Archive for the ‘art’ Category
Beth Ditto Fan Art!
This is a drawing I finished up today as part of the roadmap zine I’m making for the campers of Rock’N’Roll Camp For Girls.
In the zine, it will be black instead of yellow, but I drew it in yellow because it just felt right. Now I am debating which quote from her to use to pair with the drawing.
I am wrapping up laying out the roadmap, debating banging out one more coloring page of a rad musician. I can’t wait to try to put together a coloring book of more drawing one day (in the NEAR future) for rock camp.
We’re going to be binding the zine for the campers of the first session at my house on Saturday (the first session begind next week). We’re going to just be hole-punching and tying with colored twine (kind of like thishttp://www.pebblesandbuttons.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Tie-a-knot-or-a-bow.jpg), so it’s very easy work. There will just be about 70 of them to do, so many hands will make the work quick!
If you’ve been looking for someway to help rock camp, this would be a great start! In addition to having a chance to help out rock camp, you can have a chance to meet other rad volunteers. Plus, you can check out the road map I made for campers, which will be including some rad art of musicians.
If you have something you’d like to donate to rock camp, gift cards, services, art, whatever, this would be a great time to drop a donation off. Remember, RNRC4G is a nonprofit and you will get a receipt for your tax-deductible donation. So, for example, if you’re an artist, you get to set the value of what you’ve donated. Also, what’s more awesome than giving your comics or your band’s cd to young people?
We’re also going to watch The Punk Singer (probably starting it at 3:00), because I have been wanting to see it and showing it during working on this seemed appropriate. ♥
Blue will provide some tasty snacks and beverages for this work part, but you’re welcome to bring some too! If you want to come and you don’t know where I live, you can message me for the address. Feel free to invite your rad friends!
Santigold Fan Art!
This is a drawing I finished up today as part of the roadmap zine I’m making for the campers of Rock’N’Roll Camp For Girls.
In the zine, it will be black instead of red, but I drew it in red because it just felt right. Now I am debating which quote from her to use to pair with the drawing.
Anyone have any suggestions for who should be on my short list to draw to finish out this zine with fun coloring pages?
What Do You Feel?
Dear friends! Most of you know that Marco, Matt, and I have been working on making a poly bio comic that we’ll update weekly. It’s a pretty big, multifaceted project, we will all contribute to the scripts and story ideas (well, our lives are the story ideas), Marco and I will also sometimes draw it, but Matt will be the main artist. We even plan on taking submissions for comics having to do with non monogamy to feature guest artists. The website for it is also going to be a place where we talk about our lives and our other projects.
ANYWAYS, we are torn between two names, so we’d like to ask all of you lovelies to give us your two cents….
If it helps, these are the two songs of inspiration for us…
Days of Love Sale!
Hey friends! Now that Matt has this new-fangled site, where all his work is collected in one place (designed by Matt and coded by Marco), he has opened up his Etsy store listing prints and offering commissions!!
To celebrate the new site and the love-based-holiday that is Valentine’s Day, he’s having a sale on commissions that’s perfect for fulfilling your need for a card-sized piece of original art, either for a lover, a friend, or yourself! From now until February 14th, you can enter in the coupon code INFINITYLOVEPIZZA while checking out to get 33% off of your commission order in Matt’s Etsy store!
He’s offering ink drawings or ink drawing that are finished with water colors or digital coloring, so check out his Etsy commissions listings!
And, let me tell you, Matt’s really been cooking up some rad, love-based illustrations recently…
A few months ago, some friends of ours who are in a triad relationship, were celebrating their love and commitment to each other with a formal commitment ceremony (somewhat like a wedding). They are also rather nerdy and passionate about their interests (two of them had been Disney villainesses for Halloween), so many geeky elements were part of their wedding’s decor, including making their vows while wrapping a Tom Baker Doctor Who scarf around all their hands and having 20-sided die scattered on the tables. Matt made them an appropriately nerdy commitment ceremony gift…. An illustration of Disney villainesses playing D&D together!
For Christmas, he made our wonderful neighbors smaller, original-illustration cards featuring their furry, household loved ones…
Ambrose, the chihuahua…
Porter, the ball-obsessed yellow lab…
Danielle and Thor, cougar pug princess and her mighty pup companion…
Just a couple weeks ago, for a lovely friend’s birthday (Cat Farris), he made an awesome illustration featuring the character of her webcomic, Flaccid Badger, with one of her beloved game characters from Mass Effect, Garrus…
So, as you can see, the dude is a talented artist for all your love-capturing needs. He’s having this sale because he really enjoys having new stuff to draw and mash-up. So, whatever ignites the love within you this Valentine’s Day, ask Matt to do a commission to bring your lovely imaginings into reality! Treat yourself or someone else you love. <3
Just visit his commissions listing in his Etsy store, then, during checkout, you can enter in the coupon code INFINITYLOVEPIZZA to get 33$% off of your commission order.
Turning 30, Living My Dreams!
For a couple years, I have been planning and brainstorming as to how I can support queer students in the after school program that I work for, waiting until I felt more secure of my position and my relationship with the director, before I straight up asked to facilitate a queer support group. I was thinking of facilitating something like a Gay Straight Alliance, but more spectrum inclusive, but then I learned the after school program had lost their Black Student Union teacher and therefore BSU, leaving a greater need within the after school program for support of marginalized students facing various kinds of discrimination and challenges. The idea I’ve come up with is a club called Youth Empowerment and Solidarity, or YES!
My plan for YES! is to do activities centered on strengthening student bonds and relationships, talk about constructive communication (especially non violent communication), talk about conflict resolution with peers and authority figures, discuss key vocabulary that will turn students on to verbalizing their struggles (ageism, homophobia, empowerment, solidarity, autonomy, consent, oppression, marginalization, racism, sexism, etc.), talk about media messages and the importance of dismantling them, talk about the importance of caring for yourself (physical and emotional) and how to care about others, have guests whose experiences will add to the conversations we’ll be having in class (different community leaders and activists), talk to the students about local youth resources (Multnomah County Youth Commission, SMYRC, Portland Youth Summit, Youth Empowered Action, Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp for Girls, etc.), read/discuss parts of Stay Solid!, and address/talk about whatever else the students want or need to talk about. This is the poster I made for YES! to promote it within the school…
Since I was a preteen/teen living in poverty with an abusive and neglectful parent, struggling to get out of that environment and better my life, it’s been a dream of mine to become a teacher and to have a positive impact on youth, but also to advocate for youth rights. I vowed I would grow up to be an adult that made a difference in the lives of young people. Back then, I thought I would become a biology teacher and just be present for my students. Over the years, I have switched gears a bit. I began to loath the structure of the public education system (as I watched it fail many of my peers and realized its oppressive and inherent flaws) and I fell away from wanting to study biology to become an educator, deciding to pursue my own creativity through comics and zines and wanting to teach kids those skills and more around independent publishing, seeking involvement and belonging in those communities… Which was a struggle, especially coming into the comics “community” in Portland in my early twenties, as the community was riddled with oppressive, power-hungry dudes that were incredibly misogynist (that special brand of nerdy misogyny with a lot of gate-keeping). But, I started doing indie comics workshops for kids and broadened to teaching general zine workshops for kids. As I had quickly become disillusioned by the comics community, I turned more towards zines, becoming a PZS organizer because that community felt safer, being facilitated by more women and having a Safer Spaces Policy (safer, but certainly not without it’s own problems and crappy people, as I also learned over the years). Along the way, I made a lot of friends, zines, anthologies, and memories. Becoming well known as a zinester by volunteering in that community on so many levels and working with youth int hose communties lead me to be invited into schools to teach. Working with kids to make zines felt so right. Zines encourage literacy in a very engaging way and making their own media is very empowering to young folks. It also opens a dialog with youth as to how mainstream media fails them. Now, my path as a zine educator has helped me fulfill my goal of working with and empowering youth not only with teaching zines, but with other interests, like debate, games class, and social justice activism (my new group, YES!). After I do a couple terms of YES! where I currently teach, I’m hoping to bring it into other schools.
In case you don’t know, I am about to turn 30 this month, so I have been doing a lot of reflecting as to where I am at and feeling really happy with my life and excited for everything in front of me (hence this post). I find myself accomplishing quite a few of some of my oldest goals and feeling like my heart and mind are going to explode.
Especially my heart. This year, for my annual Friendsgiving, I was hosting in my shared home with two amazing life partners. I have been living with my partners Matt and Marco since May and it’s been a very transformative experience. There have been bumps (mainly Marco and myself have wrestled with some baggage from past bad relationships and our childhoods clashing a little bit), as with any relationship transition into deeper intimacy (the deeper intimacy brings out deeper demons), but I have honestly been amazed with Matt, Marco, and myself. We garden together, we’re building a couch together, we laugh together, we cry together, we’re planning comics together, we celebrate together, we chill out together. We also have separate spaces and times, we schedule date nights and alone nights, balancing our desires to be together with time for ourselves. They each have there own rooms that they share with me, but I’m also working on having my own (I’m lagging because I also have the smallest room and I just need to get rid of a lot of stuff before it’s a functional space). When I kicked an abusive partner out of my house a few years ago, I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t live with anyone again unless it was multiple partners, thinking that, if more than one partner wanted to cohabitate with me, we’d probably all be having pretty awesome relationships and they would probably be awesome people whose goals in life were compatible with mine. Both Matt and Marco are incredibly sweet, supportive, accountable, and motivated people. I find myself continually inspired by them both and feeling thankful for them both.
I have wanted to have deeper loves in my life for a long time, trying to have healthy relationships and practicing non monogamy (bent more towards polyamory) over the years with a lot of trial and error, but I finally feel I am sharing my life in meaningful way with not just one amazing partner, but two. We have shared space, shared goals, shared projects. It all has me feeling incredibly fulfilled and happy, my home is feeling like one of the safest and most wonderful places… It really feels like a home and Matt and Marco are my family. All with room for more.
So, with all this, I am going into my thirties. Considering where I’ve been and where I’m at, I think this may be the most amazing decade of my life. It took a lot of work to get here, but it’s all been incredibly worthwhile.
Teaching is the best 4EVAR
Yesterday, I had my first day of Zines Class at the middle school I work at. I am so excited for this batch of potential new zinesters and I still have returning students, which always makes me feel so accomplished! This afternoon, I’m teaching Debate and then Puzzles and Games… I love life.
Have I shown y’all the posters that I’ve made for the classes I teach in order to boost enrollment? One features art from Katy Ellis O’Brien, another from Matthew Rainwater, but the Puzzles and Games poster is cheesy photo style, featuring images of girls playing games. The photos amounted to about 2 hours worth of googling, I’m hoping to subtly recruit more girls! Getting kids interested in SUN is really important to me, a lot of SUN classes make up for the lack of arts programs during the school day, as well as help the young people in the school have a constructive place to go with purpose (school work support, skill-building, community-developing) in the afternoons.
I am really excited about ANOTHER year teaching at the school I’ve already spent three years teaching within. I am also really happy to be put in charge of yet another class, Puzzles and Games. I had told the director of the SUN program I work for (who is a really amazing, hardworking lady, you wouldn’t believe how much this woman juggles), that I was really interesting in teaching this more recreational class last year, so I am incredibly flattered and excited it’s now on my plate!
I am hoping to teach a leadership class this year as well, where I can feature some material from Stay Solid!
Practice your Spanish!
Heading over to the Portlandia International Language School today to put in our registration for Eva’s class on Pedro Almodovar! It’s a chance to critically examine his work with a great instructor… In Spanish!
Marco, Matt, and I will be taking it even though Matt doesn’t know much Spanish, Matt’s bravely diving in with us. We’ll be watching the films together at home to prepare ourselves and welcome friends to join us. Plus, Eva is one of my favorite people, so this is great opportunity to nurture my neglected Spanish skills and hang out with her. If you want to take the class, you should call today to reserve your spot!
http://www.portlandialanguages.com/uncategorized/pedro-almodovar-film-class-this-summer
Happy May Day!
I wanted to share a couple photos I captured during the May Day march I went to on May 1st. I don’t normally take photos at marches and I didn’t have a fancy camera with me, but commentary I had seen on various social networks from friends expressing their apathy toward marching or protesting caused me to want to share a bit more.
Here was the event description…
“We find ourselves facing unprecedented cuts to public services, including education and Social Security, increased poverty, homelessness, and ongoing attacks on people of color, immigrants, working families, women, students and our right to organize.
Our response to this onslaught against humanity is to organize and FIGHT BACK!!
People Over Profit!!
No Human Is Illegal!
We want to encourage everyone to come out this May Day and stand united for human rights and social & economic justices and demand for an Immigration Reform that’s just and humane!!
JOIN AN ORGANIZATION WORKING FOR JUSTICE!!
When: Gather at 2:00 PM; Rally at 3:00 PM; March at 4:00 PM
Where: O’Bryant Square- 9th and Stark.
Sponsor organizations (partial list): VOZ Proyecto de Educacion de Derechos Laborales, American Friends Service Committee, International Socialist Organization, Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán, Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice (former ONSM), Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition – PIRC, Portland Jobs with Justice, Comite de Solidaridad de Apoyo Mutuo, Oregon AFL-CIO, The Black Working Group, SEIU Local 503, Portland IWW, Oregon Fair Trade Campaign OFTC, Labors483.”
If you’re not sure what some of those organizations are, I would totally encourage you to check them out!”
Anyways, here are the few photos I took…
One thing I love about events like this is seeing people come together, peacefully, to talk about how to make things better. People from all kinds of backgrounds and consisting of such a broad spectrum of ages. There were speaches and performances as the people gathered before the march, opening statements (in English and Spanish!) made, and then the march began! The march itself was peaceful and it was a beautiful day to be out on the streets, visibly being a presence for worker’s rights. The end of the march was where it began, O’Bryan Square, where organizers had some closing statements and then opened the mic for peaceful and respectful spoken word from the crowd.
Here’s some media coverage of the May Day march…
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Protesters-Police-gear-up-for-May-Day-events-205507081.html
http://www.kptv.com/story/22137231/police-no-arrests-at-portlands-may-day-rally-as-crowd-was-peaceful
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/05/county_budget_avoids_big_ax_ma.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/05/hundreds_bring_immigration_lab.html
http://photos.oregonlive.com/photo-essay/2013/05/may_day_protesters_take_to_the.html
For me, marching this May Day had a lot of meaning to me. It was about supporting my own rights as a working American. It was about being in solidarity with other workers around the world. It was about being visible, because being visible helps represent what’s important to me and the communities I organize within. It was about being in solidarity with other people who care enough about something in their lives that they showed up to participate. It was about continuing my journey in learning throughout this life by being around people I both know and don’t know while they are organizing, speaking, or just being visible in a space that was trying to be safe for that and bring people together.
I believe we all have something to learn from each other, but I especially want to learn from people who care enough to show up and participate. People who care enough to try to help. People who care enough to act. people who care enough to organize. People are very diverse and can accomplish a lot individually, but they also have so much strength and growth when working together.
One thing that I still find beautiful in this world is that, if there is something that you identify with or find meaningful, you can find other people who will share that with you and, if you’re willing to work together, you can build a community and try to grow together. Sometimes people disagree about what a community’s priorities should be, sometimes people clash, sometimes people are hurtful of even predatory. But, if the people who care keep trying to put aside their egos and keep trying to help each other, a community can go really far and the people within it can grow. If people stick around and keep trying to support and learn from each other, the community can grow. That is why there are so many millions of communities, because people are very diverse, so communities get more specific. I think it’s still important to go to the broader events, however, to keep reaching out and keep visible. If there is something you care about, I would encourage you to go to marches, to conferences, to events. Find the people who will care with you and who will work to make community so that each of us, as individuals, can thrive.
Well, gosh, I just went on, but these kind of things make me gush. I have had so many heartbreaking and inspiring experiences that have come from being an active member of communities and being an organizer in communities. All while also being a well-meaning, sometimes-clever, but-still-flawed person entering into all of it in my early twenties. So, I have come to some pretty strong conclusions about how much I’ve grown from all of it because I am really, truly, the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been. All because of the time I’ve spent showing up , trying to step up to be there for others. It made me incredibly vulnerable, but it has made me work through so much. Anyways…
Speaking of community and labor issues, I should probably take this time to promote the next AmaZine Day! I am facilitating the readings during the next AmaZine Day, which is labor-themed, in honor of May Day. This is the poster, drawn by Matt and designed by me…
There are two FREE workshops and the readers will be Alex Wrekk (reading from some of her several writings about work experiences), Sarah Mirk (reading from “Rodeo City,” an article she wrote for Oregon Humanities). Aron Nels Steinke (reading from his comics extensively about working in teaching), and Sarah Curtis (reading from a new, original work).
One thing that is cool about this AmaZine Day is getting a chance, thanks to Sarah Mirk, to connect Oregon Humanities into the event. Oregon Humanities is a non profit that bring Oregonians together to share ideas, to listen, think, and grow. Oregon Humanities published and distributes a free, printed magazine, that pays contributors. Oregon Humanities recently awarded $87,870 in grants to 20 Oregon nonprofit organizations. We’ll have several copies on hand or attendees of AmaZine Day and we’re thrilled to highlight an article by AmaZine Day tabler and in such an awesome community project.
Check out the full info here… http://www.portlandzinesymposium.org/amazine-day/
If you want to sign up, the sign up was recently opened at IPRC and PBW.
On Oppression, Intersectionality, and Solidarity
I wanted to share this comic that I saw thanks to my friend Chelsea.
Word! I love that this was this person’s final project, the comic highlights a common misogyny in nerd culture and it is so bravely personal. Total respect for the feminism here, this person showing their own struggle and being vulnerable, while recognizing another perspective for women in nerd culture who is also struggling even though they might conform to narrow guidelines of beauty-based-on-size.
If you relate to being left out by the rampant sexism in comics and nerd culture, if you relate to being belittled, objectified, harassed, etc. based on your gender despite thinking that nerd space should be a safe space… Well, you might also want to check out this amazing article by super intelligent nerd, Rachel Ediden. http://feminspire.com/idiot-nerd-girl-has-a-posse-taking-back-the-meme/
Speaking of super intelligent nerds, I went to the really awesome panel “Looking Past the Target Audience” at SCF this past weekend, but missed it at ECCC. It was really great to listen to the conversation with Rachel Edidin, Andy Khouri, Faith Erin Hicks, Scotty Iseri, Sfé M., and David Walker sitting on the panel. There was a lot on intersectionality, which was crucial! Intersectionality is a concept often used to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are INTERCONNECTED and cannot be examined separately from one another. Third Wave Feminism, especially, thrived on the concept of intersectionality in order to redefine Feminism as inclusive. The concept of intersectionality first came from legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989 and is largely used in critical theories, especially Feminist theory, when discussing systematic oppression.
If you missed it or if you want to be having these kinds of discussions, I would recommend checking out their tumblr (thatonepanel.tumblr.com).
For me, one of the most moving moments of the panel was when Sfé was talking about how an aspect of their process for creating Kyle & Atticus was to write a gender queer character with positive support and acceptance in their life. I think it really hit home for me because a lot of the stuff Matt, Marco, and I have been dealing with Matt’s parents understanding what our polyamorous relationship means and learning that I am a queer atheist. Essentially, he’s been coming out to them and it’s been really hard. That in addition to struggles I have always had with people being unsupportive toward me. This struggle, having parents, acquaintances, lovers, and even a long-time best-friend have acted as if they are shamed by me or have been demeaning or hateful toward me for any of the various reasons people have antagonistic or problematic relationships with me. That I am a woman, that I am queer, that I am polyamorous, that I am or do all these things that they can’t relate to, that I fall under any of the labels in their mind that they view as “bad” and then I go on to dare to have opinions, ideas, boundaries, and confidence to be myself. I am motivated to work with kids exactly because I want to try to be that influence in their life, to be the person who says, “You have a voice and it’s important.” Or, “I accept who you are and I will treat you as a person with their own autonomy and agency.” To be a supportive adult. To be an educator that empowers kids to think for themselves and to be themselves. I write about my experiences in the hopes that I can grow and that I might provide support to peers who can see themselves in me because I realize the positive impact that people have had in my life by being themselves and being open about it, as I have written about a few times on this blog. I really respected that Sfé talked about writing supportive roles in the comics on purpose, because I agree with her that creating those characters in stories feeds into the mothers and friends and parents and whoever seeing themselves in the life of a gender queer person or other underrepresented, marginalized people in our society. We really need those role models.
I also want to give huge props to the panel “The Big Picture,” where a bit of gender and intersectionality issues were discussed kind of inadvertently, with Alison Baker, Kelly Sue DeConick, Jen Vaughn, Shannon Watters, and Emi Lenox. As well as the focus of the panel, discussing how the internet has changed comics, especially independent publishing as, to my knowledge, most of the panelists had roots in indie comics and zines.
Personally, I believe that one of the biggest steps in activism is showing up, being visible.
If you have the ability and patience just to be there, that is a huge step.
Do what you can, REALIZE WHAT YOU CAN DO.
Do say hello to the creators and organizations you do want to support. Do buy zines and comics or whatever from the creators you think deserve it for whatever reason you value them. Do go to the panels that talk about issues you care about. Do say thank you (in person or online) to the panelists, we can’t hear it enough. Do blog/tweet/whatever about it. Do talk to your friends about the creations and panels you do enjoy or support. Do volunteer for an organization you think serves a valuable role in your community. Do go to an event that highlights creators and issues that you feel are important or meaningful. Do start your own event, especially if it’s an event you wish existed but doesn’t. Do make your own stories and creative work that reflects your experience, your passion, your values, your ideas. Do listen to or support the people who have different experiences than yourself.
I long lost the patience to volunteer for SCF, but I try to keep showing up to support the people who I do see promoting real conversations and ethical work I commend those who love comics and other cismale/white dominated communities. I have been able to devote myself to working on the Portland Zine Symposium as an organizer for so many years because it strives and works hard to be a safe space, an inclusive community with anti-oppressive ethics.
Also, I want to take this opportunity to promote the Women of Color Zine Symposium at PSU happening this summer, on June 8th. This is such an important event to support to me. It was started by Tonya Jones, a long-time Portland Zine Symposium attendee, powerful writer, and zine educator. The WOC Zine group that she started has self-published three issues of “Women of Color: How to Live in the City of Roses and Avoid the Pricks.” All three issues are available for $3 from the group, Powell’s Bookstore, and In Other Words. The zines can also be checked out from the Multnomah County Library!
And, speaking of the “Women of Color: How to Live in the City of Roses and Avoid the Pricks” zine, they have a submissions call up right now for their fifth issue! The fifth issue is themed for interviews and it’s an opportunity to interview a fantastic woman of color/person of color that you know doing great work in Portland and contribute to a great project. You can read more on their website, http://wocpdxzines.wordpress.com/woc-zine-collective-submissions.
If there is a theme to this post, it is that, whatever your battle in coping with oppression, you are not alone.
Keep showing up and we’ll find each other at all the nerd cons and wherever.
A Modern Woman on the Move 