Hot off the press!

Hot of the (Rebel) Press! My latest little text in time for #AnzacDay2016. Ta @anarchobooks! @AKPressDistro #WW1 pic.twitter.com/FElXcTBRHj

— Jared Davidson (@anrchivist) April 22, 2016

I designed a poster...

It's been a while, but here's my latest poster for the Labour History Project. It's a play on Lenin's famous text, the red flag, etc etc.

If you're in Wellington make sure to get to this event and help support the work of the LHP: http://www.lhp.org.nz/?p=1208

Ready for Revolution

AK Press snapped these neat pics of my cover design for Ready for Revolution: The CNT Defense Committees in Barcelona, 1933–1938 by Agustín Guillamón. I think it came out well, but even better is the book. From what I've read of the text (and Barry Pateman's excellent introduction), it's well worth getting. As Stuart Christie blurb notes:

Agustín Guillamón’s latest work, Ready for Revolution, is one of the most illuminating and stimulating books on the CNT to appear since José Peirats’s The CNT in the Spanish Revolution. The structure and role of the union’s defense and action groups is of crucial importance not only in understanding the anarchist core of the CNT unions during that pivotal period in Spain’s history, but it provides today’s industrial, commercial, environmental, and social activists with useful organizational insights—a must have.

 Barry makes a similar point in the introduction:

Chapter 11, “The Barcelona FAI Radicalized by the Defense Committees,” is a wonderful opportunity for the reader to see the various groups discussing the situation they find themselves in. It’s rare to find this type of material in English that is not written from memory and in reflection long after the events described. The discussion leaps off the page and is full of contradiction, confusion, affirmation, and certainty, all served with a high level of sophisticated perception. There is an immediacy to it, not least because these are not the voices of the more sophisticated speakers and writers who we are used to reading, but those of the ordinary militant... This is radical history at its finest as the anarchists attempt to deal with the actions of the Stalinists, their other supposed allies, and the behavior of the CNT’s “higher committees.”

The book is not scared to take a critical look at the events of the Spanish Revolution, and as a result, brings fresh insights to this inspiring period of working class struggle.

You can get your very own copy or e-book here: http://www.akpress.org/ready-for-revolution.html

Inside story: Alec ‘Icky’ Dunn on his illustrations for Sewing Freedom

Printmaker, writer and Justseeds member Alec Dunn shares his process for illustrating Sewing Freedom. More of his amazing work can (and should) be viewed at his own blog: http://blackoutprint.tumblr.com/

About a year ago I received an email from Jared asking if I’d be interested in illustrating a book he was working on about early New Zealand anarchism. I knew Jared through political art circles, and knew him to be a great designer, producing sharp and tight graphics. I also knew him to be thoughtful about his practice. His politics, graphics, and writing informed one another. So when he asked me to participate in this book I was flattered and agreed right away.

I got a copy of the text, read through it, and began making notes about what stuck out to me visually for each chapter. I did some preliminary sketches and sent these to him as well as a list of ideas for other chapters, just to see if we were on the same page. I originally envisioned the illustrations as sitting on top of the chapter title. I wanted simplistic black and white drawings, and I wanted them to float above the words, no borders, and going full bleed to the edge of the page. That was the first idea at least. I had two, kind of wildly different, approaches to doing this: one was line drawings of the landscapes that Philip Josephs moved through, throughout his life; the other idea, heavily influenced by Gerd Arntz (the German socialist graphic designer who helped create pictograms), would have been a series of generic looking people to represent the different industries and persons involved in the anarchist movement in New Zealand at the time.

We ended up veering more towards the landscapes. And from there I started assembling reference and source images to work from.

The first one I did was of an agitator speaking before a crowd. I didn’t have a New Zealand source image for this (the image above is from London), but I am familiar with the time and setting and have looked at plenty of pictures from my hometown (Portland, Oregon, US) from the same era. The thing that I always liked about images from protests of that period was the hats. In all those old photographs everyone has a hat, and at labor protests and rallies it was just a sea of hats. So I went with this and decided to make the hats as abstract as possible, with the only delineation being the various hat bands and shawls. The speaker to me was a secondary consideration (and he inadvertently ended up vaguely resembling Josephs).

From there I worked in order of the book (and chronologically followed Josephs’ life). I did a google image search for ‘Liepaja, 1900, Harbor’ and found a nice colorized postcard. My drawing you can see is almost a direct reproduction. I really liked the pattern of the ship masts and the implication of emigration.

For the Gorbals neighborhood in Glasgow, I did the same thing, though I may have searched ‘Gorbals, tenements, slums, 1900′. There were a few nice pictures, but the line of tenements, their specific roof-top constructions (I don’t even know the purpose of those bastion-like elements), and their chimneys reads to a very specific geographic place to me.

I didn’t want them all to be landscapes, so for the next one I focused on his history as a tailor. In any of the images of labor protests from that era there are always a few fabulously-embroidered banners that people are carrying, with symbols from their unions or mottos of their organizations. This one I just did free form.

And finally I wanted to do a picture of the Te Aro neighborhood in Wellington. I’ve never been to New Zealand, so I used google again, although this time I did street view to find the street where Joseph’s lived. I have a print by Kathe Kollwitz in my apartment called the Four Men In A Tavern, and it’s a silhouette of conspiratorial men. This was an inspiration, I imagined a night scene in Joseph’s house, people plotting something or discussing a pamphlet. Something about this wasn’t working though, but I sent the sketches to Jared to see what he’d think.

At this point Jared began sending me photos to look through (he wasn’t neglecting me before—I think we agreed to see what was working before I got any specific images from him). There was a great backyard shot of Te Aro that I used as a basis for the final Te Aro drawing and I added in a guy having a smoke and woman hanging laundry.

Jared sent me a ton of images from New Zealand’s Great Strike of 1913. I tried to go back to an almost flat image of a banner and a man marching—but it kind of sucked! I liked the action of the picture of the cops charging and took the drawing from there. At this point, I still thought that these images would float above the chapter titles.

The Runanga Miners’ hall was pretty straight forward.
At this point I think Jared decided to go full page with these, and my random dimensions (mostly, but not all, horizontally based) changed to standard (vertical) page dimensions (though, by then, there weren’t that many left to do).

For the chapter titled ‘Workingman’s Paradise’ I wanted some kind of imagery based on the pictures of miners and lumberjacks that Jared had sent me. I loved this one picture with a bunch of lumberjacks (and one little kid) standing around a giant stump with a banner that said “Lucky Hit”. This ended up being the basis of the image I drew, but I went in a little different direction.

And the final image I made was of Josephs himself. Jared sent me a portrait of the agitator as a young man (he was handsome one!). I did a few sketches of this. The one I liked—I think the hatching fit in with the more architectural drawings—made him look a little sinister (whereas in the picture he looks kind of charming and pensive). I changed the background on this but it didn’t really change it much. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I eventually threw it into illustrator and abstracted it out a little, which I liked! and which also softened the image some.

Finally, Jared took the original image of the generic tailor ran with it and, I think, made a great cover.

'Sewing Freedom' and early NZ anarchism on Facebook

I've created a Facebook page so that anyone interested can follow the progress of 'Sewing Freedom', my forthcoming book on anarchism in New Zealand. Goodies from the book, pictures, and extra bits of research that never found a home will be shared there. Have a peek and click 'Like': http://www.facebook.com/SewingFreedom

First draft of the cover of my next book...

Thanks to Icky for the illustration!

Celebrate Peoples History CHCH: Pics

Some pictures of the Celebrate People's History Project, currently on show at the Upper Riccarton Library, Christchurch (NZ). Its going to be up for another week still, so if you haven't had a look you've still got a chance : )


Celebrate People's History
Monday April 16 - May 14, 2012

Open during normal library hours

• Monday - Friday 9:00 am - 8:00 pm
• Saturday & Sunday 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Upper Riccarton Library (Young Adult Section)
71 Main South Road, Sockburn

Celebrate People’s History, an exhibition of over 50 international posters documenting radical moments in history

Katipo Books is proud to present Celebrate People’s History - an exhibition of over 50 international posters documenting radical moments in history. The exhibition will run from Monday 16 April until Monday 14 May in the Young Adults section of the Upper Riccarton Community and School Library.

Since 1998 the Celebrate People’s History Project has produced an amazing array of political posters by different artists from around the world, each highlighting a historical example of struggle for human rights, social justice, and freedom. From the Spanish Revolution to feminist labour organisers, indigenous movements to environmental sustainability, protests against racism to the Korean Peasant’s League — Celebrate People’s History canvases global movements in collaboration with a global network of artists.

Visually the posters are as diverse as the topics themselves. Screenprint, woodcut, linocut, illustration, line art and traditional graphic design all feature in full colour — employed to engage in much needed critical reflection about aspects of our history often overlooked by mainstream narratives. A seamless welding of art and social themes, Celebrate People’s History is sure to excite the history junkie, poster enthusiast, art student, adult learner, and activist alike.

There will also be a public talk on Saturday 21 April by local poster maker/historian Jared Davidson on his own contribution to the exhibition with the poster, Red Feds: the first and only People’s History poster about New Zealand.

• Preview some of the works here

Celebrate People's History
Monday April 16 - May 14, 2012

Open during normal library hours

• Monday - Friday 9:00 am - 8:00 pm
• Saturday & Sunday 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Upper Riccarton Library (Young Adult Section)
71 Main South Road, Sockburn

Labour History Project Newsletter 54: sneak peek

Here's a sneak peek at the cover of the latest Labour History Project Newsletter, featuring Miss Elsie Thorn of Christchurch dressed as the Maoriland Worker, 1911. Once again, it was a fun wee design job, and now that I have a grid it's a really quick job at that. Check out the LHP and past newsletters here.

Digging through the vaults: past writing on design

This text was written and self-published as a zine, From Punk to Proudhon? An autobiographical look at the poster, design, and screenprinting ideas of Garage Collective in mid-2009. Despite its age, a number of points are still relative to my practice today. I also wanted to save it from Myspace obsolescence!


I never wanted to be a graphic designer. At least not in the traditional sense — the faceless middle-man servicing the corporate body was something I didn't want to be. And when that's often the only direction encouraged within the design world, it becomes increasingly hard to find and explore alternatives, let alone sustainable ones.

Inspired by one part ego, one part punk, and a good dash of 'politics', my alternative to the overly commercial realm of graphic design ended up as 'Garage Collective' — the banner under which my design and screenprint output has come to be known. Over time, Garage Collective has had a number of projects and sometimes confused directions — from local and international band's gigposters, grassroots political campaigns, features in a few exhibitions (as well as one of my own), numerous zines and writings (This Is Not A Manifesto — Towards An Alternative Design Practice), and my own personal screenprinted projects. It's these personal projects that have encouraged me to re-think, not only my own practice, but Garage Collective itself — its current position and the possibility of other creative directions. The following text is the manifestation of that re-think.

—

Garage Collective was set up in my garage in Christchurch, New Zealand around August 2006, with the explicit intention of avoiding the design industry and all that it encompasses — advertising, profitability, marketing, consumption, and ultimately, the advancement of our current exploitative and illogical system — Capitalism. By setting myself up independent of this mainstream conception of design, I have been lucky enough to participate in projects which, in my mind, have been far more worthwhile and productive than encouraging profit margins, consumer culture, and an elitist design minority.

Whole-heartedly subscribing to the punk ethic of Do-It-Yourself, my dad and I built most of the equipment required to screenprint from scratch — a lightbox for exposure, the vacuum table — both crafted from some basic internet plans and a few trips to the hardware store. And while I knew I wanted to focus on the medium of screenprinting as a way of merging my interest in punk and design into screenprinted gigposters — my knowledge of screenprinting was basic at best. The best way to learn is by doing, so my skills as a rather lo-fi printer grew as I dived head first into production.

For me, gigposters are chronologically linked to the community notice board of old, as well as those decadent Victorian broadsheets packed with oxymoron's, chaotic type, and more often than not, a slightly warped sense of humour. They both spoke to a particular audience, and in the case of gigposters, not much has changed. The visual language of a subculture — gigposters often convey, through particular imagery and aesthetics, a set of codes meant only for those in the know. This idea of communication between like-minded individuals, bands, and other screenprinters and poster makers inspired the name 'Garage Collective'. Although not a literal collective, for me it has come to mean a loose gathering of shared ideas and ideals, of both the people I've physically worked with, as well as the people I get to share my visual interpretations with on the street and at the shows.

So, the initial phase of my practice was to design and print unique, hand crafted posters from my garage — gigposters, political posters — anything that was not intended to profit off the backs of others. No design firms, no major label bands, no advertising. To exist in this fashion, completely independent of the design industry, was in my mind, a political feat.

—

For close to two years this idea of independent and alternative printing has sustained Garage Collective and my individual practice. However, a growing interest in community and workplace struggle, and the ideas of non-hierarchal, direct action politics has meant I'm revaluating the direction of Garage Collective. My interest in band posters has dwindled, towards a greater interest in the role cultural and graphic work can play in political agitation and radical, collective struggle for social justice — as well as a more tangible political stance for Garage Collective, rather than simply existing independent of the design industry. This hasn't been a sudden shift in thinking — political and social causes were always on the agenda, as well as a visual sensibility that is (hopefully) more though-provoking than your typical band poster. Rather, it is a shift in priorities, with emphasis on the political winning out over the musical.

'Political' is a rather ambiguous term, one that can cover the spectrum of elections, political parties and parliamentary democracy to stencil art and sidewalk graffiti. The definition of political work I lean towards is what some may consider a-political — that is to say, completely devoid of parliamentary politics, with an emphasis on community building, self-determination, empowerment, economic emancipation, and most importantly, class awareness via cultural production. Sound like a mouthful? That's because it is, and comes with a number of issues that, as a creative person educated on the unfailable idea of artistic individualism and a bourgeois concept of 'insistence on form and knowledge of form' — can be rather problematic.

—

Subcultures, like elitism, are often extremely exclusive. Unfortunately, large aspects of design, art, and even activism can be rightly regarded as exclusive in their own ways — the uber fashionable, money-driven design culture, or the alienating, dogmatic 'know-it-all' vangaurdism of activism. Thus a problem arises — how do I, as an individual 'designer' interested in making socially concerned work, do so in a way that is inclusive, worthwhile, and ultimately empowering — not just for myself, but for those around me? When society places such an emphasis on the 'individual genius' of the artist and their final output, rather than their social commitment, it makes it rather hard for those completely disenfranchised by this understanding of artistic work to construct alternatives, completely free of the established connotations.

More than ever, I am finding that I am no longer concerned with the visual language of subcultures, whether it be musical (gigposters) or cultural (design) — but with building sustainable relationships and decentralised, social organisation with communities and everyday working people — in short, a wider and more inclusive demographic. Again, problems arise — what gives me the right, as a somewhat privileged, white, university educated designer, to seek out and interpret those communities through my creative practice? Is this kind of cultural approach even valid when compared with the various forms of drudgery forced upon us from every angle — that being social, economic, and political? Would my energies be better served somewhere else, in an entirely different form? These realities of everyday, working life strongly influence my thinking — whether it be artistic or not — and figure with a lot more clarity than they had previously.

Ultimately, cultural production is the most direct means available to me at this point, and as such, seem to be the most logical way to approach the vices of everyday life — vices which are not only perpetuated by social, economic, and political means, but increasingly cultural as well.

—

Cultural production, such as print and electronic media, plays an integral role in the current way of life. It is the means by which a monopoly of content and control by a few over the rest of us is kept in check. Consumption, and the spectacle of consumption, contribute to the alienation and social poverty we currently experience. "The powers that be are no dummies: they know that power largely rests on the unfettered spread of emotion, on illusions of success, symbols of strength, orders to consume, and elegies to violence" (Eduardo Galeano in "Upside Down"). Mass culture not only encourages us to buy and sell, it actively maintains the necessary prejudices and stereotypes that keep division, isolation and fear prominent in our class-based society.

Design is a conscious proponent of this hegemonic process, and an affluent one at that. That is why it is increasingly important to create alternative cultural perspectives or values, and illustrate the points of views based in reality that have been long silenced by the establishment — values that resonate with the majority of working people, rather than those of the folks selling it to us. And not just to create or romanticise these values on behalf of the 'low income' census statistics — but to empower and create awareness within, and amongst communities — of the effectiveness of class consciousness and direct, collective action towards social change.

—

Increasingly, I'm coming to realise that to do this, images are not enough. Like individual acts of dissidence — on their own they may educate, encourage or enrage — but unless they are linked with some aspect of wider struggle, they become obsolete.

So, the direction a socially concerned design practitioner could take becomes two-fold — cultural production that questions the dominant values and constructions of today, which in doing so, explores alternate possibilities — without alienating people and without their ideas becoming watered down in the process. Also, a practice that could deconstruct the privilege of the individual 'artist' while grounding their work in the realities of everyday life — in our communities and in the workplace. Whether this takes form as a co-operative print shop, art and screenprint workshops, community art or poster projects, or something else entirely — is something that I feel really excited (and challenged) to explore.

Thankfully, these ideas are not located in a void. Print collectives such as the Justseeds Visual Resistance Artists' Co-Operative, designers and websites such as those found in the Groundswell Collective, various exhibitions and community projects such as the Peoples History Project, Street Art Workers, and Paper Politics, as well as designers and artists (both home and abroad) — all are beginning to counter the webs of hegemony and control with their own communal and egalitarian forms of artistic solidarity — between practitioners and people, between creativity and community.

Alternatives to the mainstream conception of art and design do exist. It's just a matter of creating them ourselves.

occupied wall street poster journal

A handful of crew in NYC (including Justseeds and Occuprint) have been hard at work on an all poster edition of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, the paper that was produced by those occupying Wall Street. I was lucky enough to be approached by Josh MacPhee and get my poster, Never in History, into the mix.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the picture of the Occupy Wall Street Library, with my poster, smack bang in the middle.

I'm stoked people are seeing it (around 20,000 copies were printed) and that of all places, it made it onto the canvas walls of the people's library. I should note that I would never have made the poster if it wasn't for the good folk at Kotare Trust commissioning me to do so.

PDF Zine of libcom's introductions on capitalism, class, and class struggle

http://libcom.org/library/capitalism-class-class-struggle-ex-dummies

I've just finished designing a downloadable, ready-to-print PDF adapted from libcom.org's introductions to capitalism, class, and class struggle.* Includes graphics (the prole pyramid is the centerfold). Hope that it may be of some use.

*a section on unwaged work has been added.

My screenprinting process

These pics are of an older two colour job for a band called 'So So Modern', designed by Autistk. The poster was printed as an edition of 50 A1's. Hopefully it helps you all understand the screenpritning process a little better.



Here's the seperations. These are the designs, turned into their respective colours/layers, as each colour is printed one at a time. Black on the right, red on the left.


The seps are then stuck to the screen. The key is UV sensitive emulsion (the orange stuff), which is coated onto the screen earlier and needs to be kept out of the light until exposure. I keep my large screens in the attic: smaller screens in a light-safe box I made.


The screen then goes into my UV lightbox for exposure...I use 6 UV bulbs at around 20mins, which burns the design from the seps into the emulsion. The foam on the right pushes the screen flush to the glass when the lid is closed, making a crisp image. You can do this with a halogen lamp, or even the sun.




After exposure, the screens are washed down. The black areas in the design block the light, but the clear areas are burned into the screen. The result is that the blocked areas (the yellowish sections) washes away, making the stencil for printing.


Sweet, so my screen is dry and I'm taping it up so I can print. The orange areas are blocked, so no ink can pass through. It's the other (yellowish) areas where the inks passes through in the printing process.


I use clear packing tape on the gutters, which helps cleaning up the excess ink and stops leakage at the sides.


Screen is locked into my vacuum table using hinges, and the stock is ready to register. I use business cards as a 3 point rego system....I also use that kick arm which holds up the screen and helps for feeding in stock.


The screen is lowered, and I then add the ink. I use waterbased inks so I don't have to deal with chemicals.


Printing the first layer, red. Generally lighter colours go first. This is the repetitive part. So for a 50 poster job I'd do this action 50 times, plus another 50 for the second colour.


And ta da! I work from right to left, and usually get up a bit of pace, which is nice. Loud punk (Minor Threat usually) or national radio is a necessity for this process.


Here's the first colour done.


The screens then get cleaned in my washout area out back. Tape, ink, blood, etc.


Time for the second colour. I line up the second colour with the transparency, then do the same with the screen to make sure registration is ok. This is probably the hardest thing because things can move during the whole process!


Tape it up, line it up, and get ready to brake my back again. Music on.








Done!