C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

The Oral arguments from May18th when Attorney Mark Weinberg argued why the charges against me are an unconstitutional application of a badly written law.

http://www.art-teez.org/free-speech-movement/100722-may18-2010-oral-argument-drew-v-illinois.pdf

You judge the justice in this case for yourself.

What is the role of Art in Society?

Why am I willing to risk my freedom so some unknown artists can sell their art in the streets and in the parks of a city that cares not at all for them or myself?

Art is speech. Artists are those who polish their speech. The word “communication” could be substituted for speech but because the First Amendment uses the word speech, so do I. Some philosophers prefer the phrase “self-expression.” That works for me, as well.

Art performs the same role that speech does in society except it is a more polished form of speech and therefore more effective than the unpolished speech. There are many forms of art but all art involves communication and is considered speech in terms of this essay and by the full meaning of the First Amendment in my opinion. Sometimes art’s effect is explosive and dangerous to those in power. When you add up the sum of all the art/speech activity in a society you have what we call culture. Culture develops self-identity and self-identity gives meaning to our lives. Many forces attempt to define what our lives mean, what meaning we find in life, what our history means, what we think. They do so to attempt to control our future actions and allegiances.

Artists may be categorized into thematic art collectives, hip-hop culture, pop culture, Western culture, Mid-eastern culture, and on and on. Cultures can clash. Many human beings are willing to fight and die for their various culture’s existence. In a diverse democracy we need to learn to be tolerant of the many cultures that make up our society. Cultural clash does not have to be physically violent in an open society. Physical violence most often occurs when one culture attempts to use law or force to suppress the cultures of others in order to gain an unfair advantage for the cultural category they identify with.

After I left Art School in photography at the University of Minnesota I moved into the poor mixed Summit University community of St. Paul Minnesota in 1975 and soon began volunteering as a photographer for the community newspaper, the Summit-University Free Press. I built them a darkroom, shot photos for them, helped layout the paper and even wrote some stories.

My education in community art began at Inner City Youth League in St. Paul Minnesota in the late 70’s. This African American community arts institution began by the nephew of Gordan Parks, a world famous Time-Life photographer of the 1950’s-60’s, was founded at a time when major art institutions were lilly-white in their curitorial practices. Artists of color were never exhibited. Even “white women” rarely were shown. Art and culture was controlled to reflect the taste and attitudes of the racist rulers of the moment. The artists at Inner City Youth League understood their role in society. It was no mystery to them that art had the power to liberate or to enslave a people. Their artistic mission was liberation.

The foundations of the time were reluctant to fund an all black institution. When President Carter took office in 1976 he created the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) and placed the employment of artists in service of community agencies at a premium. Artists applying to CETA in St. Paul were administered from a central agency designated for that city. The Executive Director of Inner-City Youth League (ICYL) could apply for staff from CETA but not determine who CETA sent to him. He hired a diverse group of artists through CETA to staff a vibrant program of arts serving the African American community in St. Paul.

I talked with the Director of ICYL before I applied to CETA. Then once I was accepted into the program CETA I asked to serve in my Summit-University community. CETA gave me a choice of working at ICYL or at a major cultural institution in downtown St. Paul. I chose to serve my community over an institution with a recognized career path.

I was hired to teach photography in 1977 at ICYL. It was a struggle for me as a white person to adapt to an African American environment but I developed friends at ICYL who gave me on the job training. It was also a challenge to lead a program that had a darkroom but no supplies, no cameras and no budget. I spent my first summer finding donations of film, and chemicals. I scrounged up enough equipment to teach a basic program in photography the first summer. Our workshop continued as an after school program. I began to supply photos by my students to the Summit University Free Press to illustrate stories about the community. Photos by my students often appeared on the cover of the Free Press by the summer of my second year at Inner-City Youth League.

Photo paper was our most expensive supply. During the winter of my first year I discovered a source of rolls of 8 ½” wide photo paper made for a machine duplication process available at a recycling center that gave a very graphic image short on gray scale but cheap beyond belief. This became our print paper the second summer and the youth could print all they wanted using this paper. We went crazy shooting film and developing thousands of images. The best image we reprinted on quality photo paper.

Someone suggested we ought to apply to exhibit our activity at the Minnesota State Fair in their education pavilion. I applied with our proposal by the deadline and it was accepted. We set about building a booth from the cardboard of boxes which we taped together and wallpapered with the photos inside and out of the youth, their families and friends from the Summit-University African American community. Once it was done and erected in the education pavilion at the State Fair we brought bundles of the Summit-University Free Press to give away to those attending the fair and organized the students to staff our booth throughout the week long fair.

There were published guidelines that defined how the booths entered by educational groups (mostly 4H chapters) were to be judged. I had read them carefully while applying and followed them well. The first day of the fair I walked through the exhibit area surveying the competition and it was weak. We were the only booth that was manned, one of the criteria for scoring high. We were one of the few that was actually a produced by a team effort, another criteria. Most rural schools competing had simply assigned the creation of their booth to some local volunteer who picked a theme like the 4H group that picked “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” or some similar hoaky theme. Some themes hinted at a presumed superiority of white culture. Often there was little connection with education at all (a prominent criteria).

Later that day when the judges came through one or two at the time the first few were very impressed by our students manning the booth and the community theme we had established. We gave them Free Press newspapers with the students photos on the cover. Then, a group of three judges came through and as two waxed eloquent about our achievement the third judge stopped the others short and asked suddenly, are we supposed to judge this booth?

The reason was obvious. If they were – we would win the blue ribbon hands down. But this was the white dominated Minnesota State Fair and the blue ribbon for the educational booth competition was for bragging rights among rural schools statewide. How could this African American group be allowed to the bragging rights in the educational competition in the lily-white Minnesota State Fair? How could they award this to an African American educational agency from the inner-city? They rushed off to ask the head of the education pavilion about this. He came back with them – took one scowling look into our booth and declared it should not be judged. I flipped. After a long argument he smiled and agreed to allow it to be judged. When the results were announced we didn’t even place. The booth with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs did – however. It seems like some people intend to control art and culture for their won purposes, then and now.

Today artists of color are selected by and exhibited at all major cultural institutions. However, community arts groups that are devoted to a single ethnic group still have great trouble finding funding. Small independent arts groups run by artists devoted to nurturing emerging artists also find difficulty surviving beyond the elbow-grease level of volunteer staffs.

In Chicago this is true. The cultural gatekeepers are in control. There is not one single art scene where local artists can sell their art to the public and build an audience as an emerging artist at the grass-roots level. I have observed artists exhibiting with us for twenty years at the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center. They struggle to make a living from their art in Chicago and often give up in frustration . The first level of audience building opportunity has been destroyed by laws that discourage art and culture at the street and public park level of activity. This is a violation of our First Amendment right to survive and build our audiences in public. It is cultural repression.

Art Fairs rent back public space to artists for a few days at prices that skim the profit off the top building their for-profit ventures off the backs of those artists who attempt to make a living in public. This cultural share-cropping. Most artists succeed only in promoting their presence through this method and eventually give it up as unprofitable. Others battle for a few prestigious gallery positions as captive artists in service to the whims of the wealthy patrons. Still others seek to promote themselves on-line but find that without a public presence their traffic and success is greatly limited.

There is no alternative to a vibrant street arts culture in reaching out to involve new audiences in arts and culture, whether it is an individual artists developing his/her audience or the City as a whole developing a local market for arts and culture. Chicago’s arts community is stunted. Artists’ rights are violated.

Now there is a way you can help change this. Your support is needed for the Art Patch Project. The Art Patch Project is a win-win non-violent community art pathway to change. We are on a slow but determined path toward educating the public – beginning with the youth – by marching the art of many local artists (a growing number) around the legal walls that bind us until these laws crumble. We are accepting designs from artists which we print on cotton patches. We add in the margins the artists title, contact information and our free-speech issue website. These art-patches we give away in all their variety in public. Youth are wearing this art. The public is being introduced to many artists they would never be aware of otherwise. These are the artists they are missing in public. In the long term we are increasing awareness of artists rights to sell art in public.

This Art Patch Program is combined with a methodical plan to sue Chicago over its violations of our First Amendment rights to defeat the laws in Federal Court. These actions have threatened my freedom at the hands of a City and a State that does not want change to occur. The level that the City Fathers are ready to go to keep us from succeeding is a measure of just how important the changes we are making are.

I am willing to risk my freedom for future opportunities for artists. Our collective freedom – the right to create art scenes through which many artists can survive - is worth it. All an artist who wants to help make Chicago more friendly to her/himself needs do is submit a single design to the Art Patch Project. Love freedom. Love Chicago. Love art. Help out. In exchange we will promote you, your art and your website/email address far and wide. How can you lose?