Weekly protest poster

Thanks justseeds.

Twenty Three Twenty Updated

Back in November I posted about a traveling show I was in called 20/3/20. The show consisted of 20 artists who were invited to make a ring in 3 weeks (20 artists/ 3 weeks/ 20 rings). The first one-night show was in Chicago at a private loft, which traveled to Athens, GA and was exhibited at the Lamar Dodd School of Art during University of Georgia's Cartona Study Abroad program reunion. After Athens, the show traveled to Greenville, North Carolina and was exhibited during East Carolina University's 2011 Metals Symposium: Shifting Traditions. Mike Ruta and Justin Klocke put the show together and and did a stellar job. I've noticed that the website they created to document the show is now updated, complete with photos from each show and a time lapse video showing people interacting with the work. The website looks great!

I love seeing shows like this come together. Artists bringing communities of artists together and bringing the work to the public. I love how at each show people are drinking beers, having fun, and interacting with the WORK! That's what its about, right? I love seeing formal shows too, but its nice to see people who just want to get their work out there, so they gather friends who bring different skills to the table and just do it! I also love the effort to create a very nicely documented space online so hopefully others will get turned on to the idea and we can see more events like this in the future. I think events like this are where the field is going. Check the site out here.

The Tradesman: Making an Art of Work

This is a new documentary that I am really looking forward to. Richard Yeagley has created this documentary to highlight the necessary work that tradespeople do, that as a culture we consider somehow less valuable than academic pursuits. Yeagley seeks to highlight the fact that we all desire people to do this work, yet somehow have a bias towards manual labor. I like that he's asking these questions, trying to get some conversations started about how we got here and why we think this way. The documentary is scheduled to premier on May 12th at the Charles Theater in Baltimore, Yeagley's home town. Check out more videos on the documentary's website here. I think my favorite one is the historic video that talks about how the Industrial Revolution created a need for these jobs, unions and an entire middle-class! And I always love watching those old shop videos. Especially since union rights has been such a heated topic in Wisconsin lately, it was nice to see some more support for the people that make so much of our daily lives function.