C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

Lowell promotes freedom with a smile and gets a smile right back.

The night before our Art Patch Project action I was concerned. Only three people actually told me they would meet me in front of Macy’s on State Street at the scene of my “crime” in the afternoon. It was predicted to be one of the coldest afternoons of our winter. I was asking volunteers to stand in that cold and give art to strangers. The date was chosen because I had to appear in court that morning on my first class felony charge.

Giving art away is our response to the threat by authorities to jail me for 15 years for speaking out on the peddlers license by convicting me of a first class felony for audio-recording my own arrest initiated by a misdemeanor stop for selling art for a dollar in the Loop without a peddlers license.

David - the 1st volunteer came early in blistering cold to give art away at the scene of the crime - Macys on State Street in Chicago.

“Every person you call and every e-mail you send is a straw” I told myself after several hours of emails and phone calls to supporters. “One day the City’s back will break.” Whoever shows up, even if only two people, we will shoot photos and blog about it. We are building. We expect more volunteers as temperatures warm up during spring and summer. We want to print massive amounts of screen printed art patches and give them away. We need help.

Giving art away is not new for us. Before I was charged on December 2 with a felony, the Art Patch Project was organizing artists to give art away “wherever in public it is illegal to sell art without a license.” It IS legal to give art away anywhere in public in Chicago. The authorities are not concerned that artists giving art away will block foot traffic. The public’s need to walk safely down the sidewalks is the primary reason the City uses in court to prevent us, citizens and the artists among us, from being able to freely sell our art/speech in public. The Art Patch Project is a free community art action designed to educate the public about their speech rights, artists’ speech rights and how “First Amendment case law” works to protect speech in public.

Anka arrived 2nd and passed out free art on the corner of Randolph and State St.

The Art Patch Project is an exhibit of art on 100% cotton fabric. We pass art-patches out with a safety pin and an info sheet explaining the Art Patch Project. People are free to trash it the way they might pizza restaurant ads or candidate literature – or they can take it home and honor it as art with a spot in their lives. Most people keep our art-patches. Years later I meet people who have one or more of my patches and are wearing the art on a backpack or their pants, traveling the city, explaining it from time to time to someone else.

Before the Art Patch Program was created, I explored the Loop by screen printing and given my art patches away for over 6 years. For three years, I posted photographs and writings documenting my Street Art Adventures in Chicago on my blog.

The Anka style is conversational, she engages the public and they look at the art.

The City of Chicago knows about me. They are aware I am the Executive Director of the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center. At their Department of Business Affairs and Licensing, when I applied for a “speech permit,” the single worker who handled “speech permits” told me to keep the secret of the “speech permit” quiet. Then, the speech permit regulations were not offered with the standard request for the peddlers license rules. At that time the regulations and existence of the speech permit were only offered if a person knew enough to ask for them. I was made aware by a friend in the medical marijuana movement. It was one of their group who who sued to sell their t-shirt messages at the Taste of Chicago when the City began enforcing the new unconstitutional version of the peddlers license after it was passed in 1994. The speech permit was created after that law suit was lost by the City.

I told the City official when I was hand my permit that I worked for a community arts agency and I was going to tell everybody about it. “Whats more, I’m going to sue the City for requiring me to buy a license for speech,” I told the man. A year later when I went back the speech permit rules were included in the peddler regulations provided to all applicants for a license.

Anka, Pascha, C Drew and Willow form an art for free gauntlet inviting the public to accept art-patches for fun.

Friday morning, at 26th and California outside the court of Judge Stanley Sacks, room 602, I met Monica Brown, an artist who has exhibited with the “Art of the T-shirt” for over 15 years. She came to support me. “I had to come!” she said. She first exhibited in 1993 when our community based exhibit series traveled downtown to hang in the Chicago Cultural Center. They gave us two months and put our multi-cultural arts panel discussion in all their publications that went out to the media. Once they saw the art, it was too powerful and they cut the exhibit in half, ending it just after the widely publicized artists’ panel was completed. That panel showcased a beautiful variety of sincere community artists who said some deep and insightful things, reflecting their different cultural traditions. Monica has followed our evolution from that time. No wild charge by a State’s Attorney will change her experience of 17 years with us.

I did not ask people to come out to see a series of legal procedures. There will be some times I may ask for a show of support if I go to trial or if we have a press conference. Mostly, we need people to help us screen print on Sundays from 3-6pm. If people want to help on court days, in the afternoons we will need help in the Loop giving away art. Monica came out on her own without being asked.

Then, I pass out the over-sized protest t-shirts to volunteers to wear over their coats. Similar T-shirts increased our public acceptance.

She inspired me by her presence. She represented to me the hundreds of artists who I have taught screen printing to for free and even more artists who I have worked with setting up community art exhibits over the past twenty years. They know who I am and what this first class felony charge is about. They – like the rest of the world – know this is about silencing my speech – not about my committing a crime one step short of murder.

During these 20 years I’ve never been compensated with a real wage for my community work. These are the years I’ve spent suviving on few funds wondering how we can create opportunities for Chicago’s many artists struggling to survive with too few options. These are the years that formed my determination to change Chicago to make it more friendly to artists if it kills me. While, that is just a flip phrase - if it kills me - but when I was hit with a first class felony charge after selling art in the Loop it made me wonder to what level authorities will go to prevent artists from attaining their rights in Chicago. I am ready for this fight but by myself I know these power brokers will ride all over me. Only with your participation will we change Chicago. You are already many more than you realize. Help us. Volunteer to screen print art for change. (link)

We gain opportunities to speak one on one with citizens to explain our fight for our rights.

In court, Mark Weinberg, my attorney, received discovery and asked the judge for 30 days to prepare a motion for dismissal. Judge Stanley Sacks granted his request asking him to pick a day. He selected the last Friday in February, 2/26/10. This is a great day to have our next Art Patch Project. It will give us time to print more art patches and involve more artists adding patch designs to the mix. We will walk this growing body of art on patches around the legal walls that bar our right to sell art in public in Chicago until those unconstitutional laws crumble. It is a non-violent effort to change Chicago, a creative application of Doctor Martin Luther King’s philosophy inspired by the philosophy and actions of Gandhi.

After court, Mark and I rushed off to the American Indian Center to the studio of the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center where we met Derrick Blakley of CBS Channel 2 News (Chicago) who interviewed us for a news segment to air on the 5:00 news.

And the citizens can tell us what they think, as well. She wished us success with gusto.

I ate lunch with my wife, Deborah. She dropped me downtown with a grocery bag full of art-patches pinned with info fliers and six over-sized t-shirts for volunteers to wear over their coats (see previous post). I received four phone calls before I arrived in front of Macy’s on State Street where our Art Patch Project action was scheduled to begin at 3pm. Two volunteers, who I did not expect, called to say they would be there waiting on me. A photographer from Streetwise newspaper said she was arriving in a bit to photograph us. A reporter from public radio called and asked if she could meet me to gather audio interviews with participating artists. Seemingly out of nowhere the energy was building.

Anna, David, Pascha and Willow showed up to help hand out art. The reporter from WBEZ arrived with a big padded mike she held to capture the background sounds of our Art Patch Project give-away. She interviewed the participants and myself. The photographer from Streetwise came and began shooting photos.

Free SAM in motion - Jenny Rotten has fun giving art away defying the cold.

Another artist, Lowell Thompson arrived. He added an infectious enthusiasm. I apologized to him because his “buythecover.com” patch, the last patch printed before this action was not yet in the mix. It will be for sure at our next action (2/26/10). Lowell Thompson is an exhibiting artist exploring the study of the book cover as an art from an ex-adman’s perspective. He has made a site from that concept at buythecover.com.

As the interviews were winding down, I got a call from a journalist from the Columbia Chronicle asking us if we would be passing out art by their campus. We began to walk down State Street toward Columbia College about seven blocks south and one block east of Macys as a group.

We end up next to Picasso Plaza where CBS Channel 2 just broadcast our story.

When I give art-patches away by myself I find that it is a struggle to talk the downtown crowd into accepting the free art. I am lucky to get 10% of the passers to take our art. By myself, as a single artist, I am seen as a crank to be avoided. This is why we need “artist scenes” - locations where artists are expected. Then, an artist by themselves will be expected and respected.

When I passed out the protest t-shirt I printed to our volunteers the percentages of the public accepting our art flipped. Together, with the t-shirt to identify us and the number of volunteers defining a group, the effect on the public was transformed. Now over 3 out of five people accepted the art we offered. As a group the concept of the Art Patch Project came alive. People saw the different artists of the group, unified by the t-shirt but different and each unique and giving away unique art. As a group we were happy and the public felt the energy. They took the art-patches in large numbers. We were churning through the art I had brought.

We had ten artist-volunteers show up to help give art away and all had fun. We ran out of art early.

On the walk toward Columbia, Jenny called and asked where we were. She was arriving by “L” on the Red Line. She caught up with us at just South of Jackson Street. Her friend Andy, joined us almost immediately. Now we were eight. Within minutes of that two other artists who read about the Art Patch Project on our e-mail list showed eager to pass out art. Then the Columbia journalists arrived to collect cell phone video and still photos to expose their student body to our message. They took testimony from everyone and shot photographs of our activities.

At 4:25 I announced we should begin walking toward the Picasso Plaza to connect with the Chicago Critical Mass. At 4:35 I got a call from Nancy, our video artist who was at the Picasso Plaza. She wanted to know where we were. I realized we were getting very low on patches so I gave a call to hold off for several blocks to allow Nancy to connect with us before we were completely out of patches to give away.

Lowell and C. Drew celebrate when the last art-patch is given away!

She met us on State Street by Monroe and we gave the rest of the patches away while her camera recorded our action. When the last patch was given out we celebrated. Then, we ended at the Picasso Plaza to watch the 5:00 News on the massive Outside display of CBS2 Chicago. Little did we know that our segment had led off the news and we had just missed the massive display of our case in dramatic fashion. We laughed and joked about being cut by some frightened producer afraid of the Chicago politics. But that was not the case.

Derrick Blakley had created a brave and powerful statement combining Adam Schwartz of the ACLU, Mark Weinberg, my lawyer and myself with footage from my arrest shot by Nancy Bechtol. When I got home, my wife told me about the lead off segment Derrick did on me, I was happy, and then when I thought about how I doubted CBS I was a bit guilty. I mentioned it with a tinge of guilt in my email to the others who were there with a link to the coverage on CBS.

Our efforts are beginning to be recognized and our numbers are growing. Can you help make change?

C Drew, Jenny and Lowell talk it up after the giving is over. The cold is all but forgotten.