C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

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I printed for the first time the “Free Speech Artists Movement” patch which emphasizes that there are zero open air art scenes in Chicago. Despite initial nervousness by host and building management - to their credit - they allowed me to continue. I was able to speak briefly after a panel discussed the talk and achieved a wide distribution of patches to a cross-section of Illinois arts administrators.

The topic was as follows:

“What roles do arts organizations play in making our cities and regions more livable, competitive and sustainable places?” The featured speaker was Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City. The title of her talk was “The Creative City.”

In brief she said that if Chicago wishes to compete with other cities worldwide it must emphasis its distinctive character. This fit into our argument for encouraging Chicago’s artists to be seen and heard from on its streets. Only with a lively open-air arts presence will the character of Chicago’s diversity be on display for visitors and the public to see.

Naturally, when I spoke about the few opportunities for artists on Chicago’s streets and the missing first rung of grass-roots opportunities latter for artists in Chicago, the initial knee jerk reaction was to deny this fact.

Yet, after the talk my beautiful patches were accepted by all but two or three people. One man even put his arm on my shoulder and recommended my words to panelist Tony Jones, President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This was a great session, I thought.

However, it was the young person who approached me afterward representing CYMP, the Chicago Coalition of Youth Media Partners, who was the most important person for me to meet at this event. I believe it is artists near the street and the creative voices of the youth are who will lead Chicago to become more friendly to artists. They need to know it is their right - their First Amendment right to do so.

You can not get maps of the areas where vendors are prohibited from selling at City Hall or online anywhere else. You would think the City of Chicago would provided vendors with maps of the “prohibited areas” but they do not! This works well for the police who are called by store owners because they can just claim anything. Who can read the municipal code and know what areas are prohibited and what areas are not prohibited areas? I could not without several days of study. Now you can see outlined in black where peddlers are banned from. There are eleven maps. I will need to confirm a few of the boundaries. For example - where is “Depot Street?” I could not find it on any map. It is not listed in the telephone book list of city streets. It is on mapquest.com as a street in Chicago. The City will not tell you under what conditions they will deny a person a peddlers license. Legally, there is no doubt, that this license is a prior restraint on speech. This is an illegal law which we need to fight if we intend to respect our full speech rights.
You can read the Peddlers License Municipal Code at:

http://www.c-drew.com/blog/free-speech-artists-movement/peddlers-license-municipal-code.html

View the maps at:

http://www.c-drew.com/blog/free-speech-artists-movement/chicago-art-prohibited-areas-list.html

Naturally, the Peddlers License Municipal Code is also listed in our information links on the right column of this blog.

The “Free Artists’ Movement” patch changed last night. I went to screen-print at Columbia College (Chicago - 1104 S. Wabash) and to pass out free “Free Artists’ Movement” patches to those in attendance at the Democratic Vistas Forum produced by the Center for Arts Policy.

I met a man there and gave him a minute long rant ending with the statement, “There are zero street art scenes in Chicago.”

“You should put that on the patch.” he insisted - his tone hinting he thought it was a gross over-site on my part.

“I’ll try and find some space for it.” I growled thinking - “Doesn’t my patch say everything already?” The criticism got under my skin, even though I knew I shouldn’t let it. Behind that thought lurked another that said - “He’s right fool! You should have included that from the get-go!”

He made me think again about a design I thought I’d finished when the present version actually required another stroke of the pen.

This is why we show our work. The fact that I came out and printed in public rewarded me with honest criticism.

Who else but a stranger would tell you exactly what he/she feels without a touch of remorse for your feelings. Ha-ha, but that is what I needed.

The design needed a reference point to become a quantum level more potent. Why is there a movement? What is the need? Of course, how could I forget that?

In my struggle to limit my words I had yet to find out how to summarize all the reasons we need an artists’ movement in Chicago into a short phrase.

So I had left all that for the website to explain. An idea began forming as I rode home.

My “Stop WW3 - Stop Bush” patch screen was still wet from development. When I arrived at Union Park at 12:45pm organizers and volunteers were already plentiful and busy preparing the stage. A long line of Port-A-Potties stood waiting for the crowd to come. I could only imagine the logistics and cost of organizing a protest rally for thousands of people. The press and even the protesters themselves rarely give the organizers their due.

The stage was set up on the north end of the park. I decided to lay my blanket down on the sand of a baseball diamond along the third base line, far enough away from the stage to avoid the crush. A volunteer immediately warned me that the park officials had ordered organizers not to let protesters walk on or camp on the sands of the baseball diamond. Then, I moved my blanket onto the grass and flew into action printing my first design within minutes of sitting down.

I had brought several handfuls of patches to satisfy protesters until I could print more patches on the spot. The pre-printed patches went fast. The park filled up swiftly, as well. People were crowding out toward me even though I was as far back from the stage as possible. Even at the far end of the field, I was able to hear the speakers easily. After printing around 75-100 “Bring the troops home NOW!” patches, I switched to printing “More Art - Less War” patchs.
The fresh screen, which I’d laid aside to soak up sunlight in order to harden its emulsion before taping for printing, was ready by the time I finished printing my second design. I cleaned up the screen I was printing and taped my latest screen playing on Bush’s own warning of WW3. Naturally Bush claims to blame the possibility of WW3 on other world stage actors but we know who is the real negative motivating force in the world.

A lady in her 60’s with several friends came by and saw the “Peace on Earth” patch I had pinned to my sweatshirt and asked me for one.
“I don’t have any more of those with me.” I told her. She was heartbroken.

“That is so beautiful, are you sure.” she pleaded.
She looked as if she came from a financially comfortable background. The crowd seemed to me to have a large number of less-likely protesters today in comparison to previous protests I’ve printed my patches at. There were many older people in attendance today. This I decided was a good sign. “Here, take it as long as you will display it proudly.” I requested as I unpinned the patch from my sweatshirt and offered it to her. “I have more at home.”

Three o’clock arrived and the people began marching off toward Federal Plaza. I had only a small pile of patches left from the two and a half hours I’d been printing. When I stood up slowly my feet were numb from sitting cross-legged for so long. I packed up and walked briskly to the El station at the north corner of the Park and caught the Green Line to Wabash and Adams. A short walk later I came to the protest site at the marcher’s destination - Federal Plaza. My estimate had the marchers 15-25 minutes away. I set-up immediately at a foot of the orange sculpture at the end of the plaza away from the stage that promised to be crowded when the marchers arrived later.

While the press interviewed organizers before the crush, I prepared by printing as fast as I could in hopes of having patches for those who would soon swarm around seeking them. That time came shortly. As the line of marchers snaked onto the Plaza barely ten minutes after I set up. Soon people filled the entire plaza and stepped gingerly around my blanket. Many stooped to pickup patches.

Some commented, “What a great idea!” Others thanked me over and over for coming to print at the protest. They put dollar bills and change in my donation hat. This was the first protest where I printed but did not have to call out to people to take my free patches. It appeared to me that the people finally seemed to understand and accept my presence as a positive contribution to the protest. Could it be the crowd accepted my protest patches as art and as a means for them to protest into the future by wearing my patches? I could not print enough. They took the patches wet as I laid them down. They walked away waving them in the breeze to dry the ink. I printed continuously looking up briefly and responded to questions while I worked.

The patches of the design I had just finished printing disappeared while I printed the next design. “More Art Less War” was a very popular patch. Requests from the crowd encouraged me to return to printing that design several times. I followed suggestions from the crowd whenever possible.

From time to time I remember during the frantic and frenzied, fog-of-war-protest-printing, friends and acquaintances stopping to say hello. I chatted as I printed without breaking stride. The four designs I printed were “Bring the Troops Home NOW”, “More Art - Less War”, “Stop WW3 - Stop Bush” and “Invest in Peace Not War.”

By the end of the protest, people had filled my hat many times over and taken all the prints I could pull. Other artists said I inspired them to use their art to speak-out. One told me “A movement is only as good as its art!” I stood up very slowly to pack up, amazed that the time had gone by so swiftly. It was past 7:00pm.

The patches I printed on this day would travel far and wide. Artists be able to have a daily presence in the Loop. I should move from corner to corner on a weekly basis selling my “speech” patches in every sector of the Loop but municipal codes make this impossible. Artists have not worked together to take advantage of even the reduced opportunity the City does provide. Perhaps this is because the peddlers license the City requires is costly to those most likely to benefit from a street art scene. There should be pockets of artists working the Loop and the lakefront during the summer. People in the city should be able to see Chicago’s artists.

Not only do Chicago’s artists suffer, their natural audiences suffer by not being able to meet up with them. The harm laws that prevent artists’ scenes do can be estimated. Multiply the potential artists in the Cities art scenes by their average annual public art scene selling/exhibit time and multiply that by the average number of persons who stop to talk with an artist per hour to get the total annual number of times citizens were ripped off of contact with their local artists. Once a scene is established these figures would go up dramatically as members of the public find the artists who inspired them. This figure is enormous.

Our goal should be to establish a breach - at least one true street art scene in a good location in Chicago where there are no fees or licenses required of an artist to sell art (art is speech). We need to educate the public that the art scenes they are missing should be encouraged to thrive instead of discouraged by City policies. Doing this will create venues for the people to speak to each other. This a part of creating the full freedoms we deserve and need. It is a social key to a lively market place of ideas in the City of Chicago. Presently, we are censored by treatment as commodity vendors.

A friend came by to introduce me to a lawyer who claimed to be an expert on First Amendment law. He was negative about our chances to fight the City of Chicago claiming that recent cases allowed cities to charge fees to those who would sell their speech in the public way. We exchanged contact information. I e-mailed him to have him refer me to the cases he spoke of but he never wrote back. Further research of my own discovered a website by a Boston artist who has been doing the same thing in Boston for ten years. His website lists many cases in which artists have won back their speech rights from cities around the country (http://communityartsadvocates.org/saaNewYorkCity.html). Not all the lawyers we meet will be willing to defend our free speech rights. Until we organize - no one is likely to believe in our cause.

This mistake was the only one of this patch left at the end of my day of printing in public.

Welcome to the end of October in Chicago. This is a good planning time. A time of preparation for winter, a symbol of difficult days ahead. We have had our warning that our voice for citizen’s full speech rights will not be welcomed by the gatekeepers. This is part of the fun.

Yes, the cat and mouse of creativity vs bureaucracy. Hello out there? Does anyone want to play?
Are there artists who might find worth the effort in exchange for permanent on-going art markets creating street art scenes for the public to be able to meet the artists and the artists to meet each other. Who out there would like to see all the community arts and artists continuously able, encouraged, to sell to their communities in the streets and parks of Chicago. This is the minimum the 1st Amendment of Free Speech and democratic discussion demands to have a vital market place for ideas and innovation.

So I came out with my first “Free Speech Artists’ Movement” patch. Its first printing was at the “Festival of Democracy” held at the Experimental Station at
6100 South Blackstone Avenue Saturday (10/20/07). I printed outside so I missed much of the program. I had several very interesting conversations and I met Mario Gonzalez, Z, who exhibited with us in the very early years. He was around when we started with nothing, when Laillah Abdullah and I held our first exhibit Artists Against Homelessness that was curated by a committee of artists led by Sue Ying. Sue was in her seventies even then. She was tirelessly supportive of community arts organizing. This first exhibit was a success. Our second exhibit, “Art of the T-shirt” was asked downtown to the offices of the “Community Renewal Society.” Mario - he’s back! Mario….call - email cdrew@c-drew.com cause we’ve got to talk.

Yes, time to clean up the garden and get ready for the winter.

I had a tooth pulled this week and I am still recovering from the T-shirt Art Harvest Festival. A week ago we had our first rally for the “Free Speech Art Movement” Three people came. However, they were so threatened they insisted that I could not display a sign to the public on the entire block of the Daley Center. They claim the Daley Center is “private property.” My question is who did they give it to after the tax payers paid for it? We are so adjusted to having our speech limited that they tell us anything.

AT&T and Verizon Test Censorship Policy
Please read the Free Press article. This is the time to begin fighting nationally to earn our freedom all over again. The war for freedom and democracy is here - now - in this country - not Iraq. If you love freedom. prepare to fight now for it or give it up!
http://www.freepress.net/news/26606

I went downtown to Michigan Avenue.

My purpose was to drop off Free Speech Artists Movement rally fliers to the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum at the base for the Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue.

After visiting the Freedom Museum I hoped to deliver fliers to the faculty at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago.

This sculpture by Stanley Smith caught my eye. I am always interested in the art that makes it into the mainstream. I am aware, also, that this work is not likely to be threatened by a policeman claiming it is blocking traffic or that it is a threat to public safety - a reception an artist reciting and selling his poetry might expect to receive in the same spot.

At the Freedom Museum my contact was in a meeting. I left fliers and immediately caught a bus to the School of the Arts Institute.

At the School of the Arts Institute I where I used to access the faculty mailboxes I was greeted by security personnel. I was advised me to go to 37 South Wabash to the Office of Student Affairs. When I persisted in asking if I would be able to access the faculty mailboxes there I was escorted down a long hall to a lady who had an administrative title. She said I should speak to the Dean.
I walked back down the hall thanking my escort. With my heavy leather bag on my shoulder I marched along Jackson Street. About 10 minutes later the security guard at 37 S Wabash after a phone call directed me across the street to 36 S Wabash. There they redirected me back to 37 S. Wabash. At that point I decided that the faculty at the School of the Arts Institute was simply too isolated from the public to be accessible. I had a job for cash money I was due at soon.
They will have to go uninformed, I decided. This is only the beginning. If they want to have input to our agenda they will have to become involved later. The Free Speech Artists Movement is - after all - a 5-15 year project to change Chicago. Friday, October 5th at 11am-2pm at the Picasso on the Daley Plaza is not a deadline. It is a first step - a beginning. Then, we grow from that moment on.

NOTE: We can expect similar resistance as we seek our free speech rights. It is the rights of those who speak out that are attacked in these ways. Those who do not speak out may believe they still have their freedoms, when they have in fact lost significant freedom to speak without realizing it. To have our freedoms we must fight for the freedoms of others. Please read this and consider responding in support of ANSWER’s free speech rights.

The Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center used to advertise its T-shirt Art Exhibits locally by posting small fliers around the neighborhood. Then Daley’s Administration outlawed any posting of fliers citywide. That made it much more difficult to promote our events. The press has very little space for arts groups. The only way we can promote ourselves is to pass out literature directly to put it in mailbox door to door. Bit by bit those with great access whittle away at our access. People feel powerless to respond. We are marginalized and prevented from communicating with our audiences. Those who care should wake up to the need to fight now for our basic rights in this city and this nation. This example illustrates how all these efforts are connected. The struggle for 1st Amendment rights is also a struggle in support of the anti-war movement. The reverse is also true, the struggle of the anti-war movement must support a struggle for 1st Amendment rights.
C. Drew

P.S. I heard a youthful DJ’s voice on the radio - angry at AT&T who helped to sponsor the Lollapalooza - why - because he was on the spot to hear Pearl-Jam talk bad about Bush and AT&T edited the anti-Bush rap out on their online version claiming lamely - technical difficulties! Did I say the DJ was mad. He suggested we pay more money for the event tickets and oust AT&T as a sponsor. Wow - he was hot. I had to laugh. “…the value of Free Speech is unable to be measured!” he stated. I was driving and didn’t know what channel I had on. It took a few minutes of musing before the importance of his statements sunk in. He was correct. To me it is another clue that the forces of despotism are organizing to limit our voices. Another step in that direction is seen below.

STOP GOVERNMENT ATTACKS AGAINST THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT!
Take Action to Defend Free Speech. In an unprecedented action, the ANSWER Coalition today received citations fining the organization $10,000 for the placement of posters announcing the September 15 March on Washington DC.

The fines come after a campaign led by FOX news calling for the DC government to take action against those putting up posters for the September 15 demonstration.

They have told us that we have 72 hours to remove every poster, or the fines will go into effect. Tens of thousands of dollars in additional fines are expected in the coming days. Bush’s Interior Department is threatening similar actions against ANSWER. The September 15 posters are legal and conform to city regulations. We will not allow the government’s intimidation tactics to slow our outreach or silence the antiwar movement.

We can stop this effort to repress the antiwar movement with your help. This is part of a systematic effort to disrupt the organizing for the September 15 Mass March that is timed to coincide with the report of General Petraeus and the debate in Congress on the Iraq war.

Iraq war veterans and their families will lead this dramatic march from the White House to the Congress on September 15. The last thing the government wants is to see the streets of Washington DC fill up with throngs of anti-war protesters right in the middle of the debate. But we will not be stopped.

Organizing for this demonstration is taking place in cities and towns throughout the country. Buses and car caravans are coming from 90 cities and towns.

Please send a letter today:
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=tl4n2Kgz0PlpTa0kt8V0KA..

to Washington DC Mayor (Adrian M. Fenty) and to the Director of DC Department of Public Works (William O. Howland, Jr.) demanding an end to the fines, harassment and repression of the anti-war movement. We have a right to publicize the September 15 March. Fining the anti-war movement tens of thousands of dollars for putting up Free Speech-protected literature makes a mockery out of the First Amendment.

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TAKE ACTION TO DEMAND THE FINES BE LIFTED!

The best way to take action is to call the Director of Department of Public Works, William O. Howland, Jr. at 202-673-6833, and the Mayor of DC, Adrian Fenty, at 202-724-8876. You can also send a letter or fax by clicking this link
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=WEMsxW6rqJFXwjMXICAfUw..

We’d suggest saying something along the lines of:
“I am writing to protest the fines levied against the ANSWER Coalition for putting up posters for the September 15th March on Washington. The government does not fine politicians who put up campaign posters, or commercial and business interests that plaster Washington, DC with posters. It is outrageous that the city, in concert with FOXNews, are attempting to suppress the antiwar movement. Stop the harassment. Stop the fines.”

Let us know how your phone conversations go by emailing us info@internationalanswer.org

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A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
www.answercoalition.org
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311