Signs of Change: Pop Up Arts

Tucson, AZ: Signs of change are everywhere. The proliferation of the digital town square, several billion voices roaring on soapboxes. Everyone wanting just a few seconds of your time. Occasionally interrupted by a work of art, a beautiful song, a smiling face. The digital sphere has become essential in engaging the world. Piercing the digital fog has become a radical act.

This fall a few of us got together to paint some simple signs that said “Vote”. We installed them throughout the city amidst the other political signs, with the intention of reminding everyone to participate.

So many people don’t vote, it takes too much time, they forget, they aren’t registered or had their right to vote rescinded. So we made the signs whimsical, colorful. It wasn’t a demand, rather joyfully encouraging people to do something that might make them feel better, maybe even give them agency.

When we went to take the signs down many were missing. We discussed the space in our cultural environment these signs had temporarily occupied. Did they change the landscape? Were they noticed? Did they have an impact? 

We did this as individuals, without any group or institutional support, a tiny voice in an ocean of roaring thunder.

A pop up dissident moment. A sign of change.

Mapping New Circulatory Systems

Weekly Wednesday Community Arts Workshops Continue

 (artists journal)

Over the past several years I’ve been volunteering as as Artist in Residence (AIR) with Veterans Rescue Mission, a mini house village dedicated to getting vets the services to which they are entitled. The site is dedicated to transitional living, with several full time stewards on the acre campus. It’s a fun project, no expectations, the participants drive the process. We had been working on murals, gardens, shade structures and exhibits prior to “COVID 19”.

Throughout the past year colleagues and I have struggled with the most effective ways to adapt our community art making practices amidst this pandemic. We have utilized new platforms, podcasts, Zoom, emails, calls and texts. For a few weeks it was safe to meet in person, that ended quickly and it was right back to Zoom. Recently our weekly sessions added artist presentations, time for journal reflection and a new mural class.

Our earth day session included time for house plants to socialize over Zoom.

We tried various collaborative drawing experiments.

Participants are doing individual projects in our houses and places of work. We are creating things and offering services vital to our community. The general unifying theme seems to revolve around this idea of adaptation- developing systems of support, for our hearts, bodies, minds and souls. There is a strong awareness of the impacts of climate change.

The change to on-line has been awkward for everyone. Community arts practice is often about spontaneity, new ideas emerge from discussions while working together, poetry being read, food  served -  that dynamic buzz of excitement.

As participants described their lives and needs we came up with the idea of art deliveries. The first round of Emergency Art-Aid kits was delivered with contributions of seeds, plant starters, art supplies and tools. We all depend on these systems, networks for production and distribution of goods and services. This idea of transit, of making, then moving objects from one place to another has revealed abundance. There are gardens, seeds, a thrift store, teachers, weavers, builders, neighbors and networks.

As I drove about delivering kits I thought of my voyage as wing akin to connecting the meridians of our city, a network of veins or rivers, a life force being animated. As we engage this system the kinesthetic excitement of collaboration produces an energy wave. We can measure that wave, observe and then re-engage it. This process of adaptation amidst uncertainty and grief is producing innovation.

We have been asking some framing questions.

• How can we use Art-Aid kits to do things  together?
• What do we need to realize our project goals?
• Personal goals?
• How do we raise each other up?
• How do we support one another authentically?
• How can we help each other on location specific projects like murals and mosaics?

Then more broadly:

• How can we intentionally use the arts to lift the creative energy of this place?
• How can we breath life into, to animate our community?
• How does intentional breathing increase circulation?
• Who are we serving?
  

In the weeks and months to come, we will find out. Slowly, as a community of makers and learners we are figuring this out together.

Workshops are every Wed. 4pm. To register, or if you have questions contact me through my website here: www.MichaelBSchwartz.com

No Justice No Peace Poster Series

Black Lives Matter

These posters are from a series done for an AFSC traveling exhibit. They are all free to download and copy, give away, share. These were inspired by the protests in Ferguson, MO, the now historic seven day march entitled, “Journey for Justice: Ferguson to Jefferson City” and continued pattern of killings.

There are more topical posters in the AFSC Poster Series

#SayTheirNames

Trayvon Martin
Tamir Rice
Michael Brown
Eric Garner
Philando Castile
Breonna Taylor
George Floyd

 

Free-Walls: What are they?

Could Free Walls Solve Tucson's Censorship Problem?

Tacoma Graffiti Garages, Tacoma, WA

by Felix Lawrence; USDAC, Pima County Outpost

Free-Walls are areas on public property where people can paint, post or draw 2-dimensional (flat) images & text.  Just as the City of Tucson provides public parking, tennis courts etc. it can also provide areas for people to create public art on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Many cities already have such walls; as you might expect, they are not free of controversy!  This article reviews several such sites. Ironically, one of the most famous Free-Walls was in communist China! 

Tucson Arts Brigade (TAB) is developing a proposal to open a Free-Wall for public art in Tucson; the proposal is currently in the early research stage, any suggestions you have would be appreciated.  We believe that the public is not just the passive audience for public art, we are also participants.  Our experiences with the Public Art Community Design Committee (PACD) have demonstrated that public art in Tucson has serious barriers to public participation; it is elitist.  PACD has censored the political content of our artwork; apparently it believes it needs to protect the people of Tucson from ideas.

 Olympia Free Wall, Olympia, Wa

The rough-draft proposal we have on the drafting board now looks like this:  

The City of Tucson would require artists to sign an agreement; this would release the City from all liability (both from personal injury, and damage to the artwork).

The City would then assign the artist an area to paint, or tell them to paint over the oldest existing artwork (artwork would be tagged with the date the artist received permission to paint).  There are many City-owned walls already built, visible & accessible from the street, so this wouldn’t cost the City anything, if it is willing to abstain from control & enforcement of rules.  Yes, the artwork may be ugly, offensive etc.  but at least it won’t last long.

The artists could, at their own expense, install video cameras to monitor the site; this info & the archives would be public & available via the internet.  Whatever proposal we put forward, inevitably the City will modify it.

The City’s main concern may be cost & liability (it may want them to be zero).  It may also may want to retain control of the content of the artwork; we must resist this as much as possible if that happens.  It is OK to prohibit obscenity, hate speech, etc. but political & religious content must be allowed if a Free-Wall is to be worthy of its name.

Stay updated on this story by visiting: http://www.tucsonartsbrigade.org/

Mural Arts * Community * Inspiration *Hope *Joy!

Dear Friends of the Tucson Arts Brigade,

After 20 years of grassroots organizing, the Tucson Arts Brigade (TAB) has facilitated a vibrant Mural Arts Program for the entire Tucson community - and for that, we thank you. Already images of our eight new murals have become Downtown Tucson icons and the buzz is going viral! With your help, TAB will be able to sustain this momentum and continue to partner with the City of Tucson, local businesses and others to give artists an opportunity to sharp0en their skills, deter graffiti, and get paid! What better way can there be for the Tucson Arts Brigade to support artists in our community?

Even though the City of Tucson Mural Arts Program has been a great success and we have supported the creation of new public art works, we still need your help to keep TAB alive and thriving. Now you can help conserve and grow this citywide outdoor gallery. Preserving these monumental murals is no easy task. It takes time, resources and the sort of long standing commitment Arts Brigade has demonstrated since 1996.

Click Here 2 Donate

Today is your chance to jumpstart the TAB Summer Fundraiser Campaign, so please donate today! Help us prepare for the next wave of mural requests by helping us raise the $50,000 in matching funds needed to keep stable infrastructure support for TAB. This Campaign will sustain our ongoing efforts to hire artists to work in schools, neighborhoods, and community centers.

For the inaugural series of the City of Tucson Mural Arts Program, TAB managed a public art selection process, and produced 8 murals by 10 artists and 20 assistants in six weeks! Funding support was provided by the Tohono O'odham Nation, Visit Tucson and others to make this dream a reality. As the program manager, TAB provided critical technical support, extra materials and administrative guidance that guaranteed our success in downtown Tucson. We worked in partnership with eight businesses that included: Benjamin Supply Company, Rialto Theater, Wig-O-Rama, Café 54, Century Link, John Wesley Miller and others who were involved in the selection of the mural design for their sites. Each mural has become a destination point and the business owners are thrilled with the high level of media attention and overwhelming community celebration of the eight murals.

Now, we are asking you, the friends of the Tucson Arts Brigade, to build on this tremendous momentum and help us vision the next round of murals on utility boxes and walls all over Tucson and beyond. Our new mural motto was inspired by TAB artists: "Get permission. Get paid!"

At TAB, our vision is to curate a city-wide outdoor gallery of professional murals for Tucson. We have grown a team of highly skilled and energized interns who have been assisting with our growth and provided invaluable support by assisting with logistics, organizing mural meetings and assisting with the TAB Arts Education program. This fall we will be presenting more murals, hands on visual arts workshops, public forums, mural films and more. Your donations make it happen.

You help fund it all: the art supplies, the curriculum development, and even the artists. Often TAB workshops are the ONLY visual arts instruction that students receive in the public schools. The waiting list is filled with more than 50 schools, neighborhoods and community centers that are requesting services from TAB.

TAB Summer Fundraiser Campaign Donation Request:

    • $20 will provide art supplies for one student participant.
    • $50 will purchase one gallon of paint for a Tucson mural.
    • $100 will keep help Conserve our growing inventory of murals.
    • $250 supports a TAB Teaching Artist for one afternoon in a Tucson school.
    • $1,800 helps underwrite one mural


Donate to Tucson Arts Brigade
By mail: TAB P.O.Box 545, Tucson AZ 85702
Online: http://bit.ly/YrIrJh
By phone: 520-791-9359

Thank you all for your kind words, encouragement and unyielding support for the last 20 years. With your support, we have made our dream of showcasing world class murals in Downtown Tucson come true. Keep your eyes open for more exciting TAB news coming soon!

With utmost gratitude,


Michael Schwartz
Director Tucson Arts Brigade
www.TucsonArtsBrigade.org • info@TucsonArtsBrigade.org • EIN: 86-0996770
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P.S. - Don't forget to visit our website www.tucsonartsbrigade.org to download the Mural Program Map, join our mailing list, subscribe to the blog, and stay connected for all of the latest and greatest TAB news!

P.S.S. - Tell all of your friends to tag #tucsonartsbrigade whenever they post an image of one of the Downtown Tucson Murals so that we can receive notice and keep our artists connected to and supported by TAB!

Community Arts and Education

The National Education Association has been working with the Howenstine High Magnet School in Tucson , AZ, as part of their Priority SchoolsCampaign. Howenstine is a unique place with a concentration on experiential, hands on learning.  So we were delighted when the NEA came to visit a few months ago to check out our work in creating the Barrio Centro mural with students, neighbors and businesses surrounding the school.  

The Arts Brigade is now in it’s second year of collaborating with the Barrio Centro Neighborhood and Howenstine.  We are already looking forward to our third year as we build new alliances with surrounding neighbors as part of our city-wide effort to Beautify and Unify Tucson.

Over the past four years TAB has developed exciting new arts programs in response to community defined needs of Jobs, Literacy, Environmental Issues and Beautification. In 2009 the Barrio Centro Neighborhood contacted TAB in their efforts to curb tagging and bring together their neighborhood for a fun interactive activity. The video produced by the NEA was a result of our first project together. There are currently plans underway for a series of murals in the area.

To find out more about the Tucson Arts Brigade, or how to request a project, visit our web site or Facebook page.

Community Arts Lab

The Community Arts Lab (CAL) was a unique experiment in community art making that has deeply informed the TAB narrative and practice. CAL was a learning environment, a production facility, a a gathering place, a theater, puppet production studio, gallery, library, office and who could forget “art-supply alley”. This was a place where artists and cultural workers of all ages could come to teach, create art, learn or launch new initiatives. Every day and evening was busy, with phones ringing and schedules packed. It was a dynamic environment that birthed many new initiatives at a time of renewed interest in civic engagement and social change.

There were several ongoing program areas that included workshops for people of all ages and abilities. These initiatives fell under four program areas:

• Youth Community Arts Training Program (YATP)
• Community Arts Training Program
• Popular Education and Labor History
• Women’s Space

Workshop samples included drawing, painting, sewing, paper making, print making, collage, photography and theme based workshops such as “How Would Fredrick Douglas Respond to Big Mountain?”, “Stone Soup” and “Community W.O.R.K.S.”.

From 1998-2004 CAL grew and developed alongside of TAB. Events became larger and more dynamic. CAL had outgrown it’s small studio. The center, maintained by a volunteer collective, simply didn’t have the resources needed to re-open at a new location that was up to code.


In 2004 the decision was made to close CAL, incorporating it’s rebirth into our long range planning. That day may not be far off, and as with all TAB projects, it will be something new, unexpected, exciting and cutting edge.