Contents

1)   A LETTER FROM THE FIELD 
2)   VOLUNTEER FUN
3)   BACKGROUND
4)   ARTISTS - Sell Your Art


LETTER FROM THE FIELD (first of several from the "Taste")

The Ravenswood train that carries me toward the loop is not very populated. The many open seats invite me to perform the T-shirt Art Flyer Exhibit. This urge is without a plan. Dealing to open seats, I cross from car to car. Three cars deep into this process, I find myself face to face with an artist, Chris Martin, who attends the Screen Print Workshop for Artists. Wow!

We kick it. At the next stop his partner reminds him to exit. "Later man", I holler. In a few seconds I realize he got away without me passing him a small handful of art flyers to cast around. Ready to continue, I find this is the last car on the train. I relax and ride.

Downtown, as I exit the air-conditioned train, the 100-degree, asphalt-heated wind beads instant sweat about my hat brim. Damn it’s hot! This is Friday, June 24th, the opening day of the Taste of Chicago. The sidewalk on Jackson Drive after State Street is elbow-to-elbow with people. The intersection of Michigan and Jackson reflects the heat of the day like a large pizza oven. Mentally, I prepare myself to show the T-shirt Art Flyers to my first big crowd that is not at an arts fair, a friendly gathering or a college campus. People are sweaty and wriggling past each other. There is no way to pass flyers here.

Across the street, traffic barriers block Jackson. Behind this stand yellow-and-orange columns supporting a blue sign which proclaims in yellow headlines the - 25th Annual Taste of Chicago. Beyond the barriers people spread out onto Jackson Drive. Greeting the people, freelancers and corporate employees pass out full color brochures and full page fliers. A palm reader hands out business cards. Panhandlers, shaking empty coffee cups, are well represented. Passing paper at the "Taste" is not a new idea. No sooer than I pick my passing spot than I hear one lady say to her friend as she approaches "Get ready to walk the gauntlet." I offer her my first Exhibit flyer of the show. She waves me off. The person behind her accepts it. My spot is about twenty yards past the corner with my back against the concrete bridge ledge. The others passing out literature are closer to the corner. By me the crowd entering has spread out into the open street. Those leaving are funneling toward the sidewalk were I am. They pass close by me. "Art?" I ask, with Flyer Art offered.

There is room to maneuver here. The challenge is making eye contact with the people leaving the Taste. They are my easy targets. My bag is resting on the walk by the bridge ledge overlooking the Arts Institute. I keep close to it. Mostly I pass T-shirt Art Flyers to those leaving. When there is a gap in those leaving, I check those entering to see if I can reach any of them.

Passing out the Flyer Art Exhibit is easy with so many people. "This is our crowd," I think as Flyers fly out of my hand. It is a crowd full of color and diversity. It is receptive to ART-ACT, the Anti-Racist T-shirt Art Contest Tour, that contributes over half of the art presently in the T-shirt Art Flyer Exhibit. The other images in the exhibit are by artists from our Screen Print Workshop for Artists. They blend in with the ART-ACT art because ART-ACT grew out of the Workshop. We needed to prime ART-ACT with images from our "Workshop" for over a year when it first started before a steady stream of art began arriving by e-mail. ART-ACT is now six years old. The crowd has me pumped. I do my best to make the art available to all. "Art?...art?...aaarrT?"

"Hey - I’m Indian!" the man with a Spanish accent snaps with anger. "What you got against Indians?" he wants to know pointing at my chest.

"Uh, what - oh- uh!" My mind is so into passing I struggle to focus. How to explain the t-shirt I am wearing stumps me at first. "Aah, I’m not against Indians. I’m against Indians being used as mascots. Our art center is located at the American Indian Center."

"Oh..." he says looking at it again skeptically for a moment before rejoining the crowd. The t-shirt I wear says in headline type - "No Honor." Below that is an image of "Chief Illiniwek", a fictitious stereotype of a Native American used as a mascot by the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana. Elders from tribes across the continent have signed statements that this practice is racist and degrading. Yet defenders dare to claim it is an honor. So they say, but to those they claim to honor - it is no honor. It is a University formally teaching racism to its students disguised as fun. These "No Honor" t-shirts sell well in the Native community at the American Indian Center’s monthly flea market held every 2nd Saturday. I had forgotten I wore my "No Honor" t-shirt until caught off-guard by this man's question.

This is art at work forcing thought, I realize. I hand out a flyer to a person who passes it to her friend for her opinion of the image. A "white man" walking in the crowd with several of his friends calls out, "I like the Chief." This lets me know University of Illinois supporters, who have been trained by generation after generation of Illiniwek indoctrination, are in the crowd. The art brings out what is hidden. This process facilitates understanding ourselves. That is the purpose of the T-shirt Art Flyer Exhibit. If people are reacting to my t-shirt to my face - what is happening later when people compare T-shirt Art Flyer images passed to them? These small, easily-stashed flyers spill out of peoples’ pockets and seek the recesses of purses to re-surface at unexpected moments and inspire unanticipated thoughts and conversations. Our website ties together all our actions offering the curious answers as to who we are. The T-shirt Art Flyer Exhibit can get word-of-mouth by our Flyer Exhibit actions alone.

The flyers move steadily. "What could we do with a small crew of four volunteers?" I imagine. "We could turn this Taste out!" I exclaim to myself out loud. Oops. Silently my thoughts continue, "We could gain citywide attention by covering one night at one intersection with four dedicated volunteers. Too late now, maybe next year!" My attention returns to passing the exhibit.

Something in his determined gate clued me. "Wa-Why you don’t like Hispanic?" he stammered. "I am Hispanic!" He waves the art of Carlos Jimenez entitled "Latino." It has the "not" symbol over the word Hispanic. Underneath this is a text explanation that says Hispanic as a label does not express the artist’s Native or African roots. The art offers "Latino" as a label that is a larger umbrella covering more cultures and people under its shadow.

I back peddle at first then recover. "Its art, see - that is the artist’s name." I point it out on the flyer. "All he is saying is Latino is a better label than Hispanic. Are you Latino?"

"Yeah, ok....OK, you got me!" he exclaims with a grin.

"Hey, enjoy your night." I shout after him as he dashes back to the people he left. What will he tell them? This man will not forget his art experience for some time. A smile works its way across my face.

"I like the Chief" someone calls at me.

Yup, it is some white person registering their opinion again. This happens about seven times and always they say exactly the same phrase. "Is this an organized group?" I wonder.

Other voices call out to me in support. "Right on man"

"You tell it brother"

"Dude, I’m with you all the way." These voices of are more spirited but, unfortunately, too few in number - yet.

They are happy to have their view represented at this event. The "I like the Chief" undercover stereotype lovers are very polite. They are confident their tradition, begun when segregation was legal and Native Studies Departments did not exist, will prevail forever. They are in power. They do not feel threatened. I wonder how they could all repeat the same sentence, "I like the Chief." Perhaps attendees to University sports events have become so accustomed to being confronted by anti-chief protestors that they have found solace in this matra. Is it an easy phrase that fits the group-think mentality of sports fans. For more information about this topic visit http://www.aimovement.org/ncrsm/ to read what the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and the Media has to say.

In several hours I have given out about 500 flyers. For one person, alone, I decide this is enough. I pick up the discards, cleaning up from the corner of Michigan Avenue to the top of the bridge. I find about 50-60 flyers of ours tossed down. This is a very good margin. Eight out of ten people are keeping our art. I noticed people frequently show and comment to others they come with about the art flyers. We do well compared to the commercial advertisers passing out literature.

Near the top of the bridge I meet up with a lady with t-shirts all on the topic of marijuana. She has them draped over the concrete ledge of the bridge. She perches herself alongside her twenty foot long display with a half disguised beer - ready to party the night away. I do not see her make a sale in the few minutes I watch but the potential seems great. Would it work for us? What if we were to sell and pass out our flyers? "Hummm!"

Across from the reefer T’s, a drum team, beating the bottoms of 5 gallon plastic paint pails, has a hat in the street. This experience has me thinking. We need to add more of the Workshop art to the flyers exhibit. For general events we need to train volunteers in how to handle mis-interpretations of our art. We need volunteers to be able to explain the T-shirt Art Flyer Exhibit. Today our T-shirt Art Flyer Exhibit met the general public and it was well received. I can hardly wait for next Friday when I will wear my anti-Bush, "A Liar and a Thief," t-shirt.

VOLUNTEER FUN
Workshop artists are needed to promote their art on our cable TV program on 
Thursday evenings (prime time) beginning July 7th at 6:30 on Channel 21. We 
will do 13 shows.

Every Wednesday evening meet at the American Indian Center in our Screen Print 
Workshop to inventory t-shirts and other desperately need tasks around the workshop. 

Help build and maintain the Screen Print Workshop every 4th Saturday, 7/23/05, 
of the month. 

Co-op policy meeting the last 20 minutes for workshop time every Sunday we meet


BACKGROUND

We are building our organization slowly to be able to sell art 
on t-shirts to help fund an inner-city arts agency that hosts 
art classes for youth and other community residents. We have 
dedicated ourselves to this task without pay for 15 years because 
we know it is needed and that government and civic leaders have 
ignored our needs. We ask artists to respect this mission. 

ARTISTS - Sell Your Art
 
You receive $2.00 per t-shirt sold retail. We will be promoting 
the art we have licensed with increasing intensity in the coming 
months and years. Who is "we". We is any of you(pl.) who help.

Our license agreement is "artist friendly" in that is pays an above 
industry standard and is not an exclusive contract. The artist is free 
to market their designs anywhere else including on their own website. 
We want to link your pages on our site to your site. How can you 
participate? Come to our Screen Print Workshop for Artists on Sundays 
from 3-6pm and learn how to print your art. Already know how to screen 
print? Come and show us your work. Your pens can change our world!

Visit our Screen Print Workshop for Artists to find out more.

?-()

C. Drew
umcac@art-teez.org
http://www.art-teez.org
We dress Chicago and the Internet in Progressive T-shirt Art