Sunday 2/15/09 at the Workshop
Screen Print Workshop for Artists Report
Pete and Jon came in and went right to work preparing screens for the workshop. We are getting ready to make screens of artwork submitted by artists fighting for our free speech rights in Chicago. I announced that from now on everyone that comes to our workshop who is open to it will be photographed and placed on this blog so they can come and snag the photo for their blog or myspace page to publicize what we are doing.
Pete staples screen-print fabric to a frame that Jon made.
Jon sizes wood before using a drill to screw frames together.
Jon made the frames that pete stretched the fabric on. Later we will coat the screens with photo emulsion in preparation for exposure, development and finally printing.
Nami prints a patch from the work of Carlos Cortez
Nami is print a patch design by our senior most artist to contribute his art to our cause of artist speech rights. Carlos has passed away and we continue to honor his legacy by committing to printing a new patch of his art every month until we win our free speech rights in Chicago.
Christine tapes her screen before printing.
Christine came last week and suddenly her art was on a screen and traveling around the City to be printed in classrooms as a demonstration. This week she got to print her own patches. Our workshop is changing. Printing is becoming emphasised much more than before because we need thousands of prints and as many skilled printer as we can train.
Christine prints her design as april watches in Uptown at the American Indian Center.
We are preparing to give away patch-art in public events wherever it is illegal to sell the art without a license or permit to dramatize our right to sell in the parks and on the streets of our city and our nation.
At the end of our workshop we discuss how we can apply our art to Free Speech Artists’ Movement goals. Christine and Nami spoke about a festival this summer in the Logan Square area that they knew about for an patch-art give-away. Nami suggested we involve youth at the school she taught at. I said this sounds like an opportunity to try out our screen-print kits we are making. She said she would ask for patch-art to make a screen to go with the kit for her to teach a program at her school that would contribute to our movement.