C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

Unfinished - check back to see the changes)
This dull stretch across from Harold Washington College on Lake Street has room for 10-20 vendors taking up the space that I do, and certainly, 7-10 art vendors would make this strip lively and fun. That would be my measure of the way community art raises a people’s standard of living. We do it by inserting fun, different, inspirational and intellectually challenging art into the public life. But only where allowed. But only if licensed. But not near big money. But not if aldermen object. But… But…

In this sterile spot a cafe is allowed to take up half the public sidewalk for a non-speech related private business. While I - the public - am not allowed to sell my First Amendment protected speech in a sixth of the width of the sidewalk and a twentieth of the public space used by the cafe. The City argues in court without a smile that my rights must be restricted because my activity does block traffic and causes a public safety hazard.
Over the ages tyrants and tyrannical governments have found many ways to discourage open market places for ideas. Our technological society has stressed the monopolistic methods of broadcast TV (until recently with the Internet). Computers and the growth of the Internet have diverted attention away from age-old street art activity.

In many places of this nation art has not been treated any differently than non-speech protected products like candles or umbrellas. In the large cities municipal codes cut through artists speech rights like a hot knife through butter. In Chicago, in the shadows, Daley, with the City Council in tow, gutted our street rights in the name of urban development through the peddlers license requirement they passed in 1994.

They treated us as if we had no First Amendment protected right to sell our expressive art - as if our rights were really privileges to be granted by the city as it likes - like a liquor license. There is a big difference legally between a right and a privilege in our courts. Speech is different in our nation or it should be. But only if people care enough to fight for their rights.
This Chicago policy has helped to produce a sterile, generic city where the local artists are unseen in public. We must take back our rights and our streets, for Chicago’s sake as well as our own.