbors bring culture to the barricades, defending themselves against immanent displacement and tourist-driven Disneyfication using bottom-up urban planning, critical cartography, tactical textiles, and creative direct action.
Thursday, September 16, 7:30pm
@ The Change You Want To See Gallery
http://thechangeyouwanttosee.com
84 Havemeyer St, between Metropolitan and Grand
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211
Community Alliance of Tenants Art Sale (Portland)
Posted September 15, 2010 by icky in Events
My friends at the Community Alliance of Tenants are having a cheap art sale /benefit this weekend. If you're in the Willamette Valley go on down and support! It's at Augustana Lutheran Church at NE 15th and Knott, Saturday 9/18 11am to 3pm.
poster wall at Dig It! exhibition/discussion
Posted September 15, 2010 by shaun in Justseeds Collective Projects
Last week I ran a quick-n'-dirty set of the posters from our Resourced portfolio for the "Dig It! (But Not Like That)" pan-Appalachian, resource-extraction-themed exhibition and discussion at Artist Image Resource in Pittsburgh. Working with available inks (brown is easy to make!) on newsprint, I layered these on the wall as soon as they were dry, leaving a pile on the floor for people to take (and encouraging them to pull them off the wall as well). Mary ran some more prints the night of the show, and the pile kept getting snatched up! Thanks to Jude Vachon and Angela Wiley for organizing! See more images of the show here.
You Are Here opening
Posted September 14, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
My friend and collaborator Olivia Robinson has a piece in an upcoming show at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, see below:
“You Are Here → Mapping the Psychogeography of New York City”
September 24 – November 6, 2010
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 West 14th Street, 2nd Floor
Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Public Reception: 6–8 p.m. Thursday, September 23
Pratt Manhattan Gallery will present “You Are Here → Mapping the Psychogeography of New York City,” an exhibition of work by a selection of contemporary artists that will map the emotional terrain of the world’s most famous and influential urban center, New York City, and explore the effect of the city’s powerful moods on those who live and work here. “You Are Here” will run from September 24 through November 6, 2010, and will be celebrated with an opening reception on Thursday, September 23 from 6–8 PM. The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public.
JBbTC 23: Roman Cieslewicz pt.1
Posted September 13, 2010 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers
Let's take a quick break from US publications and skip over to Europe. A couple years back I discovered the Polish poster artist and designer Roman Cieslewicz. Although well known within design circles, I think he is pretty obscure to most political artists and poster-makers under 40. He had a huge influence on European design when he moved to Paris in the 1960s, including in his role as designer for the arts magazine Opus International. The covers for the publication are fabulous, and most work as both covers and posters (and I believe many were actually converted to/produced as posters). It is said that Cieslewicz' work was very influential on the artists and designers that took part in the Ateliers Populaire in May 68, and especially on those that would go on to form the political design firm Grapus.
Birmingham Sunday by Langston Hughes
Posted September 13, 2010 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Birmingham Sunday
(September 15, 1963)
Four little girls Who went to Sunday School that day And never came back home at all But left instead Their blood upon the wall With splattered flesh And bloodied Sunday dresses Torn to shreds by dynamite That China made aeons ago- Did not know That what China made Before China was ever Red at all Would redden with their blood This Birmingham-on-Sunday wall.Four tiny girls
Who left their blood upon that wall,
In little graves today await
The dynamite that might ignite
The fuse of centuries of Dragon Kings
Whose tomorrow sings a hymn
The missionaries never taught Chinese
in Christian Sunday School
To implement the Golden Rule.Four little girls
Might be awakened someday soon
By songs upon the breeze
As yet unfelt among magnolia trees
8 Hour Projects at Allegheny College in PA
Posted September 10, 2010 by shaun
This past weekend I traveled with collaborator/Justseeder Mary Tremonte up to Meadville, PA to take part in the annual 8 Hour Projects exhibition at Allegheny College, curated by Darren Miller. Rather than approach the opportunity with a full-blown thesis, Mary and I worked playfully and loosely with imagery from American game-hunting culture and themes of predator/prey relationships in North America.
collage of the week (48)
Posted September 9, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds Collective Projects
Justseeds at Lawrenceville Little Flea!
Posted September 8, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Events
Come visit Justseeds at Lawrenceville Little Flea this Saturday September 11, 9:00-3:00, at the corner of 36th & Butler
This is our friendly neighborhood flea market, right down the street from the shipping HQ space.
Bec & Mary will be representin', come buy a sweet print for your dorm like Meredith Stern's Cooperation Cats, or Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza's EZLN Women Laws, or pick up some back-to-school reading with Firebrands or Signal!
We have lots of great new stuff in stock, come see it in person!!! The weather should be beautiful this weekend.
About Little Flea:::Little Flea is a neighborhood marketplace featuring a rotating variety of flea, craft and food. Located in Lawrenceville, Little Flea aims to contribute to the sustainability of our community by providing a venue for local vendors and neighbors to gather and share. Little Flea is part of Act Locally! a project of Equita.
DIG IT! (BUT NOT LIKE THAT...) Sept 9th Pittsburgh
Posted September 8, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Art & Politics
Check out this great event about Marcellus Shale, mountaintop removal, and related issues, this Thursday at AIR. Participating artists include Jackie McDowell, Ally Reeves, Shaun Slifer, Mary Tremonte, Jude Vachon, and more...
This event is in conjunction with Paper Politics Pittsburgh, an exhibition of socially-engaged printmaking, on view at Space until October 23.
Discussion including WVA and PA activists at 8, Mining songs at 9, quilts, toys, posters, drawings, info table...
Thursday September 9th
6:00-10:00pm
AIR
518 Foreland St
Pittsburgh, PA
FREE
In the Blogosphere...
Posted September 7, 2010 by jmacphee in In the News
Signal has gotten a couple nice mentions on the web (don't forget to pick up a copy HERE.):
—A review at Dotrad, which calls Signal "a beautiful chronicle of political posters, fliers and rebel art, along with incisive interviews with the artists who made them."
—A nice mention on Five Leaves, a UK anarchist publisher's blog HERE.
—A great write-up with pictures on Printeresting.org just posted HERE yesterday. They say Signal is "filling a void in terms of political graphics."
I also did a short online interview with Teal Triggs, the editor of a new book coming out this month called Fanzines (which includes Cut & Paint). He's got a blog going with short interviews with lots of zinesters, you can check it out HERE.
JBbTC 22: Radical America
Posted September 6, 2010 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers
Here's another installment of covers of a periodical, this time Radical America, which began as an organ of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1967, and then ran into the late 1980s. A couple years back at the Anarchist Bookfair in San Francisco I found a box of old Radical Americas, 5 for $1 or something like that, and pulled out a big stack based on, I admit, the coolest covers, but also interesting content. Turns out that one of my favorite covers (v12n6, Nov/Dec 1978) features an illustration by Nikki Schumann, adapted from a Boycott Grapes poster from the early 70s. On a second look, I realized this was the same artist whose calendars my parents religiously bought every year and hung in a small frame in our kitchen, changing the image out each month!
Signal Reading Tonight!
Posted September 4, 2010 by icky
Argh! I'm doing a reading/slideshow for Signal, the new journal that Josh and I co-edited, which was published by PM press.
It's at the Waypost, 3120 N. Williams Ave, Portland, OR.
7PM
Saturday, Sept. 4th
'A Bundle of Sticks is Strong: Rooting for the Home Team'
Posted September 3, 2010 by dylanminer
Here are some images from the show 'A Bundle of Sticks is Strong' that I just installed in Cleveland. The lights haven't been properly set, so some of the shadows are weird. That will be fixed by the opening. Even so, I think you can get the general idea of the show, which uses baseball as the proxy to speak about issues of immigration and Indigenous sovereignty.
For the show, I created two series of relief prints, nine in each series. Each series is a baseball team, one entirely Native (calling into question the usage of Indigenous people as sporting mascots), the other completely immigrant (evoking how Latina/o players are engaging with Arizona's anti-immigrant legislation). The prints were all created from incised Louisville Sluggers.
In addition to the relief prints, I also did a set of pennants. Plus, a life-size wall painting of an ICE officer/umpire and an entire baseball team with a chalk batter's box on the gallery floor.
Let me know what you think. I am interested in trying to possibly travel the show, so get in touch and let me know what you think of the new work.
Click through for more images!
wikileaks...
Posted September 3, 2010 by jmacphee in Art & Politics
I nice new block print from Sam and Katah at Dragon Dance Theatre:
Yo! SCAM hits Justseeds HQ
Posted September 3, 2010 by bec_young in Events
Even though I've never been to Miami, the first four issues of SCAM zine are nostalgic for me, and probably a lot of other people. So it's fortunate that Microcosm Publishing recently released an anthology of those issues so we can all put our dog-eared, duct-taped copies safely away. SCAM #7 is hot off the presses too. With all this fanfare the Justseeds headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA, is happy to welcome SCAM author Erick Lyle for a book / zine reading this Sunday, September 5th. If you're in the area, stop by early for a potluck-style bbq, with the reading starting about 9pm. We're at 3410 Penn Avenue (park bikes and enter in back), right across the street from Lawrenceville's doughboy statue, the likes of which will be in a SCAM story, someday, I'm sure.
New CDC Billboard
Posted September 2, 2010 by jmacphee in Art & Politics
I'm a month late in getting this up here, but the billboard lib group California Department of Corrections (CDC) put up a great new billboard:
Here's their press release:
For Immediate Release
San Francisco, California – July 28, 2010
New Billboard Alterations Salute Israel Following Raid on Gaza Flotilla
On July 28, 2010 a total of nine billboards were apprehended, rehabilitated and discharged throughout San Francisco, including the intersection of Guerrero and 18th Street (see attached photo). Additional billboards were discharged into Polk Gulch, the Tenderloin, South of Market, the Mission, the Haight, Potrero Hill and Bay View/Hunters Point. The nine billboards represent the number of civilian fatalities incurred during Israel’s May 31st raid on a flotilla carrying supplies to Gaza.
The CDC released the billboards to highlight the two month anniversary of the raid. The billboards also cap the month of July which saw a White House reception for Israel’s Prime Minister followed by an Israeli military investigation of the May 31 incident. The White House visit reaffirmed America’s unbreakable bond with Israel, and the army investigation exonerated Israeli soldiers of any wrongdoing during the raid. As a compliment to these public relations activities, the CDC has contributed its specialized services to defend Israeli soldiers facing international scrutiny.
collage of the week (47)
Posted September 2, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds Collective Projects
Some Press...
Posted September 1, 2010 by jmacphee in Justseeds Collective Projects
A couple nice articles have come out recently about my projects:
1) Beth Simpson is working up a new Champaign-Urbana-specific Celebrate People's History poster project. There's a nice write-up in a local blog the217.com HERE.
2) The Spectres of Liberty project I recently did in Syracuse with Dara Greenwald, Olivia Robinson, and Joanna Spitzner is up in a show in Rochester, NY, and got a great write-up in the free weekly, City Newspaper. Check it out HERE.
