Chris Drew is a phenomenal artist and teacher. Wise and loving heart...and a humble spirit full of integrity and humanity. I've said it before (and I will to my last breath), but he is a gentle blend of Studs Terkel, Howard Zinn and the coolest art teacher you've ever had. He has inspired countless Chicago artists, along with plain, regular every day people, to become skilled at the arts of screenprinting and photography and when you think of the definition of the term an "artist's artist", his face should be among the ones next to the definition. Chris has been spearheading the fight for Chicago artists to have the right to sell their art in public spaces and was recently snared by the Chicago Police department for attempting to sell screenprinted patches of artwork for $1. Illinois is trying to pin an eavesdropping felony on him for having had a tape recorder recording in his pocket at the time of his arrest. Watching the events unfold with his case has been unbelievable. If you're an artist, a lover of art or an activist and care deeply about social justice issues and the rights of artists to have power over how to sell their own art, you owe it yourself to become aware of Chris' case and educate yourself about the other cases that connect to the insanity he's going through. His case spotlights not only the issue we have as artists to sell our art on our own terms, but also the rights we have in this new era of tech gadgets, personal privacy and safety. Here's a link to his personal blog and the empowering art site he runs in connection with his Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center screenprint workshop in the American Indian Center in Chicago: http://www.c-drew.com/blog/ , http://www.art-teez.org/
It's hard to forget that we're standing in the shadow of the 20th anniversary of Rodney King's brutal beating that was captured on video by a bystander across the street. A lot of us out here in San Francisco and the Bay Area are still struggling to make sense of the slap on the wrist a cop recently received for shooting, and killing, Oscar Grant 2 years ago -- a young Black man who was shot point-blank in the back after already being subdued and lying on his stomach on the ground. If it hadn't have been for the people who had their cellphone cameras out that day, it might have passed under the public's radar and been ignored. But the cameras and recorders were on. And the truth of the horror was captured for all to see by many different hands and eyes.
Here is a link to one of the original news stories about Oscar Grant
with disturbing footage of his murder and the lack of response
immediately afterward by the police -- especially the murderer who shot him.
immediately afterward by the police -- especially the murderer who shot him.
There's another young Black man named Chad Holley who was also violently abused by the Houston police last year after he peacefully surrendered and laid down on the ground with his hands in the air, even before being instructed to do so. Thankfully, a bystander was brave enough to record what happened as the cops swarmed around him and unleashed a disgusting display of thug violence.
Here's the link to the video of Chad Holley's brutal beating last year
that was only recently released to the public:
that was only recently released to the public:
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