ART-ACT Notes 34 - Newsletter of the Anti-Racist T-shirt Art Contest Tour

ART-ACT Notes 34 © 9/5/2002 by the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center - All
Rights Reserved

At our annual T-shirt Art Harvest Festival on September 28 & 29,
we will announce the winner of ART-ACT II. We will post
the winning name and notify them of their winnings and write the
check as soon as we are sure where to mail it.

ARTISTS - Due to a computer error on my part I lost the last two months of
e-mail and would greatly appreciate it if you could re-send letters you sent
me since 7/11/02 - especially if they are about ART-ACT business.

CONTENTS

1) Thank You to the Artists

2) JUDGES COMMENTS - Judging of ART-ACT completed.

3) LATEST ACTIONS - Exhibit Without Walls Continued.

4) CONTEST POLICY
Artist Questions Black & White vs Color categories for contest.
The Editor's Response

5.) ARTISTS - Sell Your Art

********** ART-ACT NOTES **********

1) THANK YOU TO SUBMITTING ARTISTS

Thanks again for building a response to hatred. More and more people will
recognize that this is a valid forum. We are building this so you and your
work can receive attention from an international audience.

Because we are a group of community artists struggling for a voice, we value
your expressions. We promise to post your expressions as long as you
want us to. We promise to unpost your art work at your request. Please
keep us informed of e-mail or street address changes.

We will continue to post your statements and links to your other art on the
Internet as you inform us. We are here to serve artists.

2) JUDGING ART-ACT II IS OVER - Read the Results

A panel of eight community artists judged ART-ACT II on Saturday, August 17,
2002.

The results are posted at

http://www.art-teez.org/artact2/judging02.htm

The push to get this ART-ACT's Judges' Comments online allowed us to
go back and post the comments of Judges from ART-ACT I

http://www.art-teez.org/artact2/judges00.htm

It is a very interesting concept to bring together a local council of
community artists to judge and administer a contest of art with a social
import from an international group of artists. The possibility of building
a real community online around this activity that is centered in a physical
community is heavy with collaborative potential. We are creating new
social forums and forms of interaction that can change our world.

LATEST ACTIONS - Exhibit Without Walls

The links below are to reports from the field when I conducted the Exhibit
Without Walls. This will be a regular feature reporting back to you stories
of your art at work.

http://www.art-teez.org/no-walls/evanston_ethnic_art_festival.htm

http://www.art-teez.org/no-walls/clinton_visit.htm

The art presently in "ART-ACT Exhibit Without Walls" can be seen at

http://www.art-teez.org/no_walls.htm

Your many pens - are stronger than the swords! Thank You!

3. WEB SITE DEVELOPMENTS

Why so long without an ART-ACT Notes? Because this is a volunteer effort
and a project within other projects. This grass-roots arts agency is staffed
by volunteers. We need you to have patience as we build toward all our goals.

Most recently we moved our website from RCN servers to a small company run
by techie owner-operators. We are getting much more space, many more free options
and a fifth of the annual cost. RCN is played loose with our needs in Chicago by
refusing to pay the non-profit that gives us access to creating cable TV programming
operating support they owed the non-profit and now refuses to serve the entire city.
Our solution is saving us money.

Webmanixhosting.com, our new host, will allow us to invent subsites
that can be managed by volunteer editors who can upload pages and manage their
subsite sections themselves from their home. This is a huge opportunity to consider new
directions for our website. A dedicated volunteer could build a strong site section where
articles on racism and diversity could be posted with permission of the authors and allow
us to supplement our sites art with articles and essays of topical interest. I have never had
time to do this well. Anyone excited by this idea?

Any other volunteers with ideas for a site section?

4) CONTEST POLICY
Artist Questions Black & White vs Color categories for contest.

Sunday, September 01, 2002 2:09 AM
mokile@barak-online.net

I have a question
why under my name there is a "All copyrights for the art on this page are owned
by the artist. This color image does not fit the rules of our contest (black & white
line copy only) and is provided for exhibit purposes only. ".
Thank you.

Monica Moscovich

The Editor's Response
Dear Monica Moscovich,

See this page for the full text of our present rules.

http://www.art-teez.org/art-act1.htm

A Summary
THEME: Create with black markers (or pen & ink) on white paper an
anti-racist image, a vision that explains the history or cause(s) of racism, which
illustrates a cure or solution, or which envisions a new community of diversity and
harmony. Click here to discuss, question, or clarify our theme to help others who
might enter this T-shirt art contest. Artists who only wish to exhibit can show their
full color art that fits our theme by submitting a GIF or JPG file under 100Kb.

Above is a summary of our stated theme. It is true that you and others have unofficially
challenged this theme with full color art submissions and I have reacted without a clear
precedence on images including some and not others. Note, I have entered a full color
image - but for exhibit only. You can make a change by challenging our judges to
review and rewrite our theme to be more explicit and to provide me better guidelines
in handling the images sent by those who wish me to play fast and loose with this present
theme by including their color works as if they were really black & white. I want to
encourage everyone to speakout as they are able. One way those who wish to help
might consider is to help us raise funds to give away prizes in more than one category.
Our entire Screen Print Workshop for artists is based upon black and white art work
and will continue to be so long as we are an all volunteer arts group. The rules for
this contest have evolved from that workshop.

I invite you to lodge a protest with our Board of Judges on this subject if you wish and
promise we will discuss it and respond and will post the results on our site. Our exhibit
policies are always open for your input.

Thank you for taking the time to be concerned about ART-ACT.

Chris Drew

ARTISTS - Sell Your Art
Go to http://www.art-teez.org/license.htm to printout, fill out and send to
us a signed license agreement to market your art on T-shirts. You
receive $2.00 per t-shirt sold. We will be promoting the art we have
licensed with increasing intensity in the coming months and years.

; >(3)

Chris Drew
umcac@art-teez.org
Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center
http://www.art-teez.org We dress Chicago and the
Internet in t-shirt art. Come get some! 773/561-7676