Critical Mass Art
Alternatives to Spray Paint: Try Mud Stencils!
Posted December 29, 2007 by nicolas_lampert in Street Art / Graffiti
Milwaukee-based artist Jesse Graves created a number of mud stencils that he recently put up on sidewalks and the sides of buildings. Below is his “how-to-guide” and a link to his website with more images.
To avoid using toxic spray paint, I found a way to make mud stencils. Here is how you do it.
Materials: Mylar, X-Acto knife, tape, mud, sponge.
1. Design your stencil. Draw your stencil the size you want it, or design it on a computer and print it. Make sure you do not have islands (parts of an image that will fall out if you cut around them, like the middle of an O.) If you are using text, use a stencil font. If are using a computer print your design the size you want the stencil to be. If it is larger then 8X10 cut it apart in photo shop and print it in pieces, or enlarge it at a local copy store.
2. Cut it. Tape your design behind or in front of the transparent Mylar. Mylar is the same stuff used as transparencies for projectors, you can find a roll of it at art stores. Use the X-Acto knife to cut your deign out of the Mylar.
3. Get Mud. Find or make some mud. I mixed soil and water then beat it with a whisk. Make sure your mud is not watery. It should be about the same consistency as peanut butter.
4. Post it. Tape the stencil to whatever you want it on, it works on sidewalks or walls. If parts of the Mylar roll up put some tape under it. Then use the sponge to dab the mud on your stencil. Do not press too hard because if you squeeze muddy water out of the sponge it may sneak under the stencil.
5. Enjoy. Remove the tape on the outside of the stencil. Carefully remove the Mylar, and enjoy you non-toxic mud stencil.
This is still an experimental process. Post your comments, ideas, and pictures at http://mudstencils.wordpress.com/
It's never too early to start making plans...
Posted April 11, 2007 by in Political Art
The 2008 RNC Welcoming Committee has put out a call inviting anarchists, anti-authoritarians, radical artists, and activists from all over the country to converge on the Twin Cites this fall- August 31st through September 3rd. This Pre-RNC convergence will give activists a chance to get to know the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and give them the opportunity to begin some serious planning to confront the RNC in 2008.
Questions to be asked and answered include:
What do you want to see happen in 2008?
How do you think we can get there?
What resources do you have to contribute?
What will you need?
The Pre-RNC weekend will kick off with Critical Mass on Friday August 31st, and continues for the next three days with tours, workshops, skillshares, games, strategizing sessions and L(A)bor Day activities. There'll be a lot to do- everything from brunch to street medic training to capture the flag- the activities are intend to be as diverse and accessible as possible.
The organizing committee has also made a specific call for volunteers: they are looking for people to run skillshares and workshops of all sorts- if you have skills, knowledge or experience that you want to impart, you are encouraged to let them know.
RNC Welcoming Committee Website: http://www.rncwelcomingcommittee.org/
To receive updates from the Welcoming Committee email: rnc08-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Or you can become a myspace friend: http://www.myspace.com/rnc2008welcomingcommittee
Questions? Email us: pReNC@riseup.net
Critical Mass Warming Up!
Posted June 1, 2005 by in Events
May's Critical Mass proved to be festive and one of the largest in recent memory. After months of police intimidation, threats, and arrests this month's ride went off relatively smoothly. About 500 or so riders convened together on the streets of the city starting from Union Square (and elsewhere) and eventually ended up at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. This is not to say that the police have changed their stance.
11 arrests, helicopters overhead, and undercovers abound the NYPD continue to waste money and create unwanted tension at an otherwise safe and friendly event. Thanks goes out to Freewheels who once again provided arrestees with loaner bikes through their Steal it Back! program.
And great work by our friends from Notanalternative/Change You Want to See Gallery who helped facilate a huge amount of cardboard visuals for the ride and for the performances by Rev. Billy and his Choir. Check out pics here.
If you haven't yet donate to the TimesUp legal defense fund!
Also, continue to check out and send your work to our new webpage dedicated to Critical Mass art!
Still We Ride!
New site for Critical Mass art
Posted May 27, 2005 by in Critical Mass Art
We've been working hard this week to set up a new website for our Critical Mass campaign. Today feels like this city's first summer day --- just the right time to kick-start a good project and go for a nice bike ride with a thousand of our closest friends.
If you want to help support Critical Mass this is the site to share ideas and inspire fellow riders (and pedestrians). Whatever your medium or interest, check out the site, give us feedback --- and some new designs! --- get out of the house, and hit the streets.
The link: http://visualresistance.org/criticalmass.
Art-making for Critical Mass
Posted May 19, 2005 by in Events
Our friends from Not An Alternative / The Change You Want To See are making props this weekend to help Reverend Billy throw a post-Critical Mass benefit for Time's Up. UPDATE: Note date change at bottom of the post!
ART-MAKING: CRITICAL MASS + REV BILLY TIME'S UP! BENEFITIt's bike month and summer's almost here. Critical Mass will be a big one...even bigger with an ARMY OF CARDBOARD BIKES! Join the Not an Alternative collective and Time's Up! for cardboard prop production and set construction for next week's Critical Mass and Reverend Billy AFTERPARTY show and TIME'S UP! benefit.
Cardboard bikes will process from Union Square to St. Mark's church where we'll celebrate bike power and reenact that fateful RNC ride at the show later that evening. A cardboard set will include streets, traffic lights, more. No experience necessary...we'll have patterns and materials. Just bring yourself, your friends, and extra cardboard if you can.
They got cops, we got a cardboard army.
Where and When:
Sunday, May 22. 12-7 pm --- Time's Up! space (Houston & Mulberry)
Tuesday, May 24. 6:30-10pm --- Time's Up! space (Houston & Mulberry).
Critical Mass images on the street
Posted May 16, 2005 by in Critical Mass Art
Just added some new pictures to our photolog --- part of our ongoing visual campaign around Critical Mass. Go here for the pictures, here for the sources, and here for ideas on how to make your own.
We'd love to get more designs in our gallery, so if you've got some in the works, we'd really love to hear from you --- drop us a line at visual.resistance [at] gmail.com. Stencil design by Nino.
Critical Mass tonight
Posted April 29, 2005 by in Critical Mass Art
Critical Mass is tonight --- for folks in NYC, remember that there are now four meeting spots: Union Square Park, Washington Square Park, Tompkins Square Park, and Madison Square Park, all at 7pm. Hopefully we can divide and conquer the cops!
VR folks will be giving out our new, free stickers, just in from the printers last night. Still we ride!
Time's Up needs your help!
Posted April 28, 2005 by in Free Speech
Some of the Time's Up organizers who were sued by the city have posted a fundraising appeal on NYC Indymedia:
As you may have heard, four TIME'S UP! volunteers --- and TIME'S UP! itself --- are being sued by the City of New York. Why are the City of New York and its Parks Department suing a group of environmentalists? For riding bikes, talking about riding bikes to the press, and encouraging other people to use this sustainable, environmentally-sound form of transportation.Despite police threats, we keep riding every single month. And the police keep arresting. At every Critical Mass since the RNC -- except for December -- the police have arrested bike riders. In March alone, 37 people were arrested simply for riding bikes in a group...
[I]n March, the City of New York, the NYPD, and the Parks Department took the next step. Now they're suing us. They have requested an injunction, which, if granted, would make it illegal for us to talk about or participate in the Critical Mass bike ride. In fact, it would also make it illegal for YOU to talk about or participate in Critical Mass.
This suit is an obvious limitation of our First Amendment rights. We've amassed an incredible legal team, including renowned civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, to defend us and prove that we're right and that this time the city has gone too far. But our defense costs money. Although our attorneys will defend us pro bono, we must raise a significant amount of money to pay for legal expenses. The bottom line: we have until May 5 to raise $30,000.
As stillweride over at Bikeblog wrote a few days back:
If you are at all troubled by this growing attack on free speech and civil liberties…if you fear NYC will be a giant mall within 2 years…it is time to take action.... It is all related. We are losing our rights daily. Are we just going to elect Mayor Bloomberg again for 4 more years of development and his silence on attacks of our constitutional rights?
Time's Up and their legal team have been doing amazing work since the RNC to protect all of our rights to free assembly. You can give back at their legal newswire. Come out to the Speak Out and the ride if you can, and check out our new gallery of Critical Mass art, and help spread the word.
Critical Mass Art: An Update
Posted April 22, 2005 by in Critical Mass Art
A reminder and update about Visual Resistance's Art for Critical Mass call: we've got 5,000 stickers coming next week, just in time for the April ride. We've got a half dozen posters in our gallery ready to be downloaded, printed, and posted. And we're just getting started.
We need more poster and stencil designs, and we need to hear from you folks about getting this out --- and up! We will be distributing our stickers at the next ride, and are starting to print posters and get them distributed. But we'd like this to be an ongoing effort over the spring and summer, using the images you design to help support Critical Mass rides and speak out for the right to free assembly.
Send your designs, plus any ideas, suggestions, or tips to us at visual.resistance [at] gmail.com. Feel free to spread the word, print some posters, cut stencils, and let us know what you think.
Helping Critical Mass
Posted April 2, 2005 by in Artwork Needed
I went to critical mass last Friday night and after a lot of initial nervousness, ended up having a great ride with 5... then 10... then 30+ people. Our group was more or less undisturbed by the police until the very end of our ride. By the end of the weekend, NYC Indymedia was reporting 37 arrests, plus 60+ bike seizures --- this on top of last week's lawsuit by the city trying to stop Time's Up from advertising Critical Mass.
Anyone who's been to a Mass since the Republican National Convention knows the brute, stupid force the NYPD uses against each ride (check out reports from February, January, November, August...). Simply put, Bloomberg and the NYPD are trying to end Critical Mass in New York.
I for one don't plan to watch that happen. Critical Mass is important for this city not just as a form of advocacy for environmentally sound transportation, but also as proof that protest can be fun, inclusive, and empowering.
Polls have shown that the public is behind Critical Mass and not the cops. This winter the rides have been pretty small, and haven't gotten a lot of press or public attention. As spring heats up, that'll change, and a smart visual campaign --- in addition to the great legal work being done by Time's Up and the National Lawyers Guild --- could help leverage public opinion and make the police back off.
That's where you all come in. Visual Resistance would like to facilitate a street art campaign in support of Critical Mass, and to do that we need some of the great artists and designers that visit this site to put pen to paper --- or fire up Photoshop, or whatever you do best --- to contibute designs. We can print up stickers and posters, and make sticker, poster, or stencil designs available for download on the site. Some possible themes would be: supporting/promoting Critical Mass; defending the right to free assembly; and promoting bicycling as a form of transportation.
For background info on Critical Mass and the city's harrassment, check the Time's Up press room and legal newswire, or look around on NYC Indymedia.
Poster designs should be 8.5x11 or 11x17, sticker and stencil designs can be any logical size. You can e-mail designs to us at visual.resistance [at] gmail.com in JPG, PDF, or Photoshop formats, 300 dpi or greater. If you prefer to send hard copies, drop us a line and we'll give you a mailing address.
We'll set up a downloads page as soon as we get some designs. I don't have a firm deadline in mind, since we can print as we get stuff in, but I would like to have some materials ready for the April 29th ride.
Photo at top by Fred Askew. Original at: http://www.stratecomm.net/~fritz/gallery/cm0305
UPDATE 4/10/05: Check out the Critical Mass art we have received so far, and email us at visual.resistance [at] gmail.com to send your own!
