Inspired Agitators poster series

 

Inspired Agitators is a series of posters of international activists and actions whose vision and determination have inspired me. The series includes John Heartfield, Howard Zinn, Lucy Parsons, Emily Wilding Davison, Phil Ochs, Red Cloud, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Nellie McClung, Tommy Douglas, and Paul Robeson. History is embedded with obstacles that must have seemed insurmountable. Yet, again and again, battles are waged in climates of indifference, hostility and brutality. This collection represents inspired moments in history when an Indian Nation wore down the U.S. government, an artist defied the Nazi party, women achieved the right to vote, a socialist government was elected in North America, universal healthcare was implemented, a union for all was organized, a woman was finally accepted legally as a person, a black man fought public lynching.

 

 

25 sketches in 25 days

Janet Pants, Battle Ground, WA

Anna Oxygen, Los Angeles

 

Clean Girl (Aimee), Arcata, CA

Clean Girl (Courtney)

Franklin Bruno, New York

Itai Faierman, Los Angeles

Katie Degentesh, New York

Kris Special (Anne)

Kris Special (Nick)

Magic Johnson (Ana)

Magic Johnson (Mando)

Past Lives (Devin)

Past Lives (Jordan), Seattle, WA

Picture Books (Erik), DC

Pillows (Jessica), San Francisco

Pillows (Julia), San Francisco

Prince Rama of Ayodhy (Tara), Providence, RI

Sparse Paisley, Turner Falls, MA

Talkdemonic (Kevin), Portland, OR

Talkdemonic (Lisa), Portland, OR

The Five Cents (Matt), New York

Tom Greenwood, Portland, OR

Triple MMM Archive (Michelle), Turner Falls, MA

Weinland, Bellingham, WA

Beloved Binge (Eleni), Durham, NC

During our 25th Anniversary Mecca Normal tour in 2009, I sketched many of the people we played with. Thanks to all of you who performed and all of you who came out to see the shows.

Behind the Art series

BEHIND THE ART #2

These posts are part of a series that will talk about various aspects of my art and design work.

Behind the Bars illustration (2005):

Sometimes you just never know where your artwork will end up.

I drew this simple illustration in 2005 for the book Reproduce and Revolt! A Graphic Toolbox for the 21st Century Activist. The book was not published by Soft Skull until 2008. Everything takes longer than you think it will. Editors Josh MacPhee and Favianna Rodriguez did a great job putting the book together.

I got the idea for the pen and ink illustration from reading statistics about prison populations in the world. The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population. But it has almost 25% of the world’s prisoners. The U.S. has 2.3 million prisoners, more than any other nation in the world, according to the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College in London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people.

Studies have also shown that the level and duration of prison sentences do not correspond with a drop in the crime rate.

So, four years after making the drawing, I see the online magazine On The Issues (a feminist publication of critical, independent thinking) based in Long Island City, NY is using it to illustrate an article called “End Torture, End Domestic Violence” by Rhonda Copelon. The article asks the question: how would the world be different for women if domestic violence were treated as torture or as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment?

The magazine used the book Reproduce and Revolt! in the way it was intended, as a resource for art. How perfect are the travels of a drawing.

Reproduce and Revolt! is available from:
www.justseeds.org

www.softskull.com

I’ll be on tour in April with my duo Mecca Normal. Tour dates at http://www.myspace.com/meccanormal

Come out to the show and say HI.

In addition to playing rock shows we will be presenting “How Art & Music Can Change the World” — a lecture, art exhibit and performance event in university classrooms, bookstores and community centers. We intend to inspire audiences towards considering political content in their creative self-expression.

Behind the Art series #1

Artists Against Apartheid poster (1987):

These posts are part of a series that will talk about various aspects of my art and design work.

I designed this poster for an Artists Against Apartheid benefit in 1987. Apartheid was a system began in 1948 of legal racial segregation enforced by the ruling white minority government in South Africa over the countries black majority.

The printing budget only allowed for two colours (black and green). I wanted to show what apartheid meant in one image by combining two images solidified by one colour. To me it wasn’t enough to just show a defiant demonstrator. I needed to show the origins of what this woman was defying. The viciousness of the police was what maintained this regime. Her country’s suffering was intrinsically linked to that brutality. So I placed the woman’s figure on top of a photo of charging police with riot shields. I then cut away her shirt revealing the image of the police. But because both photos were printing black, they had no visual depth. But by having my second colour (green) print everywhere on the poster except the contours of the woman and her original shirt, I was able to maintain her in the foreground but also have the police in the foreground and the background at the same time. To me, this was a visual metaphor for the overwhelming oppressiveness of the apartheid regime on the individual.

Oh… and in the end, the concert raised enough money to buy an ambulance that would be used specifically to aid those injured while protesting the apartheid regime. In 1991, the legal apparatus of apartheid was abolished and in 1994, South Africa’s first democratic elections were held.

I’ll be on tour in April with my duo Mecca Normal. Tour dates at www.myspace.com/meccanormal

Come out to the show and say HI.

In addition to playing rock shows we will be presenting “How Art & Music Can Change the World“ — a lecture, art exhibit and performance event in university classrooms, bookstores and community centers. We intend to inspire audiences towards considering political content in their creative self-expression.