Video of Chicago Critical Mass
on Chicago’s PICASSO Plaza

Printing in the wind and cold of February in Chicago under the Picasso. Photo by Ron Grenko

Positioning a blank patch on a print board made of a magazine page fighting the winter wind. Photo by Ron Grenko

Uncovering the printed art after a pull of the squeegee. Photo by Ron Grenko

The art, the screen with multiple ink colors and the squeegee - arrest him officer! Photo by Ron Grenko

The wind and the cold and the wind - I gave up - to printing later at the Rumble Arts Center exhibit closing. Photo by Ron Grenko

The Rumble Arts Center is at 3413 W North Avenue they told me. Photo by Ron Grenko

At the Rumble Arts Center it is warm. I print and give away art-patches. Photo by C Drew

The CCM map patches are all taken and patrons explore the many other designs of the Art Patch Project. Photo by C Drew

Twenty years of giving in the community arts has won me friends at the ISM Gallery.

I brought art patches by exhibiting artist Robert Wapahi and and a screen to print by exhibiting artist Sharon Skolnick.

“I would,” she said “but I’m not in charge.”

The Art Patch Project gives the art of a growing number of Chicago artists away free to educate the public that artists speech rights are violated by the City of Chicago.

“That’s ok,” I said because I saw a person in charge that I knew. Twenty years of working as a volunteer Executive Director of a community art center provide me with contacts throughout the arts community. In a moment I had permission from the artist and an establishment authority to add a feature to their exhibit – the Art Patch Project. I setup to print “Courage is like a Wild Horse” and gave away many free art patches including all of Robert Wapahi’s art-patches which I had brought preprinted and pinned with our literature.

For three years I gave art away on the street free while documenting my activity on this blog.

I believe in freedom and would like to live as if the First Amendment actually applies to me. Although, I have yet to gain my full speech rights to sell art in public it is still legal to give art away. The 1st class felony charge does not cripple me, yet, from speaking out. Let me give away as much art as I can while I am still allowed to do even this in the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. And if they decide artists who speak out are one step short of the worst criminals in their system, then I will take it as a complement that our voices frighten them that much.

When I tested the misdemeanor peddlers license law by breaking it, they charged me with a 1st class felony for audio-recording my own arrest in public.

Our voices include the voices of all the artists who have contributed designs to the Art Patch Project. My claim is “your voices” are powerful because it is the body of art that artists like yourself and others you know who have submitted art to the Art Patch Project that is catching the public eye. The Art Patch Project is seventy designs and growing. The public eye is on us. Yes we are in the spotlight. The mounting publicity that this outrageous 1st class felony charge is giving our artists’ speech rights cause combined our with the Art Patch Project art-give-aways are creating the community conversation that we need to change Chicago.

To protect myself from the immense power of the State and to change Chicago I am printing and giving away humble art-patches to promote freedom in the USA.

We made our point at the Illinois State Museum on the evening of 2/11/10. I explained our intention to change Chicago and the State of Illinois by challenging the peddlers license and the eavesdropping law that compromise our rights.

It took me three years to find a First Amendment attorney in Mark Weinberg before testing the peddlers license law.

If you are an artist, submit a design and get in on this publicity. If you are among the public who enjoys art – collect our art-patches, share the story of our struggle to make Chicago more friendly to artists and participate in this historic art action.

When Mark Weinberg heard about the eavesdropping charge he volunteered to represent me. Thanks Mark!

Chicago community artists who submitted designs to the Art Patch Project exhibiting at the Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery in the “Pathways and Portals: Art, Nature and Science” exhibit are are Sharon (Okee-Chee) Skolnick and Robert Wapahi. Other artists in this exhibit are Granite Amit, Artn with Donna Cox and Ellen Sandor, AnnMarie Cernoch, Michele Corazzo, Shawn Decker, Indira Johnson, James Mesple, Kelly Quinn, Dusty Seno, Gene Skala, Michelle Stone, Joan Truckenbrod

The Art Patch Project will grow and grow until the City and State give us our full speech rights to sell art in public.

The exhibition runs through Friday, May 7, 2010.

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.

Stop Harassing Artists Patch for volunteers attending court sessions.

Right to audio-record police protest sign

Drop the felony - free Chris Drew protest sign

Ask me for free art sign

The peddlers license is unconstitutional protest sign

Stop Harrassing Artists protest sign

Front of Volunteer T-shirt printed with eight protest signs

Back of Volunteer T-shirt printed with 8 protest signs

Right to sell art protest sign

Drop the felony patch for volunteers attending court proceedings

Self-Portrait - C Drew does Community Service in Chicago

Screen Print Workshop for Artists meets every Sunday afternoon 3-6pm

Volunteers print art on cotton patches for the Art Patch Project

C Drew prints on the Protest T-shirt volunteers will wear while giving out free art

We the People Say NO Studio - protest T-shirt printing

The Art Patch Program is connecting with the public and the Critical Mass Ride on Friday, January 29th to give art away as a protest against the peddlers license and the way the City treats its artists’ rights.

Just for example, not only does the City violate your speech rights boldly daring you to do anything about it - when someone is brave enough to speak up like myself - they try to attack using their “justice system” as a club. They are indicting me on a class one felony, 4-15 years in a state prison, one step short of murder in the gravity of the claimed crime, for selling art for a $1 on State Street, trying to test the peddlers license, a misdemeanor, and audio-taping my own arrest in public. We can’t let them scare us out of our speech rights. What’s more, we deserve the right to protect ourselves from police abuse by having the right to audio and video tape our own arrests whenever we are able to.

Our solution is always the same - it is the art. Apply the art! On January 29th we need volunteers to commit to one hour of giving art away in the Loop in a completely legal action. We are going to perform the”Art Patch Project Art Give Away” (APPAGA, pronounced appa-gaaah!)  from 12 noon to 6pm stressing college campus locations and coming together at the Picasso Plaza at 5-5:30 to meet the Critical Mass Event.

Can you commit to one hour on Friday, January 29th to help change Chicago?

Sincerely,
Chris

Chicago Critical Mass Christmas Art Patch GiveAway!

New post exposure method with basement shop light and string - Photo by C Drew

Set-up of print area with squeegee, inks, patches, duct tape, ready to print. - photo by C Drew

Print area after successful run of art patches. Photo by C Drew

A patch displayed next to the print area of the print platform. Photo by C Drew

Art-Patch printed on a white cotton background. Photo by C Drew

View of My Crime - Is this a Felony? (photo by Ron Grenko)

I apologize to Rosemary Sobol of the Suntimes. I broke a basic rule and flipped on the messenger. Of course she couldn’t interview me - they had me buried so far in the system that even my wife couldn’t even talk to me. Ha-ah…. sorry. I laugh looking back. I hope others can, too. I apologize Rosemary Sobol. I was wrong!

The eavesdropping law I quoted was changed to broaden it in 1994. The ugly part of this overly broad law is that it is used in the State of Illinois to squash dissent and quiet speech. This is the law Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office used to charge animal activist Steve Hindi in 2000. He was found innocent of the charge. It was this eavesdropping law that Elizabeth Dobson, a former assistant state’s attorney from Champaign County used to attempt to silence the organizing activity of Martel Miller and Patrick Thompson in the African American community in that region. They later sued the County in Federal Court. It is this law that the Cook County’s State’s Attorney is using to silence my out spoken voice for artists’ rights. This is and remains a free speech case of interest to the world, in my humble opinion.

I apologize to Rosemary again and thank her for pulling the item off the wire and placing it in a prominent location. I went down to the Loop with the best of intentions in mind - you know - to do my civic duty - to fight the laws that are wrong within the court system, as we are taught. In the separation of powers, the legislature legislates and the courts determine the interpretation of the constitution. We can test a law by breaking it and we can make change …. but the police in Chicago combined with top down interests have worked together to make a way to silence me.

Myself and three other artists who documented my actions tried for two months to get the police to arrest me for selling art downtown so we could test the Chicago peddlers license law. The police hesitated for two months because they knew it would mean a federal court case. With this felony charge they are trying to avoid this test an ruin me financially and stain my credibility.

However, to the world, an artist selling $1 art items becoming a felon for trying to protect himself from police brutality looks just like what it is. A railroad job. The world must wonder, “Where does Obama come from? What is this ridiculous charge?” The idea really is laughable on the world stage.

It’s no laughing matter in Cook County. Illinois could very possibly make a felon out of me. Wakeup. Freedom is not free. I am not free to protect myself from abuse by the police in Chicago without risking becoming a felon. But this fight, this is something I will never apologize for. It is to help you protect yourself some day from abusive police. Or do you think we do not have that problem in Chicago?

Thank you Ms. Sobol for giving us a forum.

Please use this forum to express how you feel about this railroad job if you haven’t already. The comments from this forum will be a part of a future art exhibit with the work from the Art Patch Project someday.

(As soon as I sent an apology to the SunTimes thanking them for this forum they canceled the comment feature so we have moved the forum to this blog. You can e-mail me your comments to be included on this blog - link below - and in a future art exhibit with the Art Patch Project patches. Please send us your comments. Please?)
http://www.c-drew.com/blog/comments-on-suntimes-article-creative-felony/

Sincerely - C Drew

Cuffing of artist protester on State Street - Photo by Ron Grenko

Do not blame the police. They work for leaders, Mayor Daley and those on the City Council who write laws that keep artists off the street. These leaders know we have legal grounds for our claims. They want to stop us from educating the public about the First Amendment case law that speaks to our rights. It will not work. The laws, the cases the City has lost and our experiences on the street are online at c-drew.com/blog and the whole world is watching on YouTube. Blame the leaders who issue the orders - not the cops who follow them.

It is not against the law to video/audio tape officers in public on an enforcement stop. Broadcast media does it all the time. The state does it all the time with video in squad cars. Citizens do it all the time (remember Rodney King!). The police and the Cook County States’s Attorney’s Office are stretching the law. They act as if I slipped into their offices and taped their official conversations without them knowing. Look it up – 720 ILCS 5 14-2 (A)(1)(A)

Their goal was to force me to spend time in Cook County Jail on a felony charge to intimidate me. Our Free Speech Artists’ Movement threatens to change laws that would make Chicago more friendly to artists.

Land of the Free and the Brave – Land of Liberty – live up to your values. Chicago - allow artists to be a part of your street life – Chicago? Find us at Facebook/FreeSAM. Chicago has everything to gain and nothing to lose. We know responsible media will cover our activities responsibly at some point in the future.

Printing this letter is a start!

Sincerely,
Christopher A. Drew
Executive Director
Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center

Link to Suntimes Article:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1918823,peddler-taping-cops-arrest-120309.article

High noon under the clock at Macys on State (photo by Ron Grenko)

What others would call bad luck, is my lucky day. This Friday the 13th I hoped for some good luck in the form of bad luck. I hoped to get busted. My location was under the clock at Randolph and State Street in the vicinity of Macy’s front door.

Art for sale - local Chicago artists - 1 dollar art patches (photo by Ron Grenko)

I went right to work. Unfolding my red poncho, I ducked into it and emerged the “Art-for-Sale Man.” I waved my poncho wings and barked, “Art for sale!” This caught people’s eyes and ears. I continued, “One dozen local artists, Robert Wapahi, Monica Brown, Chris Drew and many more – Art for sale. One dollar…” Who could easily ignore me? I bounced up and down as I chanted or leaned into people to share my images without blocking their forward motions. My twirls and poses played with the traffic for maximum exposure and minimum interference with those walking by. I looked for eye contact.

Buy local Chicago artists work, Monica Brown, Robert Wapahi, Marcellous Lovelace, ... (photo by Ron Grenko)

“You can’t sell – you can give it away for donations but it is prohibited to sell anything downtown here.” the second officer chimed in. I held to my claim that is was my First Amendment right to sell. In a moment two more female officers came over to join our discussion. I pondered how likely it is that four officers, all female, could meet up at once on State Street by chance. They began to grill me.

Display method proves sensitive to the ebb and flow of foot traffic (photo by Ron Grenko)

Nancy moved in to get the conversation and the officer nearest her scowled at her ordering her to back away. Obviously, the extreme nature of my crime called for crowd control or is it that we are discouraged from documenting our police at work? Nancy stepped back. “You are permitted to video public servants while they are on duty in public.” I said loud enough for the officer and Nancy to hear. Nancy continued to record the event. Her friends were shooting photos documenting the actions of the police, as well.

First encounter with the Art-for-Sale-Man (photo by Ron Grenko)

“Thank you.” I returned.

I have the First Amendment right to sell art in public. (photo by Ron Grenko)

The First Amendment case law only allows the City to write a law limiting our speech if the City can cite a “compelling” need of society. When the City has gone to court for a challenge to the peddlers license it cites traffic control as the compelling need. That is never why the laws in Chicago that prevent us from selling our art are written. They are written to keep artists out of commercial districts where real estate and business interests do not want competition and distraction from their presence on the streets around their concerns. Politicians also appreciate these laws because they prevent activists and artists critical of their governance from making a living reaching a wide audience in high traffic areas. Neither of these real reasons hold water in court so traffic is the best argument the City can come up with when they censor their citizens.

Back-up needed - the Art-for-Sale Man - big problem (photo by Ron Grenko)

Another officer explained again that if I had only avoided asking for a dollar but invited donations this would not be happening to me. “Really, you are free to ask for donations but not to set a price on your art.”

Art-for-Sale Man - great BIG problem (photo by Ron Grenko)

“Are you going to continue.” Nancy asked. I nodded with a smile.

Write him a ticket - for peddling in a prohibited district (photo by Ron Grenko)

This same public for the most part passed by with glazed gazes marching with tunnel vision to assorted purposes while I barked out my invitation to break out of their routine and glance at some local artists’ work. The few who did were reassuring to my spirit. Chicago does not have a culture of art on the street anymore after over a decade of prohibition on art sales in the Loop and other viable locations citywide.

A ticket for peddling without a license is 50-200 dollars (photo by Ron Grenko)

Youth are the most likely to stop and look at our art patches. Two ladies who knew me stopped to look. “Aren’t you the artists who screen prints at the Crossroad Fund’s annual fund-raiser and gives his art away?” one of the pair asked. I stopped selling and talked with them for a moment. They each bought an art patch for a dollar.

They told me asking for donations is legal but putting a price on my art is illegal (photo by Ron Grenko)

Two of the officers said they liked the artwork. (photo by Ron Grenko)

The paddy wagon reappeared facing us on State Street between north and south bound traffic parked on the yellow cross-hatched center lane poised to enter the left turn lane to arc smoothly toward the southeast corner of Randolph and State Street. They could turn left in a moment and load me at the corner in an eye-blink. One moment you would see me. You turn around for 30 seconds and look back, I would be cuffed and gone. Beamed-up gone.

I put my ticket away like it was a $100 bill. (photo by Ron Grenko)

Hermann pointed out, there was a uniformed male officer standing on the other side of the crosswalk. The light turned green for him and he remained standing as the public eddied around him to cross toward us. “Move closer to the corner under the clock, “ Hermann urged me. I did. This put me within arms reach of an activated patty wagon.

This is our ticket into Federal Court. It is proof our rights have been violated. (photo by Ron Grenko)

Sometime well after one o’clock the paddy wagon turned at a green light and drove away. The officer across in the crossing at NE corner on Randolph disappeared.

Back to work - sharing art with the public (photo by Ron Grenko)

I told Ron, “I love working next to the puppet bike.” I worked next to it at the Merchandise Mart during Artropolis several years. I worked next to it earlier this year when Oprah did her shows annual awards ceremony in public on Michigan Avenue. I was giving the art away that day and the police still ran me off. Not today. Finally, I am standing my ground. For years the police have run me off of spots or hassled me for selling or even giving art away. Today the running from unjust laws is over.

Guarding the crosswalk across from the Art-for-Sale-Man (photo by Ron Grenko)

The mood was infectious. This is what I mean about an art scene. Multiply this times 3-4 times and 5-10 artists can make an instant tourist attraction based on First Amendment protected activities. Its our right and our duty to make Chicago friendly to artists and to its visitor who are looking to find the character of Chicago. It is our right to be paid for our speech. This is how Shakespeare got started.

Dancing to the blues played by the puppet bike (photo by Ron Grenko)

The puppets tease the money away from the public with laughter and song. Watching the public having fun I remember to always be eager to explain the details of First Amendment case law for those new to it at every opportunity. Whenever the government, Federal, state or city hall, passes a law that limits First Amendment rights (speech rights) there must be a compelling reason, then they must write a narrow law like “no selling 20 feet from a crosswalk or ten feet from a doorway”. Broad laws like “No selling anywhere in the Loop” are prohibited. Finally, if a narrow law is written for a good reason that limits the time, place or manner of speech the government must make available an “ample alternative” - one that is viewed from the speakers perspective as suitable for the speakers use.

Showing and selling in a festive mood bathed in the blues music of the puppet bike. (photo by Ron Grenko)

We were jamming now. Mothers were giving their toddlers dollars to feed the puppets. The puppets were dancing, snatching people’s dollars. Kids came away squealing, little fists pressed to their mouths, giggling. I was dancing and selling at patches. The paddy wagon was gone. We almost felt free.

A glimmer of freedom - dancing the day away (photo by Ron Grenko)