History of UM-CAC
© 2005 by the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center - All Rights Reserved |
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ABOUT US Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center (UM-CAC) is a non-profit agency producing an annual exhibit of artwork on T-shirts and art exhibits on-line year round. We teach artists how to print their graphic art on t-shirts. We bring together artists from around Chicagoland showcasing Chicago's cultural diversity. We want to sell art to support community art activity. We campaign for and promote grass-roots artists on TV (13 show cable series) (cable.htm) and through our T-shirt Art Flyer Exhibits. We are part of the first rung in a community-arts ladder to success, a piece of Chicago's community arts infrastructure. Our exhibits are easily accessible to all artists. We are inclusive - not exclusive. HISTORY Incorporated in 1987, we built a community art gallery in factory space on North Clark Street, where the "Art of the T-shirt" began. We moved to the American Indian Center in the winter of 1990. Here the "Art of the T-shirt" (list of exhibits) grew to show Chicago artists' work in many community locations. These exhibits in public libraries span a decade. Our annual "T-shirt Art Harvest Festival Exhibit" continues (16th year). We built the Screen Print Workshop for Artists in 1992. In 1996 we began our July-September cable TV series. Many talented neighborhood youth have rubbed elbows with professional artists at UM-CAC. Presently, we seek support to build a computer graphics lab to teach creative computer skills and as a resource to Chicago's visual artists. T-SHIRT ART & COMMUNITY ART The T-shirt is a popular, personal forum tailored to community art. T-shirts are worn by nearly everyone. Over 40,000 people viewed our exhibits annually in public libraries for over a decade. The "Art of the T-shirt" presently reaches out with its " T-shirt Art Harvest Festival" show in late September and through exhibits of artwork from its " Screen Print Workshop for Artists". We encourage all Chicagoland artists to show art on t-shirts. To expand our ability to bring art to a wider audience and empower artists to do this, we built a Screen Print Workshop for Artists. We show artists how to print their graphic art. After producing art for years, our screen-print workshop needs only administrative staffing to take our next step - building a wholesale business selling this art. UM-CAC is much more than just a t-shirt business. The business grows out of our grass-roots art activity. Even without a paid staff - we are a leading voice for struggling artists and small community based non-profit arts groups in Chicago. For ten years on our cable TV series, we have raised issues common to all emerging visual artists. Our website has posted, since 1998, the Chicago Cultural Plan produced by Mayor Harold Washington's administration. We have promoted its brand of cultural democracy as the way to improve our climate for culture in Chicago. Our "" hands out art on small flyers promoting artists, art and issues alive in Chicago today. ART-ACT, our anti-racist, on-going, online, international art contest, is six years into building a mountain of visual evidence in support of diversity. Art has a role to play in society. Our art actions create thoughtful interactions. FUTURE PLANS Our next step, presently underway, is to work with the American Indian Center to build a Computer Graphics Workshop. This will serve Chicago's artists, the Native American community, and the public. UM-CAC's contribution to the computer graphics will fit our screen print workshops needs. We will teach practical graphic software and digital photography as an art. The American Indian Center will share the use of this workshop for creating and editing film and video in a fully digital, community-visual-arts workshop. This is critical in producing and promoting our artists' work and our art activities. It is as critical to Chicago's Native community to have the voice that this creative digital Media Workshop will provide. SUPPORT Past support for our art activities has come from Chicago Office of Fine Art, Presbytery of Chicago, Crossroads Fund, Chicago American Indian Center, our Board of Directors, participating artists, the viewing public and soon - we hope - you. This year we have no government funding. You, the public are our best supporters. To learn how you can help visit our Support Page. WHERE WE ARE NOW The "Art of the T-shirt" continues its exhibitions from 1989 to the present. Our Screen Print Workshop for Artists continues since 1992 to the present. We are producing our another season of our cable TV program which we began in 1995. ART-ACT began in 1999. Our finances and inventory are computerized (see our Policies and Procedures Manual). We continue desire to put together the pieces needed to realize our original goal - a self-supporting community art center thriving on the marketable value of art products produced by community artists and talented inner-city youth. Presently we are in a battle with the City of Chicago over the basic right of artists to sell their art in public. Chicago is attempting to silence our voices by charging our Executive Director, Chris Drew with a class 1 felony for audio-recording his arrest while selling art for $1 in a attempt to test the misdemeanor peddlers license law. Artists in Chicago have less rights to sell art in public than artists in Moscow Russia have and yet we have a First Amendment that is supposed to protect this right. We created the Art Patch Project to educate the public about artists rights to sell art in public over time by collecting art from supportive artists for cloth patches which we print and give away to the public with links to the artist and our educational information. We intend to use the art and our legal fights to change our city, our state and our nation to make us a freer more creative people. |
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