C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

Peace Activists Discuss War and Politics

The World Can’t Wait coalition and other peace activists - discuss peace, anti-war strategy and politics in a picnic as I print two patch designs in sympathy with this cause.

Knowledgeable speakers provided background on the war. Poets read their work against the war. Then the grassy stage was opened to any of the attending activists to speak. This was a welcome opportunity. I spoke about my screen printing peace patches on the street and how free speech is diminished in Chicago by municipal codes that lump those selling speech with peddlers of candles and incense. Chicago requires a license for citizens to sell speech and a biennial fee of $165 and still bans speech sales in vast portions of Chicago with emphasis on banning speech from the Loop. I claimed we needed to change Chicago, to open it up to artists and free thinkers by challenging the diminishing of free speech in the Loop and Chicago by the Daley administration’s municipal regulations.

Watching from a short distance were four Chicago policemen and two Park District security officers. They stood around joking with each other for 3-4 hours at the public’s expense. Of course we know their goal is to establish a climate of intimidation about anti-war activities. Do you think they might also have used surveillance technology to tape the speakers, as well?
This sort of surveillance of the peace movement does deter the average citizen from participating by adding the fear of association with monitored individuals and organizations. This is in violation of our first amendment rights to assembly and free speech. We are monitored without the slightest probable cause. Public monies are wasted on this political intimidation.

It was great to wake up in the morning after this event to see the latest flowers in my garden. Love life. Help fight for freedom here in Chicago. Free Chicago’s artists.

FREE CHICAGO
The mayor - who has been associated with mob-connected businessmen, who looked the other way and allowed Jon Burge to torture innocent men as a method to solve high profile murder cases, who refuses to be deposed to testify on his role in the Burge torture scandal, who continues to set up an environment for police abuse by shielding the force’s bad apples - now has the power to ignore justice as he has before. What has changed?

The City Council voted to continue a climate in the City of Chicago where out-of-control policemen are free to violate the public at will. Chicago is presently being judged internationally for torturing innocent men wholesale under Burge. Daley was State’s Attorney and informed of torture committed by Burge. Daley was able at his whim to bring Burge to justice and he did not lift a finger. Later, when the scandal emerged at a legal defense fund-raiser for Burge, Daley was photographed grinning for the camera with his arm around Burge. Why trust oversight of the Police Department to a man who allowed torture to continue and defended the torturer? If the new head of OPS replaces the Police Commander who previously reported to Daley then the only thing that has changed in the chain of command is the sex of the reporter. Facts: Daley appoints the head of OPS and he decides the course of action. Others advise him but Daley rules. He is in court now to hide the names of the worst police from you, the public.

Let’s fight for freedom and democracy at home. Let’s free the responsible police from the corruption of the bad apples Daley is hiding from us. We can free Chicago by establishing a truly independent Citizen’s Review Board to oversee police misconduct.
The City Council should vote 50 to zero to put this in place. Chicago’s police have been denying life-liberty and justice to too many for too long. They are an international embarrassment to everyone. Until we win the fight against the torturing of citizens in Chicago - we will never convince Washington to stop torturing non-citizens world-wide.

The Race

Check out this shot!

I am not sure. Should I call it “Speed Kills” or “The Race.”

What do you think?

For those who are unaware, Richard Daley was State’s Attorney when the news began to surface that John Burge and his fellow Chicago Police officers were using a broad variety of torture techniques to solve high profile murder cases in order to force confessions from innocent men in Chicago. They preyed on African American men who had no money and little community support. This left the real killers loose and condemned many innocent men to Death Row. When the news reached Daley he should have investigated it and put a stop to it by indicting John Burge. Daley buried the news and did nothing allowing the torture to continue.

(The deep thing about this print is I get all these colors with just one pull of the squeegee. In this technique the artist must control and understand how the ink mixes. I - personally - like to have a little spill of yellow ink in the corner of my screen to snatch a bit of on a tiny tear of post-card stock to dab a slap of yellow between two colors that are not mixing to my taste.)

This story is long and implicates many people still in power in Chicago today. It is still unfolding. It is an international issue and a huge disgrace to Chicago and the United States of America. Burge learned to torture people in Viet Nam as a soldier then brought his techniques home to Chicago where his methods of solving murder cases found support in some political corners. This history means that we will need to be alert to a future generation of torturers loosed among us if we do not as a society take a stand against torture in the ranks of our police and our troops. We should very aware that torture at home starts with tolerating torture of the people our armed forces were sent to liberate who then come home to become police officers. All the good work of responsible officers is lost when renegades like this are defended beyond all reasonable doubt. We must demand answers from our officials. Daley must testify!

On July 16th I printed this patch while describing how to screen print on Chicago cable access Channel 21 on our Monday night series entitled “Printing T-shirt Art” airing from 6:30-7:00 through the months of July, August and September.

Woven into explanations of screen-printing I talked about the conflict between 1st Amendment case law and our Chicago municipal code licensing speech under the category of itinerant merchant. Essentially, Daley took away significant 1st amendment rights from artists and other citizens in 1994 when municipal code changes supported by him lumped artists and others selling speech in with peddlers and itinerant merchants requiring us (citizens) to have a peddler’s license to sell speech in Chicago. Along with that significant change peddlers were banned from selling anywhere close to the Loop, within 1000 feet of any sports stadium and in many other parts of the city.

Some Aldermen later followed Daley’s lead and banned peddlers from selling in significant portions of their ward and one Alderman banned peddlers from his ward completely. Did anybody complain that this banned speech as well? Did the press ignore the issue of free speech when it came to artists’ rights? These are questions to be answered - anyone who signs-in can comment.
You can be sure the media never ignores free speech rights when its their speech rights that are infringed upon. It is in fact the rights newspapers enjoy to be able to sell their speech on the streets of the city that is the model for what our rights as artists and citizens should be. Where ever the news is sold - artists should be able to sell art.
Did they think that we could ignore this rape of our rights forever and still go on bragging about our freedoms around the world? Look for a copy of a previous Chicago Police Department “Special Order” from 1979 explaining our rights as they were then, and should be today, to be posted on this blog very soon.

family peace patch

My new used bike has no kick stand. But it has fenders to make riding in the rain easy. It has a basket for my bag. It is a pink girl’s bike and only 24″ so thieves will have to think twice about a bike whose tires don’t even fit an adult bike.  Unless they are going to sell to little girls - ha-ha. I love it.

Back home with my bike my garden has more surprises.

Here we have a flower and its twin bulb about to bloom. I like the red colors in the corn, the fence and the flower bu

4

Return of the Cabbage white butterfly.

With the squeegee on my knee I print design 44 at my spot between the el and the fast food restuarant door.

This onion flower from a leftover kitchen onion I planted is feeding two insects I can see only now long after photographing it.

The End ( expect more text soon)

This untitled photograph was shot 04/26/06 somewhere in Chicago. Help me name it and if I select your name I will credit you and award you a free pack of patches (6).
Today, 7/1/07, I am without my Free Speech rights according to Municipal Code.  I must go down to the Business Affairs office on the 8th floor of the City Hall every month to comply by filing a form to gain back my speech rights from the City that are granted me under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. I am angered by this process every time this illegal effort is demanded of me. Where are the artists who understand their rights and are willing to stand up for them? Where are the patriots who understand artists’ speech rights are their speech rights? Where are citizens willing to support a movement to increase space for the arts and expression in Chicago?