C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

It is Friday morning. Sprinkles dot the street as I ride my bike to the “L” train loaded with an Aldies grocery store bag filled with four screens, patch material and plenty of safety pins. On my handlebars I balance my leather bag bulging with more supplies to setup my printing station in the Loop. My destination is the Merchandise Mart.

(more images to be posted soon)

Artropolis is in town. This is Chicago’s largest annual gathering of artists, mostly from beyond Chicago. Chicago artists represented by galleries and those with established clientèle making an outlay of several thousand dollars for a ten by ten booth space participate. Thursday night before the opening the NEXT Gallery hosts a free preview for those in Chicago’s art circles. Chicago artists who can’t afford to participate (the vast majority) flack to the preview with complimentary tickets to drink free beer and whiskey in a massive art party for “the rest of us.” I had to work and couldn’t attend. If I had possessed my full speech rights in Chicago, I would not need a second job and I would have been present last evening to sell my art outside of Artopolis with other artists making up a street art scene composed of local artists. Will I meet any other artists on the street today. I doubt it!

I near the Mart in good spirits. The rain increases but the temperature is near 65 degrees. The year before it was colder and I feel sure today’s rain will give way to clear skies later on. This is my third year of giving away free patches outside Artropolis. Last year a small group of artists attempted to create activities outside Artropolis but were not very effective. I heard they were hassled by the authorities, the police or the Mart Security personnel. They located by the Chicago River front doors where the cabs pull up. Ha-ha - at the Official Front doors. I like around under the “L” station where the “people” walk out to and in off the street.

My purpose in front of the Merchandise Mart is to explain disturbing facts to the public about artists’ speech rights being violated in Chicago while I gave out free art patches promoting artists rarely seen in public due to these illegal restrictions on our rights to use our public spaces to sell our art which is protected by the First Amendment.

Naturally, I wondered if I would encounter resistance. That possibility exists because no peddling is allowed in the Loop due to the peddler’s license code that, since 1994, also covers speech peddlers (artists). Even though I was giving art away in some Loop locations the police have harassed me.

Well, just in case someone from the City of Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs wants to get technical, allow me to explain the details of that statement. Practically speaking, the sale of art on the streets of the greater Loop is illegal across the board. That especially applies with a minor exception whenever festivals make it an extraordinarily opportune time to sell.

Technically, an artist who buys an biennial peddlers license (presently $165) thinking it will allow them to sell their art in a desirable location in the Loop, soon discovers they also need a speech permit. Even the City of Chicago recognizes art is speech. When the entrepreneurial artist reads the speech permit rules they find that they must apply a month in advance for a one month permit to sell on one of ten corners in the Loop – four of which are useless except on a few weekends in the year when there are festivals. On the other six corners the artist can’t sell anything created on the spot because all designs must be approved in advance by the Department of Business Affairs (DBA) in the application before a permit is issued.

The law also says in a speech peddling location you must sell, “…from packs, baskets or similar containers, shall be mobile, shall not set up tables, stands or other structures, and shall not use pushcarts, place items on the sidewalk or street, or otherwise obstruct or block the public way with his wares or merchandise.”

Based on the wording above Chicago’s Finest will run you around like a puppet with your head cut off unless you are connected with clout anytime you have something to say inside the broad and vast prohibited districts they continually add to. If the artist wants to paint or draw caricatures or comment on Daley’s latest action to strip artists of their rights, that is not allowed by the law until the design has been approved in the following month’s application to the DBA. Only two or three people apply for Speech Permits per year for a variety of reasons. The City tries to hide their existence. It is such a hassle to continuously apply. There is no culture of art on the street so people passing by ignore anyone trying to use a speech corner as a forum for their art. The police continue to hassle you anyway. You are not allowed to put up an easel or any kind of stand or to set your art on the ground. You must stand and carry everything you need like Hercules. You must move whenever the beat cop snaps his fingers. That is the law in Chicago.

It was not always this way. In the 60’s, 70’s and up into the 80’s artists sold very freely in many parts of Chicago including Old Town, Maxwell Street and Wicker Park. Lee Godie made her name as an “outsider artist” in front of the Arts Institute. Today, she would be branded a criminal and put in jail.

One year I had a speech permit for a corner by Grant Park during a major festival and the police set-up barricades so people walked on the other side of the street to the park leaving me by myself unable to make contact with the crowd. When I moved across the street the police threated to arrest me claiming I would be trampled by the crowd. They forced me to move back onto the lonely corner. I stayed around printing and selling an occasional patch only to photograph the fact that I would have not been in the way of the crowd in my previous position along the pathway where people walked to and from the festival.

If the Speech Permit were to be found to be useful by artists and speech vendors, more than two or three people a year would apply. Of those who apply, none continue to apply monthly. As it is, only thirty people in the entire city can successfully apply because only five people are allowed to possess a Speech Permit per corner each month. This number has nothing to do with traffic, is pitifully small and guarantees that the City has complete control over who might successfully apply should their scheme ever prove practical to speech vendors.

If more than 30 people apply, the City provides for a hidden lottery by which to determine who their favorite vendors will be. That has never happened, again, not because there are less than thirty artists interested in selling their speech in Chicago. You can be just as sure that this is exactly what the City will claim in court when we challenge the law. Ha-ha! Can you hear their suited lawyer standing ramrod erect in court with tightened lips claiming, “Your Honor, we have provided more spaces for artists than are ever used. What more do these artists want?”

The Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center (UM-CAC) is organizing an art protest, the Art Patch Project, against the peddlers license and Chicago Park District policies that limit artists speech rights to sell art in public. This is the first year I am giving away “Art Patch Project” art patches. UM-CAC is collecting designs from Chicago area artists to be printed on 100% cotton and given away to educate the public to the fact that artists speech rights are being violated in Chicago. We are giving art patches away wherever it is illegal to sell our art in Chicago. First Amendment case law is complex. Even the media do not understand it. Artists and the public know even less about how this important body of law works to ensure that public discourse is protected. The City is happy to keep people confused by defending its unconstitutional laws with statements that ignore case law on this subject. The media never digs deep enough to debunk the City’s claims.

In a nutshell, here are the legal facts. Free Speech is a right so important that when the Government (City, State or Federal) seeks to restrict it, that government must have a compelling reason. Then it must write a narrow law that addresses that compelling reason directly while limiting speech as little as possible in the process. Finally, when government writes a law that restricts speech it must provide an ample alternative to speakers affected by the law. That ample alternative should be considered ample from the point of view of the speakers affected by the law.

What does Chicago do? Chicago claims as the compelling reason traffic control to protect our public safety. But Chicago doesn’t write a narrow law, like no speech peddling allowed within ten feet of a doorway or within twenty feet of a street crossing, to protect our ability to walk down the street. Chicago’s laws don’t consider how wide the sidewalk is that a peddler can sell on. Chicago law bans all speech sales in the greater Loop! The Chicago Park District policy prevents art sales in all our public parks. Chicago writes broad laws that affects speech broadly without regard to the compelling reason they claim – our right to walk safely down the street. The three pages of “prohibited districts” listed in the peddlers license are added to at the whim of Aldermen of the ward in which they exist. In fact, it is at the request of merchants in each ward that prohibited districts are defined – for reasons of commercial competition - not reasons of traffic safety. This is a mockery of our speech rights.

It is important to note that the City also claims the need to regulate our speech sales based on un-compelling reasons as well. They claim they need to do so to prevent crime, prevent us from not paying our taxes and to prevent us from competing with those who pay taxes to the City. These are not compelling reasons because selling art does not cause crime. Increasing the market for art as would happen if artists could sell freely on the street has been proven to increase economic activity and tourism, thus, increasing the City’s revenue. Artists who sell pay sales tax to the State not the City. If artists can’t sell, they won’t pay sales tax. Dah! These are all lame excuses to take our rights away.

On Friday, I first set-up under the “L” track by the area reserved for smokers. The Mart on one side and the tracks over my head combine to prevent the rain from falling on my working space. I have an audience of employees from the Mart who watch me print while they smoke. Some of the exhibiting artists, who come out to smoke, engage me in conversation. I am able to collect some email addresses on my “Petition to Expand the Creative Spaces in Chicago”

Sometimes when I explain that we are not free to sell our art in Chicago people point to the frequent “Art Fairs” and neighborhood festivals where artists are encouraged to rent booths for a weekend to sell their art. They offer these up as an “ample alternative” to our full speech rights to sell art on the public sidewalk or in the public parks as First Amendment case law allows.

Remember, the “ample alternative” that the government is supposed to provide us when they limit our speech rights should be considered from the speakers point of view – from our point of view. Please allow me to argue the artists’ point of view.

Compare our constitutionally granted speech opportunity, which has been taken away from us by Chicago’s restrictive laws, with the opportunity that art fairs, neighborhood festivals and Chicago’s speech permit provide us. When we have our freedom to sell on the public way and in the parks, artists will be able to set-up and sell creative expressions without fees or licenses anytime the weather and audiences permit. We will be limited only by reasonable display dimensions and spacing rules established by the City to truly protect the everyone’s ability to walk safely down the street. We will not be allowed to hassle the public or obstruct their way. Why would we want to?

By agreeing to sell in locations that make good sense, artists will be able to form open-air art-scenes that are self promoting over time. The public will become accustomed to viewing, greeting and meeting artists in these locations.

The artist’s overhead for promotion will be very small. Many artists will be able to afford to sell their art for much less than in a gallery or at an art fair. The audience able to afford the artist’s work will increase. More people will buy art. Artists will thrive. Everyone benefits. Everyone benefits, that is, but those presently taking unfair advantage of artists lack of opportunities on the street.

In the Chicago area, art fairs mostly take place on weekends and artists must apply to different art fairs for each weekend if they wish to sell. Full speech rights give the artist seven days a week to sell while art fairs allow the artist to sell only two days a week. Already this is a significantly less ample alternative than our true rights grant us but wait – it gets worse.

Art fairs require a non-refundable application fee to enter and are juried. This means even if the artist applies and pays an application fee they can be rejected at the whim of the art fair organizers. Many artist lose money and never get to sell. Finally, even if the artist is accepted to vend at an art fair, there is a hefty fee that ranges between $150-$600 per weekend to rent from the fair organizers 10′X10′ patch of the public sidewalk paid for by our taxes. Compared to our full rights this is servitude.

This completely changes the facts on the ground for most artists. Most artists can’t make a living under these conditions. Those that can mark their prices up and cater to the wealthy - not to the average person. An entire artist segment and much of their audience are eliminated when art fairs are the main alternative available for artists, as is the case in Chicago. This is not an ample alternative to artists full speech rights, by any means. This violates everyone’s right to participate in a free-open-air local art experience. Artists, as a group, speak for everyone – not just the wealthy. This damages the standard of living of everyone and stunts the arts community of the entire City.

Neighborhood festivals are similar to the art fair in that they occur on weekends, require an application, and a fee of between $100-$300. They are less often juried but spaces are limited and it is often difficult to find spaces available. The festivals usually charge $10 admission per person so by the time a family enters they have little money after drinks and food for art. Artists, as with art fairs, bare all the risk if it rains and the festival is a washout. Again, this is not an ample alternative to artists full speech rights.

The speech permit, as explained, nails an artist to one spot for a month, does not allow for speech on any topic that arises until the next months application and is limited to thirty speech vendors a month. How convenient for a politician like Daley. By the time thirty days are past so is the public’s interest in any issue that has popped up in the media. Plus artists can’t paint on an easel or sit beside their work but must run around like a track star with their art in a backpack. Nothing about this provision is “ample” or an alternative to our full speech rights.

I have walked through art fairs and neighborhood festivals talking to the few local artists I can find and at least 80% agree that we need our full speech rights and that making a creative living under present conditions is very difficult. They are not happy with our illegally limited set of opportunities. This is the opinion of those 10% of artists who are most able to make a living from the fairs and festivals.

After printing up several hundred patches the rain stops. When the sidewalk by the corner entrance to the Merchandise Mart dries up, I packed up my miniature workshop. I use the restroom in the Mart before changing spaces to in front of the entrance by the corner of Wells and Kinzie Streets. There I take a little more time off of printing to actively pass out the art patches I’d printed-up. This spot gets quite a bit of the corner crossing traffic. Artists from the Artropolis are becoming curious of my presence. The hip ones begin stopping down to talk and pick up patches. Artistic types attending are picking up patch-art and our literature. I get to plug our free Screen Print Workshop for Artists to those who stay to talk.

At 7:30 pm after the last exit of Artropolis traffic wanes, I packed up in fifteen minutes and jump the Brown Line home, tired but happy. I have accomplished something valuable.

Saturday I get out early. My goal is to be printing in fifteen minutes from the time I arrive. As I spread out my display cloth and set out my screens, an elderly gentleman dressed in the uniform of the Merchandise Mart Security force steps over and politely informs me that ”The Company is not going to allow that here.”

My immediate reaction is to pull out my camera. I reply, “The ‘Company’ does not own the sidewalk. You will have to call the police on me - if you wish,” I take several photographs of him – one a close-up – for my blog. This surprises me a bit because no one challenged me on Friday. Instead of printing immediately as planned, I decide to tear sheets into strips, fold them into patch dimensions and cut them into patches. It is better to talk with the police without ink drying in my screens. This will make it easier to take photos and concentrate on handling whatever situation that may develop. Although – giving art away is not illegal – once the security for a building calls the police you can never be sure that your rights will be respected in Chicago.

As I work, sitting on my coat using it as a pad on the concrete, I consider the honesty of the employee’s statement. “The Company is not going to allow that…” The “Companys” - or the owners of buildings through their security personnel on the streets of Chicago’s Loop - are always the ones to call the police on me whenever I set-up. They really do think they own the street. The police are little more than gophers in their world. Although my response is legally correct, his remark is incredibly accurate.

The “Company” has no jurisdiction to arrest me or remove me from the public sidewalk. They do, however, manage the public space around their building. They pay lawyers in “Land Use Planning” departments of major law firms to write law and to lobby the Aldermen and other public officials to pass laws that reflect their interests. These laws limit musicians from playing downtown. They are responsible for the peddlers license requirements and the locations of the prohibited districts in that law. They use bluff and police harassment to discourage the homeless from panhandling and to rid the walks around their establishments of anyone they consider unsavory. They do not respect our rights. They live in a world where might makes right and they must be confronted by an equal power to create change in Chicago. Your collective art when presented through organized effort to the public is equal to their power.

The security guard and his superior huddle out of the way discussing my situation while they wait to hear back from headquarters on what to do about me. I wait with my camera ready to get dramatic photos. I anticipate, with my adrenalin flowing, a lively conversation with whatever patrolman/woman might show up. In a while the security guards disappear. No police stop by. This does not surprise me. Artropolis is in town. Artropolis – the major art event is going on without any street activity advertising its presence except for me. The management of the Merchandise Mart most likely realize I am an asset.

The price of art at Artropolis, for the most part, is expensive. Yet, out on the street an artist is creating an arts experience that compliments what the “Company” is doing and providing its patrons with free art to remember their experience by. The Mart should pay me. I believe they understand this. Today I am welcome. Some day in the future when Artropolis is long gone I need to explore their patience once again to prove the real nature of their concern for artists.

This entire area of the loop should be a future art-scene in Chicago. Just as my presence helps to promote Artropolis, an arts-scene could promote this area as the fashion district in Chicago. It would raise the level of the economic activity for everyone – the Mart included. Present laws kill the golden goose – they strangle arts activity – they leave a desolate generic City where artists are hidden from view and visitors see this in comparison to other world class cities where their artists are on the streets – up front – out in the open – displaying the true local character for all to see and appreciate.

The patches I print find eager interest from many going and coming from Artropolis. Those who know art and screen printing can see I have mastered my skills at printing with multiple colors of ink in my screens. I dab bits of color on the screen in selected spots to create unique prints. None are the same. Each artist’s design I print takes on a new life of its own. When I print Monica Brown’s “Sundance II” the summer colors dance about with her dancing figures. People tell others upstairs about the free art on the street below. In years past I printed my political slogans. This year I print the art of under recognized artists, the buzz my efforts create is greater. Artists, your work can change minds! Submit a patch design to the Art Patch Project.

I work tirelessly taking breaks to stand up and stretch my legs only after printing a design and cleaning my screens. My work is intense and enjoyable. Frequently, I laugh as a beautiful print emerges from under my screen. I have a rhythm to my motions pulling the squeegee, placing it out of the way, extracting the print, replacing the patch material, dabbing a color on the screen, picking up the squeegee, and around again.

My squeegee never stops pulling prints while I talk explaining my purpose to those who stop by to pick up art patches. They watch and ask about the process. I explain our approach to screen printing. The artists I invite to our Workshop. To any who will listen I talk about our First Amendment right to sell art in the public way and of the value of artists being seen in public.

In the late afternoon a man with a two-wheeled, wire-wicker, grocery cart filled with plywood panels painted with portraits landscapes sceneries and still-lifes stops to watch and talk. “I heard about you” he says.

I laugh. “I heard about you, too.” Another artist had e-mailed me about him. She saw him pushing his cart along Michigan Avenue one afternoon while she was trying to research the state of street art in Chicago after reading my blog and becoming curious to see what she could find.

He tells me his method of overcoming the peddlers license law which is to push his cart and pitch his paintings. When police ask him for a peddlers license he says he isn’t selling – only pitching his art and that he refers all interested parties to his website. It is his First Amendment right to walk down the street and to talk to people. He claims this works for him. Because he keeps moving, security personnel from the Loop buildings are unlikely to call the police on him. Sales are hard to come by under these conditions. If the police stop him, it is unlikely they will ever catch him in the middle of a sale.

He is proud to be able to survive in spite of the restrictive rules limiting artists in Chicago. “I used to run my own business and when that didn’t work out I turned back to my art. I have a wife who is pregnant,” he says. “She thinks I’m crazy. I just want to make a living from my art. I work from the time I get up until late at night. If the weather is nice I’m out walking with my art. If not, I’m painting.”

In Chicago he can never rest. In New York or Paris he could setup an easel and paint in the company of other artists and let the customers come to him. In Chicago he is a lone wolf stalking his audience like a hunter in the concrete jungle ever aware of the dangers around him. I never saw him sell a painting. He never said he would take a customer’s money on the street. But if you stopped him and asked to buy one of his paintings on the spot you would make him into a criminal in the City of Chicago’s eyes. The law is that simple. In Chicago a homeless person has the First Amendment right to ask you for a dollar and accept it from you if you offer it. But, if the homeless person is an artist, and asks for the same dollar in exchange for your portrait on a paper plate, he is breaking the law. He is a criminal and you are encouraging him to commit a crime. This is absurd.

In Chicago few artists are found on its mean streets. Art is speech. The City turns us into criminals with illegal unconstitutional laws and nowhere are artists allowed to gather to legally sell their speech – their art. There is not one open-air art-market in Chicago anywhere. Chicago’s streets are generic and artless. Musicians are harassed. Artists are criminalized. This City will never reach world class status without setting its artists free.

He looks at his watch. It is time to get back to the hunt. He says - “I’ve got to go.”

“Hey – take a patch.” I call after him.

“What for?” he calls back. “I got no place for that.” He rolls on seeking his future in Chicago. I wonder about that future. We can change Chicago if only artists decide to work to that end.

The Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center is building the Art Patch Project to change Chicago. The Art Patch Project will promote your website on a patch if you only take the time to donate one black and white design to us to print on patches which we will distribute for you. Naturally, we need volunteers to help us do this. Maybe you will get excited about your speech rights some day and be willing to help.

At the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center everything we do is on-going. For twenty years we have produced the T-shirt Art Harvest Festival. For 15 years we have taught screen printing to artists for free. Now we are producing the Art Patch Project until we gain your rights to sell your art on the streets of Chicago. Every year we will host a major exhibit of your art patches until you have won your rights.

You can help us now or later. You can be sure we will fight to build the Art Patch Project until we gain your rights. We will continue to beat this art drum until everyone in Chicago hears our voice. We will march this art around the walls Chicago has built against our rights until they crumble. By that time this body of art on patches will be a major exhibit able to tour the country in support of artists speech rights nationally. Many people will come to know the artists who contribute designs to make Chicago more friendly to its artists. You can’t lose! Participate now.