Inspiration
Wisconsin Wonders
Posted August 24, 2010 by pete in Inspirations
I recently spent some quality time in northern Wisconsin. The best way to spend a summer day in Wisconsin is at a cabin on a lake. Luckily my uncle has a little cabin on a lake just east of Phillips Wisconsin (about 6 hours north of Milwaukee). Aside from swimming, fishing, canoeing and various other outdoor activities this area is home to a very special place, that is Fred Smith's Concrete Park. Smith was a logger in the early 1900's, and later built a bar (which only served Rhinelander Beer!). In his 50's Fred decided to start creating some concrete sculptures which honored the people of his area. In all he constructed over 200 concrete sculptures which he inlaid with pieces of glass. His themes ran from Native Americans, Loggers, Farmers, Beer Drinkers and other people of the North Woods. Smith was truly a visionary artist, he had no intention of selling his work, and simply felt that this was something he needed to do and people needed to see. In the 70's the Kohler Foundation acquired the Concrete park and has been maintaining it since. If you find yourself anywhere near, do yourself a favor and pay a visit, it's amazing. Also at the gift shop you can pick up a 40pg book about the park with great quotes from Smith explaining his work and a T-Shirt screenprinted by the local high school art class honoring the park. I now own both!
WERKKAMP
Posted August 12, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Here are a few photos of what I made at WERKKAMP this July at
Fort 8 in Antwerpen, Belguim. This wonderful event was put together by the fine folks at Scheld'apen.
(i can) read the writing on the wall-11
Posted August 10, 2010 by k_c_ in Justseeds & Member Projects
Williamsburg Bridge, Brooklyn, NY.
July 2010.
Signal 01 is out!
Posted August 6, 2010 by icky in Justseeds & Member Projects
The first issue of Signal is out now published by PM Press. Signal is a full color, 140 page book about international political art, graphics, and culture. The first issue contains interviews with the Taller Tupac Amaru (aka Justseeds' members Jesus, Favianna, and Melanie), Johannes van de Weert (of the Rondos and squatter comic Red Rat), Rufus Segar (the brilliant designer behind most of the early issues of Anarchy magazine in the 60s and 70s), and Felipe Hernandez Moreno (a member of one the art brigades of the 1968 uprising in Mexico City). It also contains photos of seditious train graf by IMPEACH and a photo essay on adventure playgrounds.
Drawing All the Time: Week 35
Posted August 4, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I am making a bunch of drawings and sculptures of "plausible inventions." Here is one of them.
Drawing All the Time: Week 34
Posted July 28, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I am making a bunch of drawings and sculptures of "plausible inventions." Here is one of them.
RESOURCED Portfolio Launch in Pittsburgh
Posted July 26, 2010 by shaun in Art & Politics
Justseeds RESOURCED Portfolio Launch Reception
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, July 30th - 6-10pm
Free and Open to the Public
3410 Penn Ave 2nd Floor
(entrance and bike parking around back via Spring Way)
EVENT DETAILS:
Justseeds Artists' Cooperative is launching our newest collective portfolio project, RESOURCED, at our new space in Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh) on Friday, July 30. Prints from the portfolio will be on display and portfolios will be for sale. Artwork by Justseeds artists will also be available for sale, as well as books, zines, and Celebrate People's History posters. The event is free and open to the public from 6 to 10pm.
Drawing All the Time: Week 33
Posted July 21, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I am making a bunch of drawings and sculptures of "plausible inventions." Here is one of them.
Sailing the Barbarous Coast Exhibition Photos
Posted July 16, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Tomorrow (Saturday) is the last day to see this show in person:
Sailing the Barbarous Coast: work by Colin Matthes and Anthony Smith
At
Walker's Point Center for the Arts, Milwaukee, WI
Here are a few install photos:
Sculptural work by Colin Matthes
Drawing All the Time: Week 32
Posted July 14, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I am making a bunch of drawings and sculptures of "plausible inventions." Here is one of them.
Howling Mob Society in Afterall Online
Posted July 9, 2010 by shaun in Art & Politics
I had a long phone conversation with writer Daniel Fuller this winter - he had driven to town from Philadelphia specifically to find the Howling Mob Society historical markers after hearing about the project at the Creative Time Conference in NY last fall. Daniel recently published a nice article on Afterall Online, even if I take some issue with the Shepard Fairey comparison at the end (his posters were more recently pasted nearby, but I would argue that the motivation behind Fairey's "Obey" brand is of a very different nature than the HMS work). Daniel also wrote captions for all his photos which offer some good further insight as to the placement and orientation of the markers. Feels like this project launched in my home city ages ago, and it's nice to read fresh opinions on it!
Drawing All the Time: Week 31
Posted July 7, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I am making a bunch of drawings and sculptures of "plausible inventions." Here is one of them.
Radical America
Posted June 13, 2010 by icky in Inspiration
I just ran across a digital archive of Radical America, an SDS associated magazine that began in 1967. I downloaded a pdf of an issue at random and it was focused on black workers. It had some cool poetry, a couple of long articles about DRUM which I'd never seen and these great images accompanying the writing, credited to Dorothy Higginson. The early issues especially have a zine-like feeling to them. A great resource and worth a perusal!
Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas is now available!
Posted June 1, 2010 by shaun in Justseeds & Member Projects
We're very excited to announce the arrival of our first collectively realized book, Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas, on Microcosm Publishing. The book consists of illustrated profiles of 78 courageous people from the history of the Americas, from Muhammed Ali to Zumbi dos Palmares, from Alberta all the way down to Buenos Aires - distilling the hopefulness and passion of generations of Americans who challenged the tides of oppression.
Twenty Justseeds members contributed beautiful and unique illustrations - papercuts, paintings, drawings, stencils, block prints, and collages. Pete Yahnke's linocut graces the cover of the book, and each profile begins with hand-drawn script by Colin Matthes. Shaun Slifer and Bec Young wrote, researched, edited, organized, and designed the book, with advice on every possible detail from Josh MacPhee, generous copy-editing from Jessie Grey Singer, and indexing expertise from Molly Fair.
The book is $10 and you can get a copy right here!
Justseeds/TaringPadi Anti-LNG print
Posted May 24, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
Take a look at some of these photos of the printing session we had yesterday in rainy Portland. People came over to help jump up and down on the giant block, in the traditional Taring Padi manner... This print is part of a collaboration with the Indonesian print group Taring Padi, addressing issues of natural gas exploitation on both sides of the Pacific. Next up, the Northwest Natural shareholders meeting on the 27th!
Artist Lecture in Providence at AS220
Posted May 19, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 5:30pm-7pm Free
Colin Matthes Artist In Residence Presentation
Wednesday at 5:30 for no charge at all Justseeds artist and May AS220 Drawer/Inventor in Residence Colin Matthes will present his work of the past month. He'll be giving a slide talk of recent projects that include survival objects realized with scrappy materials, a carnival of War Fair, small "i" inventions (like the kind you might see on an infomercial), contemporary Potemkin villages, and surveillance camera birdhouses.
These are a few in progress studio photos of work at AS220
Drawing All the Time: Week 28
Posted May 12, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This drawing is from 2007, titled Yesterday or Tomorrow.
Alto Arizona Art Campaign
Posted May 11, 2010 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
There is a large gallery of some incredible designs, responding to the Arizona legislation SB 1070, over at Alto Arizona and in their Facebook page.
Arizona is on the verge of enacting the most anti-immigrant legislation the country has seen in a generation, SB 1070. This is a bill which apparently mandates racial profiling. This bill allows Arizona law enforcement stop and search any person that they have “probable suspicion” may be “illegal”. SB 1070 is quite literally intended to terrorize immigrant families and force “self deportation”.We are hopeful Governor Brewer will consult with her legal counsel, issue a veto, and spare Arizona the expense of defending an unconstitutional, unwise, and odious bill in federal courts. But we will not rely solely on hope. We urge all artists who are opponents of this bill to TAKE ACTION and create a IMAGE. The images will be used as part of our online viral campaign for ALTO ARIZONA. Selected images will eventually be published as prints to generate revenue for this campaign with consent of the artist.
Details:
Create an image that shows your opposition to SB 1070. Keep in mind the effect that this bill will have on immigrants if fully enforced.
Make sure to include the title of the bill in the work which is: “SB 1070”.
Send all submissions and questions to
orders (at) hechoconganas.com
Specifications:
Image size must be 18x24 inches with a 1/2 inch border all the way around.
The reason for these dimensions is because if in the future your image is chosen to be published the image is ready to go.
Jesus Barraza & Melanie Cervantes designs above.
R.I.P. Keith "Guru" Elam
Posted May 1, 2010 by k_c_ in Inspiration
I have been a big fan of Guru, Gang Starr, and the Jazzmatazz albums and wanted to share some tribute shows I've been listening to over the last week.
Mister Cee's Guru Tribute
and
DJ Premier
On the graf tip check out this fresh tribute from Slovakia!
Translated blog post at: Guru Memorial Wall in Trnava
Drawing All the Time: Week 27
Posted April 28, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Yeah, I admit it. I draw birds every once in a while.
Rondos website
Posted April 22, 2010 by icky in Inspiration
The Rondos were a punk band from the late 1970s from Rotterdam. They have a pretty thorough website documenting not only the band, but the many collective projects that the band members (and their wider circle) were involved in. The first I heard of the Rondos was the song A Black and White Statement on a bootleg compilation a number of years ago. The musical was minimal, angry, and incredibly sharp (ouch!). The lyrics were about the bankruptcy of culture and going out on the street and spray-painting... "no oilpaint illusion/ no three colour pollution/no remote controlled artist/ no culture sick and pissed/ a black and white statement/destroy the entertainment/graffiti and aerosol/art in revolution calls". I was smitten.
Years later in Amsterdam I was shown the Red Rat comic books, made by the singer, and also Rood Rotterdam... a DIY book about Dutch left wing and anti-fascist activism in Rotterdam in the 1930s that was also produced by members of the Rondos.
I keep revisiting this site, finding new gems, listening to their music, and looking at all the great (and highly political) art, graphics, and publications that came out of this collective of people. The website is in dutch (except for their bio), so only pretty pictures for all of us non-dutch speakers! (There's been a reissue of their music both on LP and CD in Europe (LP from Red Wig) and in the US on PM press.)
rondos.nl
E X P O - Review by Lisa Radon
Posted April 15, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
A review of my recent exhibition in Portland can be found here: Ultra
Drawing All the Time: Week 26
Posted April 14, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This is one of many "Mr." drawings.
Rad Printin with Teens
Posted April 7, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Justseeds & Member Projects
Harvey Milk posters! Yes that is a rainbow mustache!!!
Shaun Slifer and I just wrapped up another partnership with Schenley High School's Theory of Knowledge classes, the day before I left for Brazil, and three days before Shaun left for Australia and India.
Drawing All the Time: Week 25
Posted March 31, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This is a detail of a large drawing that will be in E X P O, an installation at Igloo Gallery in Portland, OR that is opening Thursday (April 1) from 6-10pm. The detail is of a fallen gas station sign row boat.
Making Waves/Haciendo Ondas
Posted March 31, 2010 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Some friends from the Prometheus Radio Project and Palabra Radio are touring around the United States right now to "promote the use of radio as a tool for participatory communication that facilitates community organizing". They've been traveling for a few weeks, through the South, and are currently in Texas. You can check the Making Waves blog to see, and hear, about the various groups that they've encountered in the dozen locations they've already visited. This is a group of very dedicated media-makers that advocate radio as a tool to organize for social justice.
They are facilitating bilingual workshops on:
Analysis of corporate media: In this workshop participants will analyze the media and discuss the impacts that media has on our daily lives. Through participatory exercises people will have an opportunity to experiment with creative forms of communication.Participatory Radio as a tool for community organizing: Making radio is more than transmitters and djays and strikes right in the heart of community organizing. This workshop helps groups to spell out the pieces-often invisible-that are need to construct participatory radio.
Printing with Taring Padi
Posted March 30, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
Here's a little photo essay showing the printing process used by Indonesian print cooperative Taring Padi, including images from all stages of the process, from sketching to carving to printing. I had the chance to help print some copies of this massive block, which is the Taring Padi half of a project addressing issues related to natural gas exploitation on both sides of the Pacific: the three Portland Justseedsers (Pete, Icky and Roger) will be working on their half in the coming month. We'll be working with local nonprofit Bark to promote exhibits and displays of the two prints in towns along the route of the proposed Palomar gas pipeline this summer. Enjoy the photos!
Sketching the initial design on MDF hardboard.
A World of Wounds
Posted March 28, 2010 by roger_peet in Inspiration
Here's a list of ten of my favorite quotes pertaining to the state of the world that I've gleaned in the past several years:
A: "We don't change our behavior, we adapt to the results of it" James Tiptree Jr, 1972.
B: "This century will see the end of significant evolution of large plants and terrestrial mammals in the Tropics" Scott Soule, 1980
C: "...Extinction allows no second chance. There is a large measure of quixotic hubris in trusting human institutions to prevent something that is truly irrevocable. Unfortunately, there is no alternative." John Terborgh, 1997
D:"So what if species go extinct? Extinction is a natural process. There have always been extinctions. So why worry about these extinctions currently being caused by humanity? And there has always been a pilot light burning in your furnace. So why worry when your house is on fire?" David Quammen, 1997
E:"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." Aldo Leopold.
F: "There is hope, though not for us" Franz Kafka
G: "My wife pleaded with me to bring you light. But there is no light. Everything is going to get unimaginably worse and never get better again." Kurt Vonnegut
H: "There is no escaping the conclusion that in our lifetimes this planet will see a suspension, if not an end, to many ecological and evolutionary processes which have been uninterrupted since the beginning of paleontological time" Soule again.
Taring Padi artist Mohamed Yusuf
Posted March 25, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
I've recently returned from six weeks traveling in Indonesia, during which I spent a week with the artists of the Taring Padi cooperative in Yogyakarta, Central Java. I'll be posting entries for the next several weeks pertaining to aspects of my travels, some art-related, some not. I thought I'd start off with a bit of a bang- a partial photo-gallery of some of the pictures I was able to take of art made by one of my gracious hosts, Mohamed Yusuf (also known as Ucup).
Enjoy more images below!
A Letterpress House of Her Own
Posted March 25, 2010 by bec_young in Inspiration
Artnoose of Ker-bloom! zine fame is trying an unusual experiment to get her own house in which to set up a letterpress shop -- she's raising the money on Kickstarter.com, in which individuals are asked for a donation but only charged if the money is raised in full. I wanted to post this because it's a totally cute video, and Artnoose is quite a force for good in Pittsburgh, creator of many interesting events, sweet prints, tattoos and vegan cupcakes; but also because it's an inspiration to see someone creatively fundraising for their dream. Artnoose has punctually printed a new edition of Ker-bloom! every two months since 1996, so I think it's safe to say this is more serious than a pipe dream; she's in it for the long haul.
Drawing All the Time: Week 24
Posted March 24, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Probably the silliest image I have posted. I was looking through my planner and it as on a blank page. It cracked me up. I have no idea when or why.
Drawing All the Time: Week 23
Posted March 17, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Mary Kelly Here is a drawing in celebration of Mary Kelly, the Irish nurse and mother of 4 who decommissioned a US war plane with an axe while it was illegally refueling on its way to Iraq. I do not like the drawing a whole lot, but Mary Kelly is an inspiration. Read more below.
Mary Kelly's Statement
Ides Of March Exhibit at ABC No RIo
Posted March 17, 2010 by k_c_ in Art exhibits/shows
ABC No Rio's bi-annual building-wide show is opening this Friday! There is a contribution from Justseeds member Kevin Caplicki, in the computer center on the 5th floor, check the flicks below. This will be the last Ides show in the current building, since ABC has raised enough money to construct a new building in the same location. Come out!
ABC No Rio's Ides of March
The Seventh Biennial Building-Wide Exhibition
March 19 - April 9
Over 50 Artists on 4 Floors
OPENING: Friday March 19 at 7:00pm
Rad Teen Art of the Week: Capitalism Train
Posted March 16, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
This week I'm bringing you rad art, rather than print...this drawing is from a project that students in Schenley High School's Theory of Knowledge course did a few years ago. Students were directed to illustrate a key quote from Marx. Shaun and I were totally captivated by these drawings when we spied them in a stack in the corner of the classroom---this was not a project that we had any hand in creating, rather, this was just part of their high school curriculum! You can peep more of them HERE. The text on this drawing reads: The state, an engine of repression, can never be made into an instrument of welfare. There are so many great details on this drawing...enjoy!
Picturing Cooperation at AS220
Posted March 13, 2010 by bec_young in Inspiration
Two weeks ago I finished a residency at AS220 in Providence, RI., where I spent a lot of time printing in the community print shop. This short video about the print shop was finished while I was there, and it's a great introduction to the shop and some of the people you might meet there.
During my residency, I lead a participatory workshop called "Picturing Cooperation." The premise of the workshop was that we don't see a lot of images of cooperation in the media, and if we are not so fortunate as to see it in our lives, how do we know what it looks like? And if we can't visualize it, how are we going to create it? During the workshop we brainstormed where cooperation happens, with what actions and by whom, and we took turns posing in groups while the other group sketched. After that we headed over to the print shop and made a giant collaborative print. Here's a photo of the workshop, and the print I made that was inspired by it. I am always interested in group process: how it can work, and why it doesn't sometimes; and I really enjoyed my sojourn to a new city to draw a group of strangers and friends into the outwardly dubious but ultimately satisfying project of getting along.
WFMU fundraising drive-til Sunday
Posted March 12, 2010 by k_c_ in Inspiration
My favorite listener sponsored, freeform radio station is doing their annual fundraising drive. Its the best station out there. I've been listening since I was in High School, half my life! Help them out and listen to it at wfmu.org.
Drawing All the Time: Week 21
Posted March 3, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Half brainstorming, half drawing. not sure where this is going yet.
Rad Teen Print of the Week: G.Y.T.
Posted February 23, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
This is one of the first prints created at Power Up, a new after school program I am teaching, by Shaleia McElligott. This poster is to promote Planned Parenthood of Western PA's G.Y.T., or "Get Yourself Tested" program. The girls have created many graphics for PPWP, and will have a show of their work in their window on Liberty Ave Downtown. Stay tuned!
Drawing All the Time : Week 20
Posted February 17, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This is a detail of the drawing series titled "Bonus Footage about Loving, Leaving, or Existing in a Country that Revels in its Wars." It is installed at the Central Gallery at UMass Amherst as part of the two-person show, "Sailing the Barbarous Coast."
Rad Teen Print of the Week: Was It Worth It?
Posted February 16, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
Another old skool image here...this silkscreen print was created by Abby Gordon and Kimi Hanauer for a Celebrate Pittsburgh People's History project as part of RUST 2008. This piece is about the construction of the Civic Arena (now Mellon Arena) in the 1950's, and the devastation it wreaked on the Hill District, versus the self-congragulatory nature of the media and the Great White Men who funded and supported the project.
Permaculture for Kids
Posted February 16, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Inspiration
Check out Thurman Oherlihy's blog "Permaculture for Kids." I've known Thurman since he was a little tike (he is eleven now-if memory serves me right) and its great to keep up with his latest project in SW Wisconsin through his blog. His drawings are amazing! (As an aside, Thurman had his first solo show at our old storefront space in Milwaukee when he was two!)
http://permaculturekid.blogspot.com/
Rad Teen Print of the Week: Urban Redevelopment
Posted February 9, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
This week's Rad Teen Print of the Week is from Schenley High School Theory of Knowledge class from Spring 2008. This project was a Pittsburgh People's History print, and the first time Shaun and I taught this class together. The image is of the Highland building in East Liberty, a neighborhood that suffered one round of urban renewal in the 1960's, and then again now, with developers even renaming parts of the neighborhood "Eastside," or "East Shadyside," to make a connection to the much more affluent neighborhood on the other side of the railroad tracks (literally!). Pittsburgh has some textbook examples of terrible urban redevelopment schemes that have destroyed the pulse of a neighborhood, from Penn Circle in East Liberty to the Civic Arena in the Hill District to Allegheny Center on the North Side.
We're about to embark upon another round of TOK projects next week. Fresh prints soon!
Drawing All the Time : Week 19
Posted February 3, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This drawing is called Lean To. I made it while setting up the show Sailing the Barbarous Coast in Boston.
I was thinking about symbols of power as theatre, a stage set,...and making a simple useful structure from a fallen part of this stage set. The drawing is on luan scavenged from the basement and spans across the pulpit of an old church. It measures over 25 ft long by roughly 10ft high.
Rad Teen Print of the Week: POWER UP!
Posted February 2, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
front
back
This week's rad teen print is a t-shirt design, collectively conceived, drawn and printed by the girls of Power Up, a new after-school youth program I am teaching at the Warhol Museum.
Heather White and I wanted to synthesize some of the best bits of past programs we have done: silkscreen printing (of course!), activism and advocacy, self-actualization, health, feminism, and of course relevancy and FUN.
We are working with a group of seven African American teenage women to teach graphic design and silkscreen printing through health topics. We are working with many organizations and individuals as guest speakers and clients, including the East End Food Co-op, Planned Parenthood, Youth Empowerment Project, The Birth Circle, and more.
Power Up!
Howard Zinn dies. (1922-2010)
Posted January 27, 2010 by pete in Inspiration
Just heard the sad news, Howard Zinn died Wednesday of a heart attack. I know all of us here at Justseeds were inspired by this great historian. These are some big shoes to fill...
image by Rober Shetterly
ROAD DAWGS
Posted January 22, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
This is a little slice-o'-life blog entry.
the van, all done up in front of the ranch
Justseeds Artists Cooperative have a collective wealth of skills beyond making radical prints. One skill that many of us share, including Shaun Slifer and myself, is the art of ROAD DAWGGIN. We have logged thousands of miles on road trips between the two of us, often together. Shaun is also very adept at cutting and installing vinyl text and graphics. We took these skills to the road last week, when we drove an extended passenger van from Pittsburgh to Austin, logging over 1700 miles in three days! The purpose of this kinda hairbrained trip was to decorate and deliver a van to my brother Chris, who purchased it for his Endurance Ranch triathalon training camp.
Drawing All the Time : Week 16
Posted January 13, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This drawing is in the show Sailing the Barbarous Coast that opens at the New Art Center, Newton, MA on Jan 15.
Save the Gloo Factory!
Posted January 12, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
My good friend Dwight, owner-operator of the Tucson multi-functional art/community/print space the Gloo Factory and allied enterprise Peace Supplies has been struggling against eviction from his crazy downtown space for years now, in the face of idiotic plans for redevelopment. At this point it looks like he's going to lose the space, but he's energized to find a new spot! A vacant lot with a big steel shed! Dreams of a Quonset hut! Located in the city of South Tucson, away from the boondoggles of Tucson proper! To accomplish this, he needs our help. Take a moment to navigate to the Save the Gloo Factory website and make a donation. Tucson's radical print infrastructure will thank you.
Mix-A-Day
Posted January 11, 2010 by erik_ruin in Justseeds & Member Projects
I've been creating a mix of music & other auditory ephemera every day for the month of January 2010. They're all posted here in downloadable form. This project is a part of Art Clash's annual Fun-A-Day project, which is this amazing project where various folks do a project every day in various cities. Folks have done everything from interpreting someone's dream every day to my friend Sharon's current project to draw a portrait of a friend as a Simpson character every day.
So far, this project has been somewhat of a challenge, but as I've been pondering for a while now a possible return to radio, it feels like a good way to explore that possibility and further justify my obsessive tendencies.
Drawing All the Time : Week 15
Posted January 6, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This drawing is part of the series "Feature Presentation about loving, leaving, or existing in a country that revels in its wars." It is titled "Protection Project." It is on a truck right now, headed to Boston, where I will be soon to hang it on a wall at the New Art Center.
Drawing All the Time : Week 17
Posted December 30, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This is a drawing from a series of drawings tentatively titled, "Bonus Footage about loving, leaving, or existing in a country that revels in its wars.”
Drawing All the Time : Week 16
Posted December 23, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This is a drawing from a series of drawings tentatively titled, “Feature Presentation about loving, leaving, or existing in a country that revels in its wars.”
Star Non-violent Civil Disobediences
Posted December 21, 2009 by roger_peet in Film & Video
Here's a little gem that Icky forwarded to me, which is oh-so apropos in the aftermath of the Great Failure of the Copenhagen Forum. Keep on telling yourselves you can fix it! All the self-righteous self-aggrandizing and moral outrage is positively hilarious to watch for those of us who've kicked the hope habit. Especially when people start chanting "Reclaim Power!" Since when have any of you had any power? And what on Earth would you do with it? When I say "Humans", you say "Out"! "Humans!" "Out!" Take it away, Derrick!
Roads Through Palestine: Driving the Geography of War
Posted December 17, 2009 by k_c_ in Film & Video
Our pal Brett Story's film Roads Through Palestine can be viewed online now. It's an impressive collection of imagery captured in the West Bank over 2003-5, I believe.
I came across the video on Art Threat, where Rob Maguire says:
Billowing smoke pours from a bus, as a fire crew attempts to douse the flames. Long, aching lines of motionless vehicles sit at one of Israel’s hated checkpoints. Two men habitually pray on the road alongside their stopped car. A lone helicopter hovers overhead, reinforcing the reality of perpetual occupation.Roads Through Palestine is a cinematic portrait of life in the West Bank, and an intimate reflection on the geography of war. The short film, directed by Brett Story with music by Stefan Christoff, features scenes that are eerie and evocative, yet painfully commonplace.
Having spent time in the West Bank myself, I recalled the outrage I felt every time I was trapped at the checkpoint, where a handful of teenaged occupiers unjustly stood between us travelers and our destinations. But the feel of the 11-minute piece, with its muted colours and choppy, slow motion picture, more closely reflects the banal humiliation suffered by the Palestinian people day in and day out, for whom occupation is not a novelty, but a 40-year curse.
Drawing All the Time : Week 15
Posted December 16, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This is a drawing from a series of drawings tentatively titled, “Bonus footage about loving, leaving, or existing in a country that revels in its wars”
Drawing All the Time : Week 14
Posted December 9, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I am working on a drawing titled Staying Afloat for an upcoming show at the New Art Center in Newton, MA (near Boston). Here is another detail of it (about 18x24" of the 90x126" drawing).
Drawing All the Time : Week 13
Posted December 2, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I am working on a drawing titled Staying Afloat for an upcoming show at the New Art Center in Newton, MA (near Boston). This is a detail of it (about 18x24" of the 90x126" drawing).
Drawing All the Time : Week 12
Posted November 25, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
The month before my cousin got out of prison I sent him a drawing each day to help break up the days. This is one of em.
"Summers Over" print
Posted November 20, 2009 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti
It is pretty common knowledge at Justseeds that I'm a complete ice cream addict. I'd eat it 3 meals a day if I could. So my eyes lit up when I came across this new print by Ad Deville of Skewville. You can get your own HERE.
Drawing All the Time : Week 11
Posted November 18, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
The month before my cousin got out of prison I sent him a drawing each day to help break up the days. This is a drawing of a table in the visiting room. Notice the offender chair with the O.
Bristol Radical History Group in NYC Nov 12-15th
Posted November 12, 2009 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
Some old English comrades, a few I met in Mexico over 8 years ago, are in NYC giving some presentations on the Bristol Radical History Group, a project they've been doing since 2006:
The 'History Workshop' movement was founded in 1966 in Ruskin College, Oxford, U.K. by the Marxist academic Raphael Samuel, a champion of 'history from below.' He famously defined this movement as being "the belief that history is or ought to be a collaborative enterprise, one in which the researcher, the archivist, the curator and the teacher, the 'do-it-yourself' enthusiast and the local historian, the family history societies and the individual archaeologist, should all be regarded as equally engaged."In 2006 in the U.K., Bristol Radical History Group was formed with a view opening up some of the hidden history of their home city to public scrutiny, to challenge some commonly held ideas about historical events and approach this history from 'below'. Unlike Samuel's 'History Workshop,' the group actually came 'from below' its genesis being in an expanded sports club rather than in the academy. As a result it has been able to successfully integrate both the formal lecture with street performance, the organic intellectual with the academic and engage the public in the excitement of radical history by the use of different media.
Rad Teen Print of the Week 5: Local Farmers
Posted November 10, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
This week's rad teen print is a postcard designed and silkscreen printed by Autumn Morgan for RUST 2008. Students created postcards for the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture's (PASA) local farm tour. They got really into the politics of food, from . Autumn's dad is a union organizer for SEIU, and that worker's spirit infuses her work.
HOT on Longs Peak
Posted November 7, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
My bro just sent me this photo of him in the 'Hot In Here' polar bear shirt I made him, at 14,000 feet! I'll be running off more of these shirts, as well as more prints on paper, for the Handmade Arcade, December 12th in Pittsburgh.
This print will be back in the Justseeds store very soon!
Climate activists succesfully block European Business Conference
Posted October 29, 2009 by k_c_ in In the News
October 28th, 2009. For over one and a half hours, hundreds of corporate lobbyists wishing to attend the annual BusinessEurope conference were prevented from entering the Charlemagne building.The Climate action group Climate Alarm!, consisting of activists from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany, blocked the main entrance to the conference.
Some more info on this action can be found at Climate IMC
This makes me so happy tears form in my eyes, I like people that care. Thanks to everyone that organized and executed this!
It should happen everywhere, everyday!
Russian Revolution Postcard Set
Posted October 25, 2009 by icky in Art & Politics
"1917, Day of the Revolution, soldiers on [maybe a street name?]"
This is a postcard set detailing the Revolution(s) of 1917 in Russia. Someone was auctioning these awhile ago and I kept the images. The October (Bolshevik) Revolution was only 92 years ago today!
My great grandparents were Armenians in the Russian military on the Turkish front, and had to flee the country following the revolution. I only bring this up because these images seem like forever ago, but my grandmother was with them and is still alive—this all happened within a lifetime! Anyway, my Russian is pretty spotty, and I am especially bad at reading cursive (also the resolution on these images is not so good) but here are some vaguely, hopefully, accurate translations!
Rad Teen Print of the Week 3: Bike Power!
Posted October 20, 2009 by mary_tremonte
This week's rad teen print is another from the archives, by Hannah Thompson. Hannah created this two-color marmoleum-block print during RUST 2008, with the guidance of visiting Justseeds Artist Pete Yahnke. After hearing a presentation from Bike Pittsburgh about current bike advocacy issues, students created two-color block prints that were turned into vinyl stickers that can be stuck on bikes. This sticker in particular is the perfect size for a milk crate!
This is a timely sticker, as Bike Pittsburgh has recently been able to get an ordinance passed by the City Planning Commission to create more and safer bike parking in the City of Pittsburgh. They are now putting pressure on City Council to have it passed into law. You can check out their site to lend support.
Automatic Insurrection
Posted October 19, 2009 by erik_ruin in Art & Politics
This just in from our friend John Duda in Baltimore, an automated insurrectionist rant generator! Guaranteed to provide hours of entertainment!
John explains:
"The purpose of this little program is to expose the seductions of rhetoric, not to criticize actions taken. Despite my admiration for many of the actions taken in the name of insurrection, I'm suspicious of how easy it is to substitute style for substance in the communiques describing these actions. And this is not to say that all "insurrectionist" texts are meaningless, despite its difficulty, I found the Coming Insurrection to be, with all its excesses, a serious (if contentious) contribution to revolutionary thought. And, to point out just one other exemplar, the recent "Communique from an Absent Future: The Terminus of Student Life" is by and large an excellent piece of analysis. This program is intended only to demonstrate the pitfalls of language which sounds too good to be meaningful."
(I can) read the writing on the wall-6
Posted October 19, 2009 by k_c_ in Justseeds & Member Projects
No More Corporate Bullshit-Fuk Wall St
Gowanus, Brooklyn. 2008
This was an artists response to last years economic crisis and collapse. Below is a more recent photo of the response of someone with money to burn on brown paint.
Its interesting, that, whomever buffed this building only had a problem with the overt statement and not the self aggrandizing throw-ups. Is offending Wall St. bad for property values? Couldn't the financial institutions be blamed for valueless land and homes?
Funny, bankers and graffiti artists supposedly have the similar effects on a neighborhood. I'd rather read the walls any day than have the mystery and of the market impact my neighbors.
Political Cinema.... part deux
Posted October 17, 2009 by icky in Art & Politics
"Les miettes " (Crumbs) directed by Pieree Pinaud in 2007.
I projected this silent film last night at my work, in a program of new French shorts. It's a beautifully made, aesthetically retro, allegory about capitalism, solidarity, and (even) the necessity of armed self-defense.
Well worth a half hour of your time!
Rad Teen Print of the Week
Posted October 15, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
It's time once again for...rad teen print of the week!
This week's print is from Ben Page, a junior at Pittsburgh's High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, who was part of the RUST team this Summer. Ben took this photo of a penguin at the National Aviary, also on Pittsburgh's North Side, and used his wicked Photoshop skills to alter the contrast, before burning silkscreens and printing it. I don't know if you can tell by this photo, but this print features silver ink. Fabulous!
Drawing: Week 5
Posted October 7, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This one is called "Extras." Ink and paint on paper, 10" x 14"
Disperse!: The Official G-20 Megamix Extravaganza
Posted October 2, 2009 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
To go along with Mary's posting about media coverage at the G20, here's an awesome remix of the police order to disperse, heard in the streets of Pittsburgh during the G20.
Thanks to whomever put that together. Its funny cos I was just listening to WFMU the other day, and heard a song called Resist. It was a DJ remix of a very popular Radical Cheerleader chant during the anti-globalisation hey-day, by Plastique Du Reve f/ Radical Resistance Cheerleaders.
Rad Teen Art of the Week
Posted October 2, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
At the suggestion of Shaun Slifer, I am going to post a new rad teen print each week...(some of my teens would totally make fun of me for using the word 'rad'..."way to bring it back to the 90s!")
I've been working with youth via The Andy Warhol Museum for about seven years now, and I have increasingly geared the programs and projects I facilitate towards socially conscious printmaking. While we don't have any programs going on at this moment, there is a wealth of archived material to choose from.
This first image is by Katie Kaplan, who worked with us at the Warhol for four years...she is now a sophmore printmaking major at Pratt. Keep an eye out for her! This print is from a prison poster project students did for FedUp!, who work on upholding prisoners' human rights. Students learned how to use rubylith from visiting Justseeds artist Erik Ruin to make layers for their prints. Katie was so inspired, she now uses this technique to make a lot of her work. Enjoy!
INTERVIEW: Taylor Stevenson of Red Semilla Roja
Posted September 30, 2009 by icky in Interviews
The Esplanade is a narrow strip of land that lies between the Willamette River and Interstate 5 in Portland (OR). In 2001 the City of Portland remodeled this into a riverfront parkway, with some public art, a partially-floating bike/jog path, and some new boat docks. This area (near rail lines, social services, and with plenty of bridges and overpasses) has also been a long time spot for homeless camps, car campers, train hoppers, and also (of course) skate boarders & graffiti.
I put up a blog posting a couple weeks ago about a public art install, Live Debris, which occurred in this area. It was organized by the group Red Semilla Roja, and one in "a series of international events sharing reuse traditions as a means of reducing stigmas around garbage, poverty and street culture."
I went down late on a Saturday, added some art to the wheat paste wall, sat on a woven-from-garbage hammock, and looked out over the river. I then wandered back down the Esplanade and checked out all the different projects that were part of Live Debris. I was impressed and inspired by the project and interviewed Taylor Stevenson from Red Semilla Roja for the Justseeds blog via email on September 25th, 2009.
(photos taken from Live Debris website)
(I can) read the writing on the wall-3
Posted September 28, 2009 by k_c_ in Justseeds & Member Projects
Bushwick, NY
I have been taking a bunch of flicks of the Read fire extinguisher tags, here's one of em. You may see Boans, Reader, Read More, or other stuff. If you find em, let me know. I'd like to compile a bunch more!
People's Museum In Palestine
Posted September 28, 2009 by icky in Inspiration
YNKB is an arts group in Copenhagen (you may remember them from an old post I did on a trip Josh and I made to Europe). I continue to be inspired by how they blend local, neighborhood concerns with global issues, and also how they approach global issues in a very specific neighborhood-y kind of way. There's also a sense of play and joy in what they do that is pretty scarce in political art projects. One of the projects they have been involved with, The People's Museum (in Birzeit, Palestine), is opening on October 2nd. This is from their website:
"The idea is to create a “from bottom up” museum, which represents a collection of items, histories and memories of the residents in a specific locality in Palestine. The form, the site and the collected items are decided upon through a dialogue between the local residents, local grassroots organisations, art students and artists with connection to the specific locality and the Danish artist groups Parfyme-YNKB.
This project seeks a different approach to the concept of a museum.
It is about how people want to represent themselves.
The role of the artists in the project is to open up the discussion with local residents about what is important in their existence and how to memorize, and retain collective and individual identity. How does people identify themselves? In which way, and through what kinds of objects? The goal of the museum is to collect the history of people, and show it in a museum context."
For more info on the People's Museum click here.
For more info on YNKB click here.
Blu & David Ellis timelapse collaboration
Posted September 26, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
If you haven't checked it out already, David Ellis and BLU have created a collaborative timelapse video while partaking in the Fame Festival in Italy.
COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.
Both artists have produced similar videos, David, having collaborated with a group called the Barnstormers as well as many of his own projects. This was the first time these two artists have worked together. The video is interesting and enjoyable, visually. There is so much context and information that I wish was available along with the it. I have obvious questions about the logistics of such a piece and place, as well as the purpose and intention behind the collaboration. Maybe there's an interesting interview out there somewhere that will explain everything I have to inquire about...
Drawing All the Time : Week 3
Posted September 23, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Another drawing in the group I post each Wednesday at 8am.
In memoriam: William J. Adelman, Chicago labor historian
Posted September 21, 2009 by nicolas_lampert in Inspiration
Labor historian William J. Adelman has passed. His walking tours of labor sites in Chicago, his books, his union organizing, and vision inspired and educated many generations of activists and made sure that the labor struggles of the past are remembered and carried into the present. Below is tribute to his legacy.
"William J. Adelman, 1932-2009: Teacher formed a union at school, became labor history expert
By Joan Giangrasse Kates
Special to the Tribune
September 21, 2009
When it came to the labor movement in Illinois, William J. Adelman was not only a fierce advocate at the ground level but also a devoted historian and preserver of its legacy.
The longtime Oak Park resident got firsthand experience helping organize fellow teachers at Morton West High School in Berwyn during the 1960s.
"He'd teach all day and then conduct union meetings at night," said his son Marc.
Mr. Adelman later became a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, during which time he penned a series of walking tour books on significant sites involving the labor movement in Chicago. In 1969 he also co-founded the Illinois Labor History Society in Chicago and was its vice president.
Peter Kuper at MoCCA
Posted September 18, 2009 by k_c_ in Art exhibits/shows
I went to Peter Kuper's presentation of his recently published book Diario De Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico on PM Press. The event was an opening for Peter's current exhibit up at the MoCCA Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, at 594 Broadway, Suite 401
"MoCCA is pleased to present Peter Kuper's Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico. This exhibition is in conjunction with the release of his book published in a bilingual edition from PM Press in the US and Sexto Piso in Mexico. Diario de Oaxaca is Kuper's chronicle of his experiences in Oaxaca, Mexico during the political uprising of 2006 and its aftermath. The exhibition includes sketches, illustrations and comics, capturing both the light and shadows that defined his time there."
The exhibit is really simple and stark. I started to notice how Peter was using the nationalistic colors of Mexico in the wall text. It then occurred to me that the wall to my right was painted red, to my left, green, and the wall in front of me had an eagle eating the serpent on the cactus. He incorporated simple elements like the Mexican flag along with stenciled slogans from the streets of Oaxaca on the walls amidst his journal sketches. There are two large screens in the gallery one, a multimedia collage of Peter's stenciled "Day of the Dead" self-portrait, and another displaying dozens of slides he took while living in Oaxaca. The images range from the immense amount of graffiti and visual culture produced in the streets as part of the uprising to buses, which were commandeered and burnt to provide barricades in street battles against the Federal Police, to snapshots of his daughter in front of a line of riot police.
Wisconsin is weird and incredible
Posted September 18, 2009 by pete in Inspiration
After our justseeds retreat in Pittsburgh in August I took a trip to my homeland of Wisconsin. Now I am sure most people don't daydream of Wisconsin imagining how amazing it is, but truly it is a special place. I was taking a little road trip to visit friends in the rolling hills and bluffs of SW Wisconsin when I realized I was passing the infamous "House on the Rock". Growing up in northern WI I had heard of this place before but like many things in my home state hadn't thought much about it. I assumed it was maybe an old church on the top of the hill or maybe an old world heritage type of place, basically something I wasn't going to be too excited to go out of my way for. I only recently had learned that the "House on the Rock" might be worth checking out when I heard they had a few of the amazing sculptures of Dr. Evermore, the creator of the Forevertron (another reason WI is the best). I assumed if they had some of his work there it most certainly was not a church and was likely going to blow my mind. It did. If you are ever in the Spring Green area of WI (West of Madison) go there, smile nice at the elderly ticket man, give him your $30, just do it don't think twice, and enter the overly sensational experience that is HOUSE ON THE ROCK!....
Drawing All the Time : Week 2
Posted September 16, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This drawing, Spectators, is from my sketchbook.
I will post a random drawing each Wednesday at 8am.
The People Suck
Posted September 9, 2009 by roger_peet in Inspiration
The world is over.
A goat with its throat slashed may buck against its bonds, but the blood will drain out and it will die. A gentle hand might give it a pill to ease the suffering. Like the goat, we've swallowed the pill, and so it comes to this. Buy an efficient lightbulb. Drive a "hybrid" car. We have eaten the host that was laid on our tongue, the host embossed "HOPE". We've supped from the poisoned chalice to wash it down.
Our sad flapping jaws will keep on hurking out positive affirmations like trained seals clapping for the ringmaster. Our prating of determination and principled struggle and positivity of all sorts sounds now as do the grunts of a dental patient turned loose to the street with a toothless gape and gums full of anaesthetic. For it's Hope that has killed us these many long years, and it will continue to kill us, though it will seem like famine, and it will seem like war. It's hope that strangles the life of the earth, hope that fills the land and water with poison, the hope that something might be better for our children, and the hope that our pestilential children might somehow impossibly behave other than humans have ever done. Hope places around our necks the thin, piano-wire garrotte of sustainability, and chuckles in syncopation with our breathless gasps. Hope throttles us with our efforts to bring "justice" and "peace", to fight "oppression", for we stand in the shadow of one hundred thousand years of world-rending growth and ecological annihilation and proclaim that without darkness, we would never have been able to understand the properties of light.
Drawing All the Time : Week 1
Posted September 9, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
I draw obsessively and was recently asked if I would blog drawings now and again. I will be posting a random drawing to the justseeds blog every Wednesday at 8am.
I sent a drawing to my cousin everyday for the last 30 days he was in prison. One goal was for him to receive mail everyday to help pass the time. This is one of those drawings. It is about making hot pot burritos in his cell.
Guatemala
Posted September 4, 2009 by Jesus_Barraza in Inspiration
This Summer has been crazy, it started in May with a three week trip through the U.S. with Latino and Indigenous artist from New York, Oaklahoma, Guatemala, Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador. The trip was part of a artist exchange titled SALPICA, it was organized by ITD which operates out of Amherst. We travelled through Amherst, Boston, DC, New York, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Los Angeles. It was a blast we visited museums, tourist sites, the beach and even a Indian casino all the while discussing art, culture and the many realities indigenous people occupy through out this hemisphere. I will remember those three weeks for the rest of my life, but it was just the beginning.
After returning from my trip, Melanie and I begun to prepare for our exhibit at Galeria de la Raza. Titled Dignidad Rebelde: Art in Action, this was the first of three exhibits that make up the Contrabando Series, which invites artist to take over the gallery space and transform it into their studio. We took full advantage of this studio in the Mission, we printed 4 editions and about 500 1 color posters ranging in issues from Honduras, El Salvador, Iran and Immigration.
As the exhibit came to a close it was time for the second leg of the SALPICA artist exchange, this time the US based artist travelled to Latin America. Melanie and I, along with three artist from New York travelled to Guatemala to spend some time with artists from the country. This was one of the greatest weeks in my life, we had the opportunity to travel trough the whole country, checking out the big city, galleries, tourist spots, the mountains, cultural centers and ancient temples.
Digger Papers
Posted August 18, 2009 by jmacphee in Inspiration
The folks over at Arthur Magazine are building a cool online archive of printed papers created by the Diggers back in the mid-60s. For those new to them, the Diggers were a San Francisco-based political counter-culture group, sort of like anarchist beatniks and hippies. They took their name from the 17th century British Diggers, a revolutionary band led by Gerrard Winstanley, who basically believed in creating economic equality through complete communal land ownership. The SF Diggers created a free food program for kids in Golden Gate Park, a Free Store, where donated and stolen goods where distributed, and free rock concerts. The existed at the same time that Black Mask was organizing in NYC and the Provos where doing their thing in Amsterdam. All 3 groups were the first big wave of 60s anti-capitalist youth organizing, setting the parameters for what would happen latter in 1968 with the global youth revolt.
The funnest source for reading about the SF Diggers is the book Ringolevio, the semi-fictional autobiography of Digger Emmett Grogan. The text can be found online HERE, but it's a book well worth having, and can be found HERE.
Arthur has been collecting the flyers produced by Communication Company, who were sort of like the Diggers publishing wing. From the Arthur site:
Most of the documents that we are presenting are broadsides originally published on a Gestetner machine owned and operated in the Haight by the novelist/poet Chester Anderson and his protege/sidekick Claude Hayward, who used the name “Communication Company,” or more commonly, “Com/Co.” According to Claude, these broadsides were then “handed out on the street, page by page, super hot media, because the reader trusted the source, which was another freaky looking hippie who had handed it to him/her.”
All of these Communication Company mimeo flyers can be found on the Arthur site HERE.
Other SF Digger info, posters and flyers can be found at the Digger Archives HERE.
Digital Security for Activists
Posted August 4, 2009 by jmacphee in Inspiration
I don't know where Justseeds would be without Riseup.net. Using the beta version of Riseup's Crabgrass software, sort of like a car crash of a wiki, facebook and google apps, has allowed the 23 of us, in a dozen different cities, to functionally maintain multiple and simultaneous conversations, decisions making processes, critiques, and idea generation. It makes online conversations and decision making amongst decentralized groups possible, opening all kinds of opportunities for new offline organizational development. If you haven't checked out Riseup lately, drop by their website and see what they are up to.
But what I really want to promote here is a cool new e-zine they've put out called Digital Security for Activists. It can be downloaded from this page HERE, and is well worth the read. Here's their own description of it:
Here at the Riseup Collective Headquarters, we have just completed collecting personal stories and practical advice about digital security and online organizing. For activists, by activists.It is all in our new, 60 page zine, which is full of daring tales of adventure and geeky narratives about how we can protect and advance our movement.
RUST Closing Party
Posted July 29, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
RUST (Radical Urban Silkscreen Team) 2009, a project of Artists Image Resource and The Andy Warhol Museum, is coming to a close. During the month of July, we cooled down a storefront on East Ohio Street in the North Side with lots of radical teen printmaking. Don't miss our closing party tonight! July 29th.Visiting Justseeds member Bec Young even made an awesome red cabbage-beet-fennel salad for us! You can also catch us at the opening of Transformazium's Community Silkscreen Studio in Braddock, Pa on Thursday, July 30th.
Silkscreen Power!
PARTY OVER HERE!
RUST 2009 CLOSING PARTY
WED JULY 29th
5:00-8:00PM
632 East Ohio Street (old Liberty Tax building, last one on your left before 279)
SNACKS!
DRINKS!
MUSIC!
LIVE SILKSCREEN PRINTING!
SEE & BUY TEEN-CREATED PRINTS!
OPEN TO ALL! FREE!
RUST at Youth Peace Rally + Justseeds Image Gets Used!
Posted July 23, 2009 by shaun in Inspiration
This week we took our RUST youth print group to a "youth peace rally" organized by the MGR Foundation and Teens Against Senseless Violence (TASK). The kids in our group were printing posters for TASK on the spot, handing out their designs as well as teaching folks how to screenprint hands-on.
I was surprised and excited when someone in the rally handed me this brochure for the Human Rights Coalition's Fed-Up! branch here in Pittsburgh - the front of the pamphlet features Justseeds' artist Nicolas Lampert's "Missing" poster design!
Mur Murs by Agnes Varda
Posted July 20, 2009 by icky in Inspiration
Oh my goodness! I was completely taken off guard at work last night, I had to project a 16mm print of Agnes Varda's film "Mur Murs". The film is about murals, street art, and street culture in 1980 Los Angeles. I've always liked Varda enough, but seeing some of her older documentaries has been a real eye opener, they are colorful, playful, serious, political, and funny. This one includes lots of great shots of graffiti, those weird giant LA hyper realistic murals, goofy Venice Beach culture, lots of street shots... but especially cool were some of the scenes of the more political and community based mural projects. Judy Baca is interviewed, many of her projects are shown, and a portable mural is shown (where they drive around with highly political murals presented in the back of pickup trucks and parked in front of the unemployment office, the Bank of America, etc...). The best (to me) was a bit on Willy Herron's awesome murals (which have a really great modern sharp/punk aesthetic that is heavily influenced by the Mexican muralists), an interview with him walking down the street looking (and acting) way too cool in 1980s sunglasses and skinny tie, an outdoor performance by his seminal punk band Los Illegals, an interview with his aunt who managed the bakery where two of his murals are located (one pictured above) and then a weird performance art piece by him and his crew. Anyone with an interest in murals, street art, radical culture, street culture, Chicano history in LA, experimental film and documentary, early punk etc... should try and see this!
The good news is it's playing again in Portland (OR) this Friday, July 24th at 7PM at the NWFC (Whitsell Auditorium- 1219 SW Park Avenue)
The bad news is that I don't think you can find this on DVD or readily available anywhere. (But this is part of a touring exhibition of Varda's films, so keep your eyes open). (and if this touring program does come through, also keep your eyes peeled for Uncle Yanko, a documentary about a distant relative of hers who lives in the late 1960s Bay Area freak houseboat scene, also quite awesome!)
Chris Stain is Somebody Else's Favorite (too!)
Posted July 20, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Artwork Inspired by 21st Century Breakdown
Green Day commissioned artist Logan Hicks to assemble a group of artists to create works of art based on each song from 21st Century Breakdown. The exhibition will travel with Green Day’s tour.
Interview with Maestro Shinzaburo Takeda
Posted July 17, 2009 by molly_fair in Interviews
I just found this interview artist Kevin McCloskey did with Shinzaburo Takeda, the artist who taught the ASAR-O collective in Oaxaca, Mexico. Read the full interview here in the e-zine CommonSense2.
From Kevin McCloskey's blog:
I was surprised to learn the man who taught the radical young printmakers of Oaxaca's ASAR-O collective was a mild-mannered seventy-five year old Japanese master printer. I had the privilege of speaking with him earlier this year in Oaxaca.
His own artwork is generally not political in nature, but he has been an inspiration to a new generation of activists/artists.Maestro Takeda spoke about his outreach project to Oaxaca’s poor. He is devoted to the nurturing students from the underclass, the sons and daughters of “campesinos” or landless peasants. Oaxaca is among the poorest Mexican states and one of the poorest regions of the state is the remote Costa Chica. Nearly 8 hours by bus from Oaxaca City, the Costa Chica is home to Afro-Mexican communities. An activist Roman Catholic priest there, Padre Glyn Jemmott, has made it his life’s mission to raise awareness of Mexico’s racial diversity. Padre Glyn is himself of African descent, born in Trinidad, and like Maestro Takeda, devoted to expanding opportunities for the campesinos. During the 1990s Maestro Takeda arranged for some of best students go to the Costa Chica and work with Padre Glyn
When the political turmoil hit Oaxaca in 2006, Takeda challenged his students to respond to the crisis as artists. If one is an artist, then one responds to any phenonomenom, be it natural, social, or political, as an artist. He teaches his students about Mexico’s proud heritage of activist artists. He shares his own collection of books of Taller Grafica Popular prints with his students. He is impressed with both the quality and quantity of political prints his former students in ASAR-O have produced. He recalls with pride how ASARO upended the whole idea of the preciousness of art, selling their unsigned prints for just a few pesos more than the cost of the paper it was printed on.
Two Hundred and Seventy Seven Streetfights
Posted July 13, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
The insurrection in Greece in December was a visible and mass expression of the social war that rages at all times and will continue until the destruction of all domination.Thousands fought in the re-appropriated streets of the necropolis. Hundreds were arrested and, with exceptionally swift procedures, several were thrown in prison. Six of them still remain imprisoned up to this day. Because for those in power someone has to pay the price for the negation in practice shown by all of us against this decaying world.
There is an American comrade publishing news and accounts from Greece, currently, on the blog Two Hundred and 77 Street Fights. There are some reflections on the uprising from last winter, news of repression against immigrants, resistance to state repression, prisoner updates, Greek poetry, and excerpts from the first "proper" book about the December insurrection, Instead of a Conclusion. It is a resource for those who wish to read, in English, about the direction the struggle in Greece has gone since December.
We Can't Buy Our Way Out of Environmental Destruction
Posted July 10, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
I've had the discussion about my frustration with the saying "vote with your dollars".
Thats not voting, its consumerism. Its an economic relationship and system that denigrates activity and participation to buying. I'm not interested in how some consumer choices are better than others. I could go on, but I think Derek Jensen articulates it a bit better than I do in a recent piece from Orion Magazine:
Forget Shorter Showers-Why personal change does not equal political change
WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.
FTW
Posted July 3, 2009 by icky in Inspiration
Maybe this means something different in Iran.
(Sorry, if I knew where this photo came from I would credit it)
New CD from Venezuela
Posted July 2, 2009 by pete in Inspiration
Just got this package in the mail. Awhile back Kristine Virsis and I had been contacted about having our art used on this benefit CD put out by the anarcopunk label Cabaza De Vaca in Venezuela. They pulled our images from the site and contacted us with a mock up layout which looked great. Months later this lovely package arrived; looks like they screen printed and hand assembled all these. Check out the blog and website for Cabaza De Vaca to get your own copy.
Here's some info on the CD:
CVR-010 Dissension/Anarcolepsia "Solidaridad" Cd
Bonita edicion en Cd en caja artesanal a serigrafia en 2 colores en total beneficio del Comited de Victimas del Estado Lara. Grabado en vivo por "el coach" directo desde la ONG .
Happy Pride NYC!
Posted June 25, 2009 by molly_fair in People's History!
Celebrate your queerness and nerd out at the New York Public Library with this rad exhibit:
1969: The Year of Gay Liberation
June 1, 2009 through June 30, 2009
Stokes Gallery (Third Floor)
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, New York, NY
The year 1969 was a flashpoint in the history of LGBT civil rights struggles, marking a paradigmatic shift in the ways that gays and lesbians saw themselves and fought for their full inclusion within American society. In the wake of the Stonewall Riots on June 28 of that year, gays and lesbians in New York City radicalized in an unprecedented way, founding activist groups—Gay Liberation Front, the Radicalesbians, Gay Activists Alliance, and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries—that created a new vision: Gay Liberation. This exhibition charts the emergence of this new vision through photographs and original documents that show the evolution of Gay Liberation in New York City from the Stonewall Riots to the first LGBT pride march—Christopher Street Liberation Day 1970.
From the NYPL archives Diana Davies photographs, 1965-1978, Demonstration at City Hall, New York City, in support of gay rights bill "Intro 475," 1973 April, left to right: Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Barbara Deming, and Kady Vandeurs
Chomsky Event Poster Designed by Josh Macphee & Kevin Caplicki
Posted June 9, 2009 by k_c_ in Posters & Prints
Josh Macphee and Kevin Caplicki collaborated on a 5-color handprinted poster for an upcoming benefit for the Brecht Forum.
The event features Noam Chomsky who will deliver a lecture called Crisis and Hope:Theirs and ours. He'll be introduced by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, and features music by Earthdriver and Mahina Movement
The event will be held
Friday, June 12
7:00 pm
At Riverside Church
490 Riverside Drive (Btn 120 & 121 St)
NYC, NY
Sliding scale for talk: $20/$25/$30
Reception with Noam Chomsky (includes reserved seating for the talk): $50/$100/$250/$500
Special Benefit for the Brecht Forum,
Please contribute what you can afford.
The poster, a signed and numbered edition of 60, will be available for sale at the event, and tickets can be purchased through the Brecht Forum website.
I shold also mention that Justseeds will be tabling the event along with others, like our comrades from Bluestockings Bookstore
Profane Relics: Early Research
Posted June 9, 2009 by roger_peet in Environment
My colleague Ryan Burns has been hard at work on an ambitious project of late. It's to be a massive reliquary of the Congo mineral wars; a huge slab of excavated central African soil, displayed as if it were an archaeological find shipped to a research center in a massive crate. The dig reveals layer upon layer of exploitation and devastation, destroyed forests, rent cultures, annihilated wildlife, and gruesome paramilitary struggle for control of the stream of minerals.... 
These minerals, hacked by hand from beneath the Congolese subsoil by teams of preteen miners, make their way through unscrupulous chains of corporate commerce into all our modern high-tech devices, our computers, our cellphones, blackberries, i-phones, x-boxes, playstations, anti-lock brakes, and so on, and so on.
We are all complicit in this, and the fact that I'm blogging about it is the ultimate irony. None of this dissemination of information is possible without the grim calculus of total destruction that has been wrought on the lands, life and people of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the past twenty years. Blood is on our hands.
Profane Relics will be on display at the Sea Change gallery in downtown Portland, Oregon, starting in July. More details coming soon.
Cardboard Installation
Posted June 5, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Events
My dear friend and housemate Heidi Tucker has a collaborative cardboard installation opening tonight at Morning Glory Coffeehouse in Pittsburgh...I thought it appropriate to post on here, what with Justseeds' affinity for cardboard, and some Justseeds peeps in the show...check it out, it will be up for the month of June.
June 5, 2009 - 7pm
Heidi Tucker - ART OPENING
at Morning Glory Coffeehouse
1806 Chislett Street, in Morningside
free food + wine
412-450-1050 for info
HEIDI TUCKER painted cardboard installation. come on dahn. will be up throughout the month of June
Cardboard installation floor to ceiling...
with pieces by
Mary Mack, Emilie Bosworth-Clemens, Nathan Mould, Morgan Cahn, Carly, Teresa, Leslie Stem, Gina, Ally Reeves, Caleb Gamble, Ashley Brickman, Niko Gomez, Chris St.Pierre, Aurelia Freidland, Mick, Blair, Gretchen Ann Neidert
Evil Twin will perform at 9pm.
Cat and Girl-choices choices choices
Posted June 2, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Head over to Cat and GIrl for another good comic
Bogside Artists Collective - Northern Ireland
Posted May 30, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Riffing off Kevin's post about art and resistance in Northern Ireland, I thought I would post some photos of murals by the Bogside Artists' in Derry, Northern Ireland. I took these photos in 2006, when I was in Ireland for a few months. These photos blew me away and had a major impact on the whole spirit of Derry. I cannot image how my walk through Derry would have changed if these murals were gone. These murals are attributed to the Bogside Artists' collective.
Culture Production About Resistance-Bobby Sands
Posted May 30, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
I was looking thru old posts from the C-monster blog and came across a link to the Magnum photography site. The link led me to a set of images titled Bobby Sands dies of Hunger.
Irish Republican Bobby Sands died on his 66th day of hunger striking in Maze Prison. He was trying to get the British government to recognize IRA members as political prisoners and allow them to wear civilian clothes.
There are some incredible images of the street battles that occurred the day he died, others of the army response, and many of the popularly attended funeral of Sands.
One current photograph depicts a memorial mural of Sands. Murals in Northern Ireland were very common symbols of resistance to the British, allegiance to the IRA struggle, and solidarity with other struggles of self-determination. The Drawing Support photo book series documents some, of the supposed 2000+, murals of Northern Ireland.
Steve McQueen's Hunger is an incredible film about Sands' last days in prison. The visual composition of the film is totally beautiful and allowed me to make it through the brutality of the political prisoners' treatment and the conditions that humans are incarcerated in. Definitely check it out if you get the chance!
Signs of Change-Inspired Teens in PGH
Posted May 13, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspiration
Sex Education for All by Shira Rascoe
More radical teen printmaking totally!
Pittsburgh's CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts) High School students in Shannon Pultz's printmaking class visited the Signs of Change exhibition at the Miller Gallery in February. Students designed images inspired by the show on issues they are personally passionate about (sound familiar?) and learned relief printing to create these posters.
Some of them were particularly timely, as Shira Rascoe says of her print: "When I was creating my poster, many people in Pittsburgh were in the process of convincing the Pittsburgh Public Schools to adopt a comprehensive sex education curriculum, meaning not just abstinence. I feel that it is crucial for the safety of my peers to teach teenagers about contraception. The peeled banana with the condom on the bottom symbolizes exposure versus protection. Luckily, the PPS has now adopted an Abstinence Plus policy."
Here are a few more examples.
Fed Up with the Crisis in BCN
Posted May 13, 2009 by jmacphee in In the News
Some friends in Barcelona decided they were "fed up with the crisis, were tired of the fear that mass media communicate everyday, and sick of suffering in silence at home, [so they] decided... to go dancing at an unemployment office.":
Their statement (rough translation):
Today, Thursday April 30, we held the party Inem (Unemployment Office).
We had been preparing since the last few weeks. It was truly enjoyable! 40 people appeared at 12:00 on the Inem branch located in the street Sepúlveda de Barcelona. There we waited in the usual atmosphere of these places at this time: a mixture of stationary people (local and foreign), tired of waiting and wasting time, bored, angry and disgusted faces, full of fear created by the crisis. Less than five minutes of messing around and dancing have been required to change their crisis faces into smiling and cheerful faces. Some joined with us in the dance, and others applauded. All, without exception, have appreciated this wave of light and color, this outburst of joy and enjoy places where you least expect it: in an office job in crisis.
Street Art etc... Europe last summer
Posted May 12, 2009 by icky in Street Art & Graffiti
These are pictures Katie B. took while on tour with my band last summer in Europe, some highlights of street art, graf. and alternative spaces.
Stencil on left from Hamburg, the right from Germany somewhere.
Mayday Berlin!
Posted May 12, 2009 by jmacphee in Posters & Prints
Our friend Sandy K. from Image-Shift sent us a communique of links and images to their recent poster project for Mayday Berlin. The project consisted of two sets of posters. The first set consisted of 6 posters, each one with a single large pink letter on white background, the letters: K, R, I, S, E, !, spell out CRISIS! in German. Each letter also has another word it stands for, K for Kapitalismus, S for Solidarität, etc. I've roughly translated the text from each poster below (with online translators, so sorry it is a little rugged!). The second set are all white text on blue background, and are specific information about the Mayday events in Berlin.
There are more photos of the posters pasted up around Berlin here and here.
Free Xero: A Re-discovered Inspiration
Posted May 6, 2009 by erik_ruin in Inspiration
I was flipping through various comics anthologies the other day (looking for wordless comics for a friend's thesis project) when i rediscovered the work of Carol Moiseiwitsch. I remembered her bold scratchboard imagery & dark sardonic wit always standing out in comics collections like Twisted Sisters, but had never seen much of her work beyond that. So imagine my delight when i discovered a whole site of her images- comics, paintings, posters etc., all available for non-profit use! I was also impressed to see Carol continuing to create relevant, charged graphics in reaction to current struggles in Palestine, Oaxaca and elsewhere.
I highly encourage everyone to check out the striking work of this dedicated and under-appreciated radical artist!
Oakland youth prepare for May Day march and rally
Posted May 2, 2009 by Jesus_Barraza in Inspiration
May Day: Youth Prepare from Betty Bastidas on Vimeo.
In preparation for May 1st Immigrant Rights mobilization in Oakland youth gathered for a banner making party to paint graffiti banners, screen print bandanas, posters, and t-shirts. It was great to see so many black, brown and red youth gravitate to the two screen printing stations we set up. They quickly learned the process and took over, teaching each other how to screen print. The youth painted three banners, screen printed about 50 posters, cut a stencil and sprayed 20 posters and made about a dozen shirts. Betty Bastidas and some youth from Huaxtec helped document the event, you can see the video below.
The workshop came a week after a conversation with Lincoln Cushing, we talked about the re-emergence of screen printing as a social movement medium. I think it is important to help spread the medium to as many youth as we can as well as other printmaking mediums. It was great seeing all the art produced by youth at the May 1st march in Oakland and I hope that this trend continues and we have more youth making art in the community.
Printing with Pittsburgh Teens!
Posted May 1, 2009 by shaun in Justseeds & Member Projects
This week saw the culmination of a project I've been working on the last couple of months alongside Mary Tremonte (also of Justseeds), Pittsburgh artist (and beekeeper) Ashley Brickman, and Jenn Knops from University of Pittsburgh's Street Law program. As agents of the Warhol Museum's Education Department, we worked with three "Theory of Knowledge" classes at Schenley High to create posters about current social justice issues.
We started by taking the classes on a field trip in late February to see the "Signs of Change" exhibit while it was on display at the Miller Gallery in town. The students had to pick images from the show to discuss with the group, and began thinking about how to communicate through poster design. Over the course of the next several weeks we held discussions about current events, helping the kids focus on problems they saw in the world and researching them to gain a better understanding of the issues they felt were important. Jenn brought in a lot of information on international human rights for the students to chew on, and once they broke into groups we started going over some design fundamentals, using imagery from some Justseeds artists along with the "how to" design chapter at the beginning of Josh and Favianna's "Reproduce and Revolt" (a great, encompassing primer on fundamentals of clear graphic design). The kids set to work collaborating on their designs, combining their experience at "Signs of Change" with their own knowledge and opinions. The best part, of course, is the actual printing of the posters, which happens in a day-long field trip for each class to Artist Image Resource (AIR)! There they screen print their poster designs and learn the whole process firsthand! Besides getting some amazing posters printed and having fun doing it, I'm really proud of how this project worked out, and it's amazing watching the kids' eyes open to the possibilities of printing! In the coming weeks the students must find places in the city to hang their posters (storefronts, schools, etc) in order to spread their messages. Check out our Flickr album for more images of the students making their posters...
Stainoner & Billy Mode in Bushwick
Posted April 30, 2009 by k_c_ in Justseeds & Member Projects
There are a few flicks of a piece that Billy Mode and Chris Stain painted last week over on SlamXHype.com
BATHAS INTERNATIONALE
Posted April 28, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Friend of Justseeds Brandon Bauer is a part of the project, Bathas Internationale, which now has a public access television show.
BATHAS Internationale is a Milwaukee, WI based American art collective that produces a public access television show, makes video art, installation art, interventionist art in the public sphere, sound art, and performance art. BATHAS was formed in 1996 by Brandon Bauer and Theo von Briesen. BATHAS stands for "Beaten About The Head And Shoulders" the "Internationale" moniker was added in the summer of 2008 to the introduction sequence on their public access television show.
Here are a bunch of links if you wanna check them out:
the wikipedia entry
BATHAS DOT COM
BATHAS Blog
the BATHAS manifesto post
BATHAS You Tube
BATHAS Myspace TV
City from Below documentation
Posted April 23, 2009 by jmacphee in Events
A couple weeks ago Kevin, Erik and I headed down to Baltimore for the City from Below Conference, which was quite awesome. A large and diverse group of really hard working people, trying to build urban democracy from the bottom up. The conference organizers had asked Justseeds to design posters for them, and Erik, Icky and I answered the call. Erik's image is here to the left, and Icky's is here, and mine here. The organizers have been collecting all the video, photo and audio documentation from the conference, and putting it up on their website. You can see a lot of what happened in a great collection of videos here. In addition, there was a very cool companion conference for kids called Kid(z) City, which had a whole parallel track of activities for kids. They also produced an awesome coloring book, with a ton of great taking back the city images. They also included my "Free" image, which got some cool coloring jobs (thanks to Emily for the flic).
Indigenous Radicalism
Posted April 21, 2009 by dylan_miner in Justseeds & Member Projects
Here is my first attempt at sharing my academic writings with you. Thought I'd start with this encyclopedia entry I wrote on 'Indigenous Radicalism.' Nothing too challenging here. This is an entry for the recently published International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest.
Let me know if I should keep uploading my writings (and maybe those of fellow radical academics).
What is a Pirate?
Posted April 20, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
A friend told me about this artist Knaan, a Somali-Canadian who recently made this video. I found his work and political views to be really provocative and interesting. He was brought up while discussing piracy and the recent hostage situations off the coast of Somalia.
I was referencing Roger Peet's previous post. Somali Pirates Twist the Knife, about pirate demands for money to be used to clean up coastal pollution. I was then referred to the following article You are Being Lied to About Pirates on Huffington Post, which states:
Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.
It appears that mass media and governments are using labels like "Pirates" to be dismissive of their demands and context. Labeling people and groups with the methods, or tactics, they use to arrive at their goals is incredibly effective in disassociating them from the conditions that lead them to act. If they are just pirates, then they just want booty. Nothing more, nothing less. The same dynamic is created when people are labeled "terrorist", the demands or impetus that leads one to act isn't important at all. They are isolated and demonized. Institutional terror by militaries or piracy by looting public wealth in crisis is not labeled as such. Its a problem of the general perspective, that leads to lack of empathy and understanding. I think its necessary to acknowledge this difference in the work we do, and to communicate the depth of these circumstances to avoid replicating mass media narratives.
Without further ado you can read the article below or by going to Huffington Post
John and Ruth Vassos
Posted April 19, 2009 by icky in Inspiration
I found this book called Humanities nestled into the Social Science section in a used bookstore in Pittsburgh a few years ago. A thin handsome old spine, I pulled it and was surprised to find full pages of illustrations going along with scathing political text about the state of the world in 1935.
The illustrations were by John Vassos, who was a fairly successful graphic and industrial designer. The text was by his wife Ruth Vassos, and I was taken aback by the cynicism, absurdity and bitterness shown, reminded me more of Crass then anything I'd ever seen from the 30s.
John Vassos was born to Greek parents in Istanbul. A political illustrator for liberal newspapers in his youth, he fled to Britain in time to be drafted into the navy in WWI. Following the war he moved to NYC and worked predominantly in advertising and design. At least from the internet I can find no reference to Ruth Vassos at all (except that she was married to John- surprise surprise).
John and Ruth had about a ten year run of making books like this. John went on to design radios, accordions, advertising, etc... Dover reprinted some of his stuff in the 70s.
Anyway the work speaks for itself. More images if you click below....
In Memoriam: Franklin Rosemont
Posted April 14, 2009 by nicolas_lampert in Inspiration
Sad news from Chicago. Franklin Rosemont passed away this week and will be greatly missed. His profound legacy as an artist, activist, historian, IWW scholar, and co-editor of the Charles H. Kerr Press is described well by Kate Khatib in an obituary that appeared on the InterActivist Info Exchange.
Franklin Rosemont RIP April 12th, 2009
Kate Khatib
"Franklin Rosemont, celebrated poet, artist, historian, street speaker, and surrealist activist, died Sunday, April 12 in Chicago. He was 65 years old. With his partner and comrade, Penelope Rosemont, and lifelong friend Paul Garon, he co-founded the Chicago Surrealist Group, an enduring and adventuresome collection of characters that would make the city a center for the reemergence of that movement of artistic and political revolt. Over the course of the following four decades, Franklin and his Chicago comrades produced a body of work, of declarations, manifestos, poetry, collage, hidden histories, and other interventions that has, without doubt, inspired an entirely new generation of revolution in the service of the marvelous.
Franklin Rosemont was born in Chicago on October 2, 1943 to two of the area’s more significant rank-and-file labor activists, the printer Henry Rosemont and the jazz musician Sally Rosemont. Dropping out of Maywood schools after his third year of high school (and instead spending countless hours in the Art Institute of Chicago’s library learning about surrealism), he managed nonetheless to enter Roosevelt University in 1962. Already radicalized through family tradition, and his own investigation of political comics, the Freedom Rides, and the Cuban Revolution, Franklin was immediately drawn into the stormy student movement at Roosevelt.
Cat and Girl
Posted April 4, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
I came across Cat and Girl the other day and found it a charming and provocative comic.
This one interested me since I've been discussing the values and necessity of art at this particular juncture in time.
I enjoy discussing and critiquing ego, the production of art, and its use for communication.
And like Dara said something to the effect, if I want to see something beautiful, I go to the mountains. I've been wondering, what role should "beauty" play in contemporary art?
Landfill from the studios of Brian Ponto
Posted March 20, 2009 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
I got this from Brian Ponto today:
On this first day of spring we are proud to launch LANDFILL--an annual publication made in collaboration with our friend, the environmental printer, Greg Barber Co. Each issue explores a conceptual approach to its printed components. Second Chance's theme, 100% post-consumer papers and non-toxic toners, was made in partnership with Mohawk Fine Papers and the vendor Digital Connection.After the interviews, our stories of second chances were printed using non-toxic toner onto paper containing flower seeds and buried throughout New York City. Brooklyn Photographer Luke Barber-Smith photographed these burials. As the sprouts reach the topsoil, the first lives push through the earth and grow into real wild flowers for the spring.
Printed copies begin to mail next week from both Mohawk Fine Papers and Brian Ponto. Thanks for your time reading, and here's to new beginnings in a hopeful new year.
Questions for Dark Times?
Posted March 16, 2009 by meredith_stern in Inspiration
What can I say? The Justseeds installation was totally fun and I feel a bit of post-installation depression or something being back in my daily routine... Finding myself a little more pessimistic than usual and thought maybe other people may either be thinking similarly and i won't feel so alone, or, be more positive and put my downturn in check. I find myself with more questions than answers these days... So, read below and respond if you have your own thoughts or ideas on these ridiculous questions... or some good reading that relates to some of these ideas?
Earth First T-shirt
Posted February 20, 2009 by roger_peet in Justseeds & Member Projects
This is a design I made recently for a t-shirt for the Earth First roadshow. It got me thinking about how nice it would be if the beavers did take some kind of action against the destruction of their worlds, because they'd probably do a better job of it than humans ever could. Human ideas are a toxic and destructive force in and of themselves, but seldom more so than in the service of righteousness.
The Story of CHARAS and R. Buckminster Fuller
Posted February 14, 2009 by molly_fair in Inspiration
Recently my friend who works at the Buckminster Fuller Institute in Brooklyn told me a story about the connection between visionary Bucky to the much beloved community group CHARAS that, "was instrumental in starting community gardens, the University of the Streets performance space and the first Lower East Side recycling center. CHARAS helped open a local credit union, developed solar energy for urban use, and developed and implemented a housing program that provided the first sweat equity buildings in the U.S, and became a National model for low income home ownership." I'm a sucker for NYC radical history in general, and I asked him to write it up the story of their forays into dome building to share:
R. Buckminster Fuller is well known for a variety of ideas, inventions, and curious tales. One of particular interest, and minimal publicity, is his involvement with and influence upon CHARAS, the Lower East Side community group. CHARAS (an acronym for its founders Chino, Humberto, Angelo, Roy, Anthony, and Sal) came about in the late 60’s in the wake of a 5 hour lecture delivered by Fuller to The Real Great Society (RGS) in an empty loft on East 7th Street.A member of RGS, a collective attempt to transform a community suffering from the plagues of poverty, drug abuse, and crime into the much talked about “Great Society”, contacted Fuller in 1968 after hearing about his ideas of improving the human condition and radical housing. Despite his age (72 years old), upbringing (New England WASP), and appearance (black suit, thick black-framed glasses, and large hearing aids) Fuller was able to relate very well with the group through his vision of a world of change, equality, and opportunity.
CHARAS were the ones that took to Fuller’s ideas the most. They reached out to him again in 1969, and soon got involved with dome-building projects. The geodesic dome was a manifestation of Fuller’s ideas about humanity’s survival and “doing more with less.” Fuller sent an assistant of his, Michael Ben-Eli, to introduce CHARAS to geodesic math, and guide them along in their building projects.
The process of teaching and learning spherical trigonometry was difficult at first, but they persisted for a full year with no money or regular meeting space. They began to build models, reached out to organizations, and secured a grant from the NY State Council on the Arts. While their first ferro-cement dome (built from cardboard and covered with cement) was constructed on a development site in East Harlem, as a sponsored installation tackling issues of urban space diversity, their eventual focus was the construction of two 20-foot diameter domes on a plot of land at South and Jefferson Streets in the Lower East Side. The process became a huge project for the neighborhood, bringing in many outsiders and media, including the New York Times and CBS, to witness the construction.
There were many setbacks to the cardboard structures due to high winds and extensive rainfalls, but both domes remained fully assembled and covered in plastic sheets, awaiting cement covering, come Fall of 1971. It was at this point that one of the domes was destroyed by the fire department, when an unknown person had entered the dome to escape the rain, started a small fire to stay warm, and eventually filled the entire structure with massive amounts of smoke. Nevertheless CHARAS continued on the remaining dome, covering it tightly with a plastic lining, chicken wire, and eventually concrete. The dome, with its hard concrete exterior and open window sections, was complete just in time to coincide with Fuller’s next trip to New York City.
On January 15, 1972 Buckminster Fuller, along with his wife and secretary, came to visit the dome on South street. He greeted CHARAS members and Michael with great enthusiasm and joy insisting that everyone, including neighborhood children and even his cab driver, take a group photo in front of the structure.
Gouge: The Modern Woodcut
Posted February 9, 2009 by k_c_ in Reviews
Chris & I were fortunate enough to go check out an exhibit in LA on Saturday. It was called Gouge: The Modern Woodcut 1870 to Now, at the Hammer Museum. We noticed an ad for it in one of the local weeklies and snipped it hoping to catch it after the install. In a borrowed car we made it over to Westwood, an affluent area of LA, where the Hammer Museum resides, part of UCLA.
Gouge: The Modern Woodcut 1870 to Now examines the woodcut in terms of its diverse forms and uses in the modern era. A thematic survey, it invites parallels between the medium in countries as diverse and geographically distant Mexico, France and Korea. Woodblock printing is, in fact, one of the most common artistic practices throughout the world. Although the motivations of each artist and the circumstances in which the woodcuts were made may differ greatly, the visual character of the gouge cuts is a defining thread among the selected works in this exhibition
There were a handful of really inspiring prints and original woodblocks alongside the pieces. Chris became really stoked when he realized there were some Kathe Kollwitz prints in the show. He is a real big fan of her work, so he studied her self-portrait and the Woman in the Lap of Death, 1921, Woodcut for quite some time.
Along with the German Expressionist work that I enjoyed seeing in person was some Gaughin, Matisse, and Munch pieces that i found really inspiring. I wasn't entirely surprised but excited to see the familiar likeness of Zapata printed on grey paper. I immediately knew it was a print from one of the ASAR-O artists from Oaxaca. The print was made during the APPO uprising yet strangely made it into the Images in the Grain section and not the following room, The Voice of the Activist.
Historical Memory
Posted January 29, 2009 by icky in Inspiration
A friend sent me link to some interesting montage made by Sergei Larenkov in honor of the 65th anniversary of the Leningrad Blockade, juxtaposing present day street shots with shots of the same location during the 872 day siege of Leningrad by the Germans in WWII.
http://fima-psuchopadt.livejournal.com/2564781.html
(If you have a fleeting interest in the blockade then you should check out the book:
Blockade Diary by Lidiya Ginzburg)
Decaying Buildings
Posted January 27, 2009 by jmacphee in Inspiration
My friend Shaun Gilheeney from Providence, RI just sent me a link to his new site, which documents a large body of print and painting work he's been doing over the past 3 years. All his paintings and prints are based off of what must have been an amazing decaying laundry building near his house. The textures and haunting mood he's been able to pull out of the subject are quite amazing. Here's a couple of his images, one painting and one etching, go to the site to see more.
Media Assassin and Brecht Event-NYC
Posted January 25, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
I was just sent an event listing called Biggie, Brooklyn and the World at the Brecht Forum. The title and description are intriguing, and posted below, and what I found immediately inspiring was Harry Allen's blog, Media Assassin. His bio in the email is as follows
Hip-Hop Activist & Media Assassin, writes about race, politics, and culture for VIBE, The Source, The Village Voice, and other publications, and has been doing so for over twenty years.As an expert covering hip-hop culture, he has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, on National Public Radio, MTV, VH-1, CNN, the BBC, and other information channels. Others know him for his long-time association with the seminal band Public Enemy, and for his widely-heard "cameo" on their classic record, "Don't Believe the Hype."
It gave me a few chuckles and a lot more to search thru.
Have Our Weary Feet Come to the Place for Which Our Fathers Sighed?
The Year of Living Sexually is a post about Nonfiction a program on WBAI.
The New Blackface of Fashion is what it appears.
and the first post I saw
Super Zero a link to Marvel's new create your own superhero!
OK, I did mention there is an event at the Brecht Forum, its Wednesday, Jan 28th, read below:
Think-Palestine-Act
Posted January 23, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
There is a brand new site called Think-Palestine-Act which will house resources "to (help) learn, teach, organize, and act with Palestine". The site is described on their homepage as a place where
you will find resources for learning about the Palestinian struggle while developing ways to articulate and address all of our connections to colonialism, racism and militarism. We will provide concrete activity suggestions, lesson plans, curriculum resources, and audio-visual materials for educators and community organizers to use in connecting grassroots movements in the U.S. and Palestine
The site was recently constructed and material is still being added to it. At the moment there is no contact info, so check back frequently, if you have any material to contribute!
Rendition of "Down by the Riverside" for Gaza
Posted January 22, 2009 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
Some folks changed the lyrics to Down by the Riverside to reflect the current needs of everyone living in Gaza. They went onto the NYC subways and sang some songs for Martin Luther King's Birthday.
Revel in New York on Tod Seelie
Posted January 21, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
My pal Tod Seelie was recently interviewed by Revel in New York. Tod is a tireless photographer and is always helpful and generous with his tools. Photos for the Threat of Chance show wouldn't have looked so good if they weren't taken with his camera and tripod. Thanks Tod!
What to do with Billboards?
Posted January 19, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Whats more effective than adbusting?
Taking the whole damn thing down!
Found this while reading over at AnimalNY
We are fucked.
Posted January 14, 2009 by roger_peet
Ladies and Gentlemen, the jury has returned from their deliberations and they have delivered the following verdict: we are fucked. Yes, fucked. The Earth is strapped down to a filthy bed in a back alley of some benighted slum and is having the guts ripped out of it by the forsaken human race. Let's examine a brief digest of current news that illustrates this problem, namely the problem of OUR BEING FUCKED. 
It was recently the 20th anniversary of the death of Chico Mendes, the Brazilian rubbertapper who was murdered by a cattle rancher and his son for the crime of opposing rainforest clearance in Brazil's Acre region. Mendes' legacy is a network of what are known as "extractive reserves", where people can make a living from the rainforest without chopping it down. That living takes the form of tapping trees for rubber, collecting medicinal plants, and the like. Unfortunately, since the world rubber price has crashed, the tenants of the extractive reserves are now chopping down the forest to grow corn and soybeans and FUCKING SUGARCANE FOR YOUR GODDAMN BIOFUEL CARS. Economics trumps principles, as per usual. Of course it does. If you've got starving children to feed and there's a pristine rainforest right outside your backdoor, guess who loses?
Evo Morales, much vaunted defender of indigenous rights and Bolivian energy independence, opponent of neoliberal development schemes and water privatization, has agreed to permit oil exploration in 400,000 hectares of pristine rainforest in Bolivia's northeast. That oil is going to be used to earn hard currency to raise the standard of living for the vast number of impoverished Bolivians, the majority of whom are indigenous. If you've got starving citizens and a pristine rainforest in your northeast, guess who loses?
“break (vitalogy)” by Suheir Hammad
Posted January 8, 2009 by k_c_ in Inspiration
“break (vitalogy)”all matter related
we connectedana on corners
holy grams
ana incarcerated lightgaze me
ana gaza
you can’t see meana blood wa memory
it was all a dream
lion kissing meana harb
heart
ana harana wa ana
we related
woven
ultimate design
physical dreamplease excuse my state of disappearance
been renovating structure
innovating space
hype earrings onSuheir Hammad
From her bookBreaking Poems.
...here the poet figures herself as gaza. and as gaza she disappears...Taken from the blog Body on the Line
Celebrating 15 years of Zapatista Struggle
Posted January 5, 2009 by Jesus_Barraza in In the News
15 years ago, on new years day the EZLN declared war on the Mexico, taking over the town of San Cristobal de las Casa in Chiapas in an attempt to start a revolution in Mexico. In the face of the North American Free Trade Agreement the Zapatistas took up arms against the Mexican government with the aim of taking President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the PRI out of power to restore legitimacy and stability to Mexico. The Zapatista offensive lasted 13 days, after which the EZLN agreed to begins negotiations with the Mexican government. The negotiations eventually fell apart when it became apparent that the government had no intent for real change. In January of 2006 the EZLN began La Otra Campana, a campaign to form a united opposition to neoliberal capitalism which plagues Mexico as well as the rest of the world.
Click through to read the EZLN's declaration of war from 1994.
News about a little strip of land
Posted January 4, 2009 by k_c_ in In the News
In light of the current events in Israel/Palestine, a friend of mine asked me where I look for news about the agressions. I told him I usually check in with folks I'm familiar with that follow events there more closely than I do.
Anomalous on flickr is a spot I'll stop by to see what news articles, essays, and statements he's found, and sometimes just ask him his opinion. His flog is a good spot to begin with finding sources to dig into.
Haaretz.com an Israeli newspaper is another spot where I find really good coverage of current events of the region.
Al Jazeera.net is a place to find superficial BBC-like accounts that can be helpful.
It is hard to interpret what the reasons for this aggression are and what the outcomes will be. Its troubling everyway I approach it. Having just seen Waltz with Bashir an animated Israeli documentary about a massacre in the 80's during the Lebanese War, I can only imagine future accounts of the current actions. The film explores the soldiers attempts to recreate these events and his memory. It approaches the violence of war in an objective manner. I found its conclusion to be anti-violence after illustrating many of the conditions, social and political, that led to the Sabra and Shatila massacre. You should definitely see it if you have the opportunity.
My question to others is "where do you find your information about resistance and protest to these aggressions?" In Israel, Palestine, and globally. I have found myself disconnected to communities that are organizing demonstrations and opposition to these aggressions, and want to know more about what is happening in response. (Please don't tell me to join Facebook, the "main" source I've heard of protest outreach here in NYC)
Modern Chinese Woodcuts
Posted December 29, 2008 by icky in Inspiration
Modern Chinese Woodcuts
A few years ago I picked up a book of Chinese woodcuts, written in the early 80s, put out by a state press and updated in the mid 90s. Most of the book covers the technically impressive (yet politically questionable) period around the Cultural Revolution. Lately there's been a few new books I've seen that broaden the scope a little, focussing on cosmopolitan and bohemian art movements centered around Shanghai in the 20s/30s/and 40s. I just want to do a brief survey of what I've gleaned.
DEC. 30- Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner
Posted December 26, 2008 by erik_ruin in Events
I'm super-honored to be performing my shadow-show FLIGHT (a slightly edited version) at Great Small Works' Spaghetti Dinner on Dec. 30th, alongside a great lineup of amazing musicians & puppeteers. if you're around NYC, please come, as it will be the last-ever performance of what i consider my best work to date.
Spaghetti Dinner
December 30, 2008, 7:30-10pm
at Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Sq. South NYC
Including...
MICHAEL WINOGRAD'S INFECTION skeleton mambo with a twist!Michael Winograd, Jessica Lurie, Petr Cancura, Jeremy Udden - reeds; Joe Moffet, Frank London - trumpets; Dan Blacksberg - trombone; Patrick Farrell - accordion; Avi Fox-Rosen - guitar; Jorge Roeder - bass; Jon Singer - xylophone, percussion; Jason Nazary, Kenny Wollesen - percussion; Kristin Slipp -voxFLIGHT - a shadow theater piece depicting the journey of a person displaced;
shadows created & performed by Erik Ruin, with assistance from Leslie Rogers & live violin score by Katt HernandezA Great Small Works Chanukah Shadow Puppet Show
Special New Year sonic massages performed by WOLLESONIC
and, Bread & Puppet Theater DIRT CHEAP OPERA, after Bertolt Brecht
Radical Perspectives on the Crisis
Posted December 26, 2008 by k_c_ in In the News
While I have been ranting and writing so confusedly, about the economic crisis, since September, some friends were putting together Radical Perspectives on the Crisis. Check it out, contribute, this mess isn't fixed yet, and a broad localism is far from ever materializing.
A Holiday Card from @thens
Posted December 25, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
The Christmas tree in the center of Athens, see Icky's earlier post.
Greece: Protests and Unrest Enter Third Week
Protests continue across Greece in response to the police murder of an anarchist teenager, opposition to the government and unhappiness about the economy. Solidarity protests and actions continue around the world
Art Students Occupy School in Buenos Aires
Posted December 21, 2008 by molly_fair in In the News
Here's some news from a friend in Argentina:
A month ago the students of Escuela Bellas Artes Manuel Belgrano in Buenos Aires, responding to plans by the city government to close down the school, took and occupied their building. The faculty decided to join the students and have continued classes though out the occupation.
The students, whose ages range from 16-26, run the occupation by popular assembly and have opened the school to the community–holding workshops on sculpture, painting, screen-printing and theater. In the upper wings of the school they take turns sleeping on makeshift bedrolls and the lithography studio has become a temporary kitchen. The police and school administration have not yet made an attempt to retake the building.
The city's plan includes shutting down a number of historical schools throughout Buenos Aires and replacing them with semi-privatized new schools. This comes as part of a larger movement under the new mayor Mauricio Macri to privatize and reduce the public sector within the capitol itself.
In the last few days the students and faculty at Belgrano received notice from the education administration that they would have to take their final examinations and receive their graded critiques at three other schools. The faculty met and decided that they would not abide by this directive and will hold final examinations in Belgrano, as they normally would be. The students have decided to support this decision and will not have any final examinations outside of Belgrano, even though the administration is threatening not to honor the grades they will receive. In response the students threw a "party" in downtown Buenos Aires that blockaded a major street near the National Congress. They took all four lanes, one by one, moving displays of their art work to block traffic and hanging banners between light posts. A stage was set up and several bands played, there was also a public block printing station.
Happy Holidays from Palestine
Posted December 11, 2008 by jmacphee in Inspiration
My friend elin o'Hara slavick just sent me this great holiday card designed by British political artist and photo-montagist Peter Kennard. Kennard has been making political collages for decades, he is behind some of the best known anti-nuclear graphics, but he is sadly almost unknown in the US:
Large Scale Printmaking at Portland State University
Posted November 30, 2008 by pete in Inspiration
Last week I had opportunity to visit the advanced printmaking class at Portland State University here in Portland. Valerie Wallace teaches the class, and shares with me a fondness for large scale linoleum printing, so she asked me to come in and talk about my work with her students. I spent some time talking about justseeds and our collaborative projects, showed them some of my work, all then had the class all work together to hand print a linoleum print I have been working on (slowly) for the past couple years that is over 20 feet long.
I have to say it was a pretty great experience having 15 + people all inking up the blocks then getting on the floor to hand burnish. This was the first time I have had the print as one solid piece, and first time having this many helpers. We used one big roll of mulberry paper to print on.
My favorite part was pulling the paper off the block then having everyone snake through the room, and up the stairs to the second floor to hang the piece on the wall. Thanks to all the students for partaking on this social experiment.
Betye Saar, Lezley Saar, and Alison Saar
Posted November 25, 2008 by meredith_stern in Inspiration
I just got a rad book from the library called "Family Legacies" and it is about the art of Betye and her two daughters Lezley, and Alison Saar.
Betye:
Alison:
Lezley:
Eat Local! Eat Free!
Posted November 15, 2008 by meredith_stern in Inspiration
Hen of the woods
bicolor bolete
This summer I went mushroom foraging and even took a few Justseeds members on a couple of hikes! Mary Tremonte and Shaun Slifer both accompanied me on a few walks. We talked about blogging at the time, but lost track, so I am finally uploading photos from a couple of the sucessful hikes.
Interview with John Fekner
Posted November 3, 2008 by molly_fair in Interviews
This is an interview Chris Stain and Josh MacPhee did with artist John Fekner:
Chris Stain: About a year ago I got lucky for a few months and had a studio separate from my house. it was in LIC. I had heard from my friend Josh Macphee that it was an old stomping ground of the legendary stencil artist John Fekner. so I decided to look him up. just a year before that Josh and I were showing in Brooklyn at Ad Hoc and John stopped in posing as a vandal squad detective. i had never met John before so I didn't know the difference. After he revealed his true identity we all had a good laugh. Until then i thought the shit was gonna hit the fan. Below are parts of the conversation that josh and i had with john. you will be able to read the whole sha-bang later when johns book drops from powerhouse. i’d like to personally thank Mr. Fekner for the interview and his continuing inspiration. His work is a prime example of how much difference one person can make.
Chris Stain: What originally inspired you to cut stencils, get out there in the street and put it up?
John Fekner: It goes back to when I was a teenager. I grew up in Queens and like most street kids spent a lot of time in parks, hangin’ out, doing a lot of different things…it was the 60s. That’s ten years before I started doing stencils at the age of 26. The first outdoors stencils began during the winter of 76-77. In 1968, for some bizarre reason, I came up with the idea of calling our park ‘Itchycoo Park’ referring to the title of the song by the Small Faces that was a hit in 67 about a park in England. My hang out park was Gorman Park at 85th St. and 30th Ave. in Jackson Heights referred to by the local kids as just ‘85th’.
I said to my friends, “Let’s paint the words Itchycoo Park on the front of the park house. So undercover of the night with white paint and a few brushes in very large crude letters we did just that. The phrase just stayed with the park and it became known as Itchycoo and the local football team was called the Itchycoo Chiefs. It was really a strange thing. Little did I realize that this was going to be my format for quite a few years.
1968 Exhibit at Labadie Collection in Ann Arbor
Posted October 25, 2008 by shaun in Events
In her dream job as curator of the Labadie Collection of Social Protest Literature at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Julie Herrada has curated a timely new exhibit. The Whole World Was Watching: Protest and Revolution in 1968, Selections from the Labadie Collection provides a snapshot of a complex and pivotal year in American history, highlighting protests against the Vietnam War and the draft, the highly fractured Presidential election and the violence that erupted outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago against anti-war demonstrators, and the activities of student and other protest groups such as the Ann Arbor-founded Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, the White Panthers, and the Yippies. The exhibit notes the women's movement and international matters such as Prague Spring and the May Paris uprisings.
The exhibit is on view in the Gallery (Room 100) at the Hatcher Graduate Library. A related display of original record albums and political buttons from the University of Michigan's Special Collections Library is also exhibited in the Special Collections Exhibit Room located on the seventh floor (same building). Julie has also launched an online exhibit guestbook that visitors can write their 1968 memories in. An afternoon panel discussion featuring activists from the era and a live performance in the evening by Country Joe McDonald will take place in The Gallery on November 13. The exhibit runs until December 19.
The Ann Arbor Chronicle ran an article about the show on Wednesday.
My Monday Education on the Economy
Posted October 6, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Naomi Klein on this morning's Democracy Now!, "Wall St. Crisis Should Be for Neoliberalism What Fall of Berlin Wall Was for Communism"
What happened here...
Posted September 21, 2008 by molly_fair in Inspiration
In recent years many of the projects I've worked on have involved the creation of signs, and in the case of the ghost bike project- signs and a corresponding map to mark the location of each ghost bike and the person it honors. I was deeply affected a few years ago when I learned of a rape map that was created by a woman in 2004 in response to several rapes in the Williamsburg and Greenpoint sections of Brooklyn. The project evolved into NYC SafeStreets, which includes a map of locations where the rapes had taken place, and also provides a resource section, along with a list of businesses that have agreed to be safe havens and provide assistance if one is in danger, indicated by a poster with a yellow whistle which is taped to the window. Other resources such as a list of car services and police precint locations, sexual assault hotlines, and know-your-rights info.
A while back I started making stencils of the famous image of Janet Leigh screaming in the shower in the movie Psycho. I was drawn to this image for many reasons- one being that it has a lot of notoriety in pop culture as a scene where you can't really turn your head away from the violence- but at the same time it is really exaggerated and undermines the reality that assault against women whether harassment on the street by strangers, or violence done by someone you know is commonplace and normalized.
One night I spraypainted the stencil in Bushwick with Kristine. It was kind of a girl's night out. Walking around in the dark doing illegal activity has it's own danger involved, but it's always in the back of my mind that I am a target for violence. I never intended to spraypaint the stencil in specific locations where known instances of sexual assault had occurred, but we were walking around in a pretty desolate area with no safe places for cover. When I walked back to the spots I'd gone to in the daylight I found the image expressed a message that was lurking around in my subconscious- I was marking my territory and I wanted to travel these streets safely. I am always on guard but I am not helpless.
The other day my friend sent me this link from ANIMAL- it's a sign that was put up in Bushwick.
A woman was raped by a stranger on this block. Please protect your friends, lover, sister, daughter, mother, grandmother, niece, cousin, neighbor, the woman hear call for help late one night. 1 in 6 women in the his country have been victims of rape or attempted rape. This needs to stop happening
TIm Wise on Privilege
Posted September 19, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
This is your nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”
To read the entire piece and comments go to The Red Room
Has anyone asked...?
Posted September 15, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Does capitalism work?
I need someone to explain this crisis to me, cos I can't seem to figure out who gains with this most recent economic calamity. Anyone?
When Street Art Really Enters the Gallery-Brasil
Posted September 11, 2008 by k_c_ in In the News
AbandonView tipped us off to an action that happened in Brasil on September 6th.
No dia 06-09-08, um grupo de 30 Pixadores invadiu a Galeria Choque Cultural em protesto à comercialização, institucionalização e Domesticação da Cultura de Rua, por parte dos galeristas e do Poder Público.
On 06-09-08, a group of 30 Pixadores invaded the Galeria Choque Cultural (Cultural Shock Gallery) in protest to the marketing, and institutionalization of Culture of Domesticação Street, from the gallery and the Public Power. In addition to the physical dependencies of the gallery, about twenty works exposed there were also victims of the attack and a work of the artist Speto was damaged. The owners of the Shock were doing an exhibition in London.
Only armed with translation sites online, I've enjoyed reading Ataque à Choque Cultural and the various threads on the Choque Flickr page. There seems to be a large discussion about the commodification of Pixacao and graffiti. While translation sites are super limited and I'm not familiar with the "players" involved it seems to have captured people's thoughts more than NYC's splasher actions.
Lots of comments on the Flickr thread discuss the gallery's function in the art market, many of them supportive of this role. Also represented is the fundamental sentiment that it belongs on the street, which is why, I assume, these grafiteros went to town inside the gallery. Other comments raised larger issues with commercialization, eef
pena que o protesto contra a 'comercialização, institucionalização e domesticação da cultura de rua' tenha focado em galeristas e não publicitários, marcas de tênis, roupa de grife, festivais, refrigerantes, e outros que fazem a tal 'cultura de rua' virar modismo, commodities, sinônimo de produto pseudo moderninho.
"unfortunate that the protest against 'marketing, institutionalization and domestication of the culture of street' has focused on galleries and not advertising, brands of shoes, clothes, grife, festivals, soft drinks, and others who make such a 'culture of street' fashion, turn commodities, synonymous with pseudo moderninho(?) product"
From RRAURL "According to the Folha de S. Paulo, the action was organized - by email- by Rafael Guedes Augustaitiz (Rafael Pixobomb), the same artist who in July this year had been expelled from the Faculty of Fine Arts (SP) for having done a similar action on the premises of the course"
With slogans that proclaimed "Open your eyes and see the inevitable mark of history", the action at the Faculty sounds very performance like and attempted to awaken the viewers to the exclusivity and economic realities of the institutions. The recent action called "ATTACK PART 2 : A CAMINHO DA REVOLUÇÃO 2008" in the flyer, seen to the right, appears to have a similar intent.
I'm inspired and totally interested by these actions and would am stoked if anyone has more info or contacts about this.
The update on the rraurl.com site states:
Tuesday 09/set the owners of shock came with a representation in the 14th Police District of Sao Paulo (Pines) against the group of pixadores. Low Ribeiro, one of the owners, made a bulletin of occurrence and in their testimony stated that the loss of the gallery was something between $ 10,000 and $ 15,000. Rafael Guedes Augustaitiz is taken as a major contributor.
Another Opportunist Takes advantage of Katrina Anniversary
Posted September 2, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
While Republicans tried to take advantage of the potential destruction by Hurricane Gustav, and the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, stencil artist Banksy visited New Orleans to paint his own pointed messages. It appeared like the GOP, and the current administration, wanted to seem caring and prepared for Gustav's believed force, with photo-ops and "promises" of support. Thankfully for the Gulf Coast residents the storm caused no severe damage, and the Bush has to live with his poll ratings.
More popular than ever, Banksy commemorated the 3 year anniversary with jabs at military "security" and the "Grey Ghost", with other pieces that celebrated New Orleans culture and Second lines
.
Again using his cleverness and wit to raise some poignant and necessary issues.
Like why, 3 years later, hasn't the necessary infrastructure been created to protect ALL its citizens from another storm?
Photos courtesy of Dingler1109
Thanks to NOLA Rising for raising consciousness of whats goin on!
Art Imitates Life
Posted September 1, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Someone finally decided to do a street poster based on American Apparel's Dov Charney. Most folks can identify the intriguing and sexual advertisements of American Apparel, yet probably didn't know that there have been accusations of sexual assault against him(just throw his name into a search engine) You probably get that from the posters, or not.
Over at AnimalNewYork.com there's a slew of posts of the previous posters that are worth checking out.
Anyhow, for you ethical shoppers there's plenty of other "socialist" t-shirt factory experiments, try No-Sweat or follow these simple guidelines
NYC Critical Mass Tonight Friday Aug 29
Posted August 29, 2008 by k_c_ in In the News
Its the last Friday of the month, which means another Critical Mass for many cities. This months ride is the 4 year anniversary of our historic Republican National Convention (RNC) ride, where many thousands of folks took to the streets. (image by Fly)
The NYC Metro seemed to remember this too.
Arrests set course for protests in city
by Amy Zimmer / metro new york
AUG 29, 2008Friday night’s Critical Mass marks a seminal event in the ride’s history: Four years ago the police arrested more than 250 people during the monthly ride that attracted thousands during the Republic National Convention.
Hundreds of protesters were arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. Excluding costs associated with the RNC, the NYPD and courts have spent more than $2.3 million on Critical Mass according to numbers compiled by Times Up!
Today's Extinct Animal- The Lake Atitlan Grebe
Posted August 26, 2008 by roger_peet in Inspiration
I've decided that this blog thing might be useful for regular, depressing updates on the subject that I think about most, namely, extinction. To start off with, I think I'll try to post regular entries dealing with individual species that have gone extinct in quasi-recent times due, at least in part, to human activity. We'll start with the Lake Atitlan Grebe, also known as the Poc.
"It Don't Gitmo Better!" Steve Powers in Coney Island
Posted August 8, 2008 by k_c_ in In the News
There's a bunch of press on Steve Powers-ESPO- new sideshow installation, “Waterboard Thrill Ride”, in Coney Island. It appears that Powers made some robots that simulate waterboarding in a space out on West 12th Street, just off Surf Avenue, in Brooklyn. Before you check it out you can read about it on the NY Times, BBC, ABC News, and probably a ton off other blogs. The piece will move to the Park Avenue Armory in September and be a part of Creative TIme's Democracy in America: The National Campaign events there. Chris Stain will also have a 70' mural included as well!
Help Support the Start of a Resource Library / Info Shop in a Historic Boxcar
Posted August 7, 2008 by nicolas_lampert in Inspiration
This is a great project worth supporting at any level if you are down with art, zines, radical cultural spaces, and freight train hopping. Hard to imagine a better alternative art space than one in a boxcar! Below is their call for support.
From the BBCRC website “In mid-July the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture (BBCRC) in Northern California made an arrangement with the Heritage Junction Museum in McCloud to acquire two historic pieces of rail equipment - an ex-Sacramento Northern wood boxcar (SN 2349) and an ex-Pacific Fruit Express iced refrigerator car (PFE 55224). Both cars date from around 1912 and are in reasonably good condition. We plan to move both cars to Black Butte later this year.
We intend to use the boxcar as a resource center/library/info shop and as an arts/project space for visitors to Black Butte. We hope to be able to have some art shows in the boxcar and to use it for special events. The reefer will be located alongside the boxcar and will also provide community space and add to the historic railroad atmosphere at Black Butte. The railcars will both be owned by the BBCRC, a California based non-profit agency. The intention is that they will be a long term resource for our project and our community.
Right now, we are appealing for help in raising funds for this ambitious project. Acquisition of both cars, moving them to Black Butte, and site preparation will all together cost about $10,000. We will also have additional restoration and rehabilitation costs. We have already raised about $4000. But we need A LOT of additional help in a fairly short period of time if we are going to pull this off. If you are able to make a contribution of any size, please write out a (tax-deductible) check to the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture and send it to us at 800 Black Butte Road, Weed, CA 96094.”
More info:
BBCRC Boxcar/Reefer Project
Groundswell Collective's Blog
Posted July 30, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
As you may have noticed the Justseeds site goes thru some minor adjustments from time to time, one being the recent addition of the "blog roll". (Its found on the right of your screen) I wanted to highlight one of the links because I've been looking over the Groundswell Collective Blog. They have a really good looking site that is "Dedicated to clever and innovative trends of art and design in activism." And cover a lot of similar topics and themes we hope to here at Justseeds. So when you're cruisin the blogosphere and we haven't been on top of things check them out, or likewise.
A post I started with was there recent coverage of IllegalBillboards.org going "live". Read it there
Inch by inch, row by row...
Posted July 11, 2008 by meredith_stern in Inspiration
Gonna make this garden grow....
My garden is in full bloom, and I thought it would be nice to share some photos!
I'd love to see other gardens in bloom also! Let's start a garden blog!
Show Photos - Out of the Shell of the Old
Posted July 9, 2008 by colin_matthes in Justseeds & Member Projects
I am sitting in the airport in Pittsburgh after a workshop with RUST - the Radical Urban Silkscreen Team. RUST is a rad goup of teens making prints in Pittsburgh and they were a blast to work with.
My plane is delayed and I have a few minutes to sort through some photos of the completed Justseeds exhibition at Space 1026 in Philadelphia. Here they are.
Maxo Vanka Murals @ St. Nicolas in Millvale, PA
Posted June 27, 2008 by shaun in Inspiration
I booked a tour this week to take some of the kids we're working with at RUST to see the murals of Maxo Vanka at St. Nicolas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, PA (just north of Pittsburgh). Vanka, a Croation immigrant to the States, painted these murals inside the church in two stages - in 1937 and again in 1941 - commissioned by Father Albert Zagar. They are filled with fierce and vivid anti-war and anti-fascist imagery, and seasoned with some illustrations of the reality of the immigrant experience in industrial America. I've never seen work like this inside a church of any sort, and each time I go back to see them I'm still amazed.
I first read about the murals at St. Nicolas four years ago in Icky A's zine Nosedive (#13), and went to see them with friend and Justseeds artist Erik Ruin while he was in Pittsburgh for a visit. Mary Petrich, who remembers Vanka painting the murals when she was a child, gave the tour today - by far the best oral illustration I've experienced with these paintings. The church building is in need of financial help since the fallout from Hurricane Ivan in 2004 flooded much of Millvale and damaged the walls and roof of St. Nicolas. The church is accepting donations towards this work, which will include efforts to preserve the murals before the water damage gets any worse.
If you're in Pittsburgh, do not miss these murals! Mary Petrich can be reached for her amazing tours at 412-681-0905. Also, visit the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka website to see much better photos than I posted here!
The Great Rebel Raft Regatta
Posted June 27, 2008 by jmacphee in Events
John Jordan (mover and shaker in Reclaim the Streets, We Are Everywhere and the Climate Camp UK) is helping put together an amazing looking new event/project called The Great Rebel Raft Regatta. It looks and sounds like a more political and decentralized Miss Rockaway Armada, with an invite for anyone and everyone to build a raft and join:
A strange fusion of futuristic flotilla, activist armada and charity raft race floats down the river Medway. Hundreds of rebel rafts of every shape and size are swarming towards Kingsnorth power station, like a giant shoal of disobedient fish with a single aim, to shut down the climate criminals.Launched from the Climate Camp on the 9th of August, as part of the mass day of Action to stop the construction of the UK's first coal fired power station in 30 years. The GRRR will be made up of a multitude of rebel rafts constructed out of flotsam and jetsam of this overheating world.... There will be pirate ship rafts, musical rafts, desert Island rafts, migration rafts, polar bears floating on ice-berg rafts, apocalyptic rafts, yellow submarine rafts, car wreck rafts, Robinson Crusoe rafts, battle ship Potemkin rafts, Viking rafts, Kontiki rafts, life rafts and love rafts, dark rafts and hope rafts.
9th August, high tide, RIver Medway, Kingsnorth Power Station, Kent
Get a team together < Build a raft of your dreams < Come to the Climate Camp August 3-11th > GRRR Launch >>> August 9th
Propaganda of the Deed
Posted June 23, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspiration
Today in 1892, Anarchist,Alexander Berkman, entered the office of Henry Clay Frick and attempted to assassinate him, holding him accountable for the deaths of strikers in the Homestead Massacre. This attentat was intended to avenge the murders, by Pinkerton Detectives, and inspire the working class to revolt.
Frick survived, due to Berkman's poor marksmanship, and Berkman spent many years in prison.
I woke up today thinking about how can movements build power as opposed to taking it. While in an election year all anyone talks about is changing our elected officials. It doesn't feel much more than making another consumer choice, Coke or Pepsi (or some "natural" soda), to shop at Starbuck or Not, Obama or McCain?
On the ground it's not Presidents or congresspeople that are confronted with the reality of the economy, unemployment, foreclosures, or incarceration. It is a matter of some real progress in thinking, acting, and organizing ourselves that will wield "power"
We can neither eliminate, or hold accountable, any one individual that will spark the revolution we need in the world today.
Mr Berkman had incredibly strong conviction to carry out his act. I wonder what he would do today?
What are we going to do today?
