Screen Print Workshop
for T-shirt Art HISTORY

History - Goals: Screen Print Workshop for Artists
The Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center began in the minds of artists working at Inner City Youth League in the late 70's. When Reagan took office, I and many other artists around the country lost their paid positions as community based artists teaching classes to youth at risk. An oil painter I worked with, Alvin Carter, talked about the need to create an art center that could survive by marketing the art of local artists to fund the art activities. He enlisted me to help build that art center. We both learned how to screen print and for two years tried to found such an agency in the early 80's. It did not take off.

In 1987, in Chicago, at the opening of a summer mural project I led at the Peoples Church, I reintroduced this concept for an art center. Everyone clapped. Then, they all went home and left me to clean-up after the reception, alone. I connected with an artist named Laillah Abdullah at the Organization of the NorthEast that fall. Several months later we incorporated the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center.

The original concept called for the business activities to grow out of the arts programming. "Let the art lead the way", Alvin Carter had said many times. Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center established itself by producing "Art of the T-shirt" exhibits in community libraries for a decade (1989-1998). In 1992 we began to build a Screen Print Workshop for Artists exhibiting in the "Art of the T-shirt" so they could print graphic images to supplement their hand painted designs. In 1997 we posted our first website. We announced ART-ACT's first contest in 1999. These program areas maintained at low ebb by volunteers are the foundation for our future marketing of art on the Internet. Community art must survive.

The Presbytery of Chicago granted us small start-up funds for materials and we found many creative ways to cut corners to build our Screen Print Workshop for Artists. We used this workshop to introduce over 70 artists to screen printing. Also, by printing small runs of t-shirts for local non-profit agencies, we earn just enough income to maintain the workshop and build our agency. All the printing is done by volunteer artists. Our goal is to turn this into a training program for young artists once agency staff funding can be found.

Our intention was always to produce art from the heart, community art, that could be marketed. Our Screen Print Workshop for Artists has always, as demanded by our lack of funding, focused on graphic designs with shades of gray suggested though line and dot effects. One reason for this is that we are able to skip an expensive darkroom step by using a plain paper copy made transparent with corn oil to expose our photo sensitive screens.

This art is easy to print. It stresses the artist's drawing skills and simple printing skills, rather than high tech printing skills and money. The designs are easy to post on our website with the no chance of color distortion due to varying computer monitor capabilities. This technique makes it possible to award license contracts to deserving artists and to jump start our Internet business selling t-shirts with community art.

The task of building a viable non-profit business and a for profit business without capital and with only a volunteer force proved understandably difficult. After ten years we are only at the brink of starting our marketing effort. Considering everything, that is very good news. It is a major achievement of twelve years of effort to have come this far - to the beginning.

This year we have again postponed the library exhibits of the "Art of the T-shirt" to find the time to continue building our website, ART-ACT II, and focus on refining our Peachtree Accounting software to track the inventory of the t-shirt designs we have for sale.

My urge is to laugh loud and hard at the luck of my ignorance. If I had ever known it would be this difficult - I wonder - would I have still made that speech at the mural opening. There are so many other stories of sacrifice and many volunteers who have shared the work over the years to bring us to this beginning. I hope you will join us by visiting our Support Page or our Help Us Page and find a way you can add to the accumulating effort that is the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center.

AND view art by our founders and watch as we add more and more pages for the artists who have contributed to our existence.

The art you see on this portion of the site is a small portion of over 360 designs by artists who have come though our screen print workshop over the past seven years. Our posted work will grow slowing and steadily. Please have patience. Remember, we have no paid staff and must do anything else but art to survive. The great news is - we will survive and grow further with your help. Enjoy!

All rights reserved © 2001 Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center (UM-CAC). E-mail UM-CAC at umcac@art-teez.org Ph.773/561-7676