The weather is beautiful for March. I get on the “L” at 10:30 heading to the peace march hosted by Answer. My info says the march is starting at a location around the California Street stop on the Pink Line of the “L” train. I intend to get off at the 18th Street “L” stop to set-up at the end point of the march.
As I wait on the Loop platform at Washington and Wells , I see a man and woman dressed in black with lots of patches sewn on their clothes. I think they would be interested in my patches so I offer them some.
The man rolls up his collar and says, “I got this from a man at a march over a year ago? Did you do this one?”
“Wow, a reunion! I did that! Yess!” I exclaim with exuberance. “YESSS!”
This is what I have been trying to explain to artists. Get your art out there. Let the public have some of what you have and reach a wide audience. He got that patch on the street - not in a gallery or museum or store. Do some art education. Share your art on patches. Artists - let the Free Speech Artists’ Movement’s “Patch Art Project” make a screen, print, and distribute your art on a patch. Get your art out there! Help us change Chicago and make it more friendly to artists. Build Chicago’s street arts market. If you won’t do it for yourself - do it for another artist who desperately needs her/his speech rights to survive by selling their creativity in public. Discover your own natural audience - without middle managers, agents or censors.
I Arrive at the 18th Street “L” stop. This is Carlos Cortez territory. There is even an art organization named after him in this neighborhood. The “L” station is painted with Mexican cultural symbols by local artists. This impresses me greatly and inspires me. Carlos Cortez - a Wobbly woodcut artist and poet inspired many and he and his traveling artists in Pilsen inspired, contributed to and made this “L” station’s art happen.
Carlos Cortez was a member of our Board of Directors of the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center from 1989 to 2005 when he passed away. His spirit lives on in the many artists and people whose hearts and memories keep him alive. He is our artist-patron of the Free Speech Artists’ Movement. His art on patches is seeding our Patch Art Project.
The square is empty except for an elderly man seated on one of the marble benches and the pigeons. There was a single squad car parked at the south end of the small triangle, waiting for the marchers to arrive. I study a map that I printed out from the Answer website trying to get a good idea where the stage would be. I wanted the best spot to setup my print operation. I needed something to rest my back against and to be visible to as many of the marchers as possible. I also wanted to avoid the pigeon poop.
Now comes the work - 3-4 hours of printing patches. That’s why I like a surface to lean my back against. Over time it makes a big difference. I eat a tamale I bought from a street vendor on the walk over to this location and drink a lemonade with it. There will not be time for a break later and with toxic ink on my fingers I don’t want to be eating food. I pick my “No Human Being is Illegal” patch to print first.
I’m wearing five layers of clothes on my upper body and two layers below anticipating cold temperatures. It is cool - about 49-50 degrees. The spot I selected is in the sun which proves to be too warm for all these layers but the extra clothes have a another purpose - to sit on.
I spread my blanket in front of a retaining wall containing soil for plants. How you set up your printing space is critical to printing well. My outer heavy coat lies folded on the left of the blanket. My print board and screen is before my coat which I will sit on as I print. My squeegee, trash bag, scissors, leather bag and anything else I need are on my left away from the blanket. My inks bottles are weights to keep the wind from blowing the patches away. There is only a mild wind playing with my patches as I pile the printed patches in a spot a short swing of my forearm to my right. If the wind plays too much with the printed patches I have something for that, as well. I throw my scarf over the patches and each print is slid under the scarf which prevents the wind from blowing them away.
My spot is now in the shade. The moving earth positions the sun behind a billboard and I sit in a cold shadow. I am printing “More Art Less War.” My hands are beginning to get cold. It is important to print fast to keep the screen open. This is not as difficult in the cold because the ink does not dry as fast. When the weather is cool I prefer the sun but as the weather warms the shade is the only place to print because the ink will dry in the screen plugging up the open areas ending the printing process and forcing clean-up of the dry ink on the surface of the screen.
I know the marchers are about to arrive when I hear the helicopter. We only rate one helicopter today. The helicopter is all about intimidation. It has no other possible purpose. The police arrive in force. There are enough police to protect the public from an explosion of gang violence complete with Molitoff-cocktails, rocks, knives, bricks, and sticks. But the protesters are only a bunch of spirited out-spoken peace advocates addressing their grievances with their government’s actions in a public display of displeasure. As they walk and chant, beside them march cops on either side of the street making double overtime pay for a tame uneventful outing at taxpayers expense. Service cuts (if this can be called service) do not affect these public servants today. Tomorrow when police are really needed to serve suddenly the budgetary cutbacks will cut-in. America - where are your priorities? A helicopter? Please!
It is on now. People are coming over to ask what I am doing. I answer them while steadily printing. I urge them to take patches. I focus on printing. I try to keep an eye on the patches that are displayed along the front of my blanket. The breeze, working with the people flipping the patches around, leaves a mess but the sun shines on me again as the earth turns. I give away patches printed from old protest slogan screens and patches from our new Patch Art Project. This is the debut of our Patch Art Project.
A face appears out of the crowd. A lady lowers herself to my level and introduces herself as a friend of Likalee’s. “Can I help you” she offers. I invite her to take a handful of patches and hand them out to the people milling around the plaza as speakers put-down our wars of aggression and our government’s policies in support of greed and corporate irresponsibility from a portable stage placed on the street in front of us.
I am printing furiously. People I’ve met at previous protests stop by and say hello. Others stop by and talk with me while I print. The speakers are Palestinian, Mexican, African American, European, from Labor and from organizations with grass-roots.
I hear someone close by talking about the surveillance van that is collecting video on us. When I look up I see what looks like a paddy wagon painted black with a high-tech Video camera on a hydraulic lift. The lift is extended to about twenty feet in the air and the camera is scanning the plaza.
Helicopters, hoards of policemen, and now high-tech surveillance, what will our City government spend money on next to try to scare people away from expressing themselves in public? Let there be no doubt, the money is not spent on violence control. There is no violence from us to control. It is our protesting of violence that the City of Chicago is trying to control. This money is spent to try to marginalize our message. This money is spent on censorship.
This is the same issue that we are fighting when we fight for our right to sell our art on the sidewalks of our City. The City is working overtime to marginalize our voices on many fronts. We must work to identify and educate the public to these actions. Actions that diminish our rights, our voices and threaten our democracy. We should understand we will need to fight for our right to sell our art in public because that too is a speech right that the City acts as if they are not legally bound to respect. When we do fight, we will find our friends who work with us and our enemies - those who would trash our rights. And how do we fight? Our secret weapon is the Patch Art Project. We use art!
An artist friend from earlier protests sits with me through the last of the speeches. As I pick-up after the protest he offers to show me where the Carlos Cortez Gallery is. It turns out I had passed it on my walk from the “L” to here. After a short walk on 18th Street we arrive. At the Casa de la Cultura Carlos Cortez (Mestizarte), 1440 W. 18th Street, they treat me like an old friend. Once there I meet up with the Director, José Luis Pina and an artist I have known for decades. They invite me back to print my screens in front of their storefront gallery on another Saturday when the weather is friendly. I agree to bring screens of Carlos Cortez patch designs to print. My day is complete. I go home happy.
Home Coming by Carlos Cortez - patch printed by Jeneba.
