]]> tag:victorygardenoftomorrow.com,2009:/vgblog//1.54 2009-12-22T03:10:50Z 2009-12-22T03:36:35Z

I recently saw the M.C. Escher exhibit at the Portland Art Museum- I hadn't realized how much wood block printing he had done. I've always loved printmaking and cutting out these stamps was great practice for me. Right now, I'm putting them on all outgoing poster tubes. I'd like to do bigger things- maybe some linoleum block? and do a whole poster scene... (wheels are turning). I'll keep you posted.

Wow! What an honor it is to install a set of Victory Garden of Tomorrow posters in Portland Mayor Sam Adam's office. The set of six prints will hang in the Administrative office for the entire summer. I hope they provoke conversations and new thinking (I wonder if the propaganda will work?).

Special thanks to Pollyanne Birge, Arts and Culture Director for extending the invite and making the arrangements.

This June (2009) I worked for an afternoon at a VBC site at Madison High School in Portland, Oregon. They're putting up a covered outdoor classroom space designed by Sebastion Collet. It will feature cob walls (clay-straw mix), benches, and a living roof.
The process is very hands-on and totally accessible. Its the only building site I've been on where I was barefoot the entire time. Glass bottles were cut and taped end to end to make little windows in the cob wall. Building up the cob is done entirely by hand and is really very fun. To work the clay and straw into shape for building, we had to dance on it for a bit in barefeet. nice.

Click the picture to see the whole set of pics.

Go to the website to learn more about VBC:
City Repair ]]> tag:victorygardenoftomorrow.com,2009:/vgblog//1.48 2009-06-03T02:48:02Z 2009-06-03T03:04:22Z

I've been working with a student publication at Portland State University called The Portland Spectator. It circulates about 1,000 on the school campus. Its been an interesting job for me, because I've been given a lot of freedom to do editorial design, layout, and illustration. All things I enjoy and have been wanting to get better at doing. But my duties are also to be an Editor for content, which has been quite a learning process; but one that has been very enlightening. The whole project has kind of taken over my brain, and I may have found some kind of calling here. I'm thinking about applying for the Editor-in-Chief position for next year, which really has a lot of reign over the mission and direction of the pub. I'll probably go for it -- this could be the career stepping stone I need.

UPDATE: I got the job! What a great opportunity. There's actually a lot of freedom to hire a staff, raise money, cover what we want, build a brand reputation, while using all the resources of the school--its actually better than a commercial pub would be in terms of freedom and experimentation. Its going to be a good year.

Recently, someone emailed me who works at a garden center, and they showed the folks at the center the Victory Garden of Tomorrow poster and tried explaining the concept behind it. The garden center people didn't get it. I guess we could just shrug and say its just "visual art". Which it is.

But that's only part of the story, and doesn't honor the American history and tradition of rolling up the sleeves and DOING something in a crisis situation. Today, there are people in crisis situations who need better nutrition, better ways to save, and creative solutions to basic household expenses.

The original campaign was all about supplementing rations in a time of food/money scarcity (it was WWII). Recently when I look in the media there are stories of people of all walks of life in very tight situations often relying on a food bank. What's in the foodbank? Canned and processed food. From a health standpoint this is bad, and in economic terms we are relying on the industrial, mass scale food producers to give us something we could make ourselves at several times greater the quality and nutrition. Salty, conventionally grown, preservative laden canned vegetables is no way to feed a family, we now know. Neither is processed foods made with corn syrup and white flour. Supplementing your rations is a genuine expression to have for ourselves fresh greens and vegetables from the thing that we are so desperately trying to hold onto: our own backyards.

Some Victory Garden slogans are coming to mind:
Make those yards work for you! Supplement your Rations. Better Nutrition Means Better Gardens.

See also Slow Food USA.

And this is very exciting: NY Times: Obamas Prepare to Plant White House Vegetable Garden and finally, from MSNBC:

I've been kicking around these new designs. Actually the "Remember" one is a redux of an early design. I'm just getting tired of looking at them and need other eyes see what's up. What do you think? I may have some proof prints made so I can get a better sense of the color.

This week I saw an overwhelming wave of support for the "Victory Garden of Tomorrow" artwork. It seems everyone wants a poster from Esty (yah!). But that means I have to be ready to do some serious shipping. So of course I turned to Scrap - an awesome nonprofit storefront who deals in donated office-type leftovers. There I scored a pile of mailing tubes for posters. Now I'm ready for anything! If I have time I'll try to put some cool stencils on them.

And! Not only have I been receiving orders, but I've been able to make some connections for the VGoT to partner up and do some work for others. I want to be tight-lipped about details right now, but there will be plenty to say by this spring.

This project is getting super exciting right now, thanks to all the support I'm getting! All your comments and insights have been so inspiring. Thanks!

Magnum Photos hosts these beautiful photo essays. This one by Paolo Pellegrin is a series of images he took on Wall Street a couple of months ago when everything was tanking. The black and white makes them timeless and his voice over is pretty cool, too. Lends a strong sense of drama to the whole thing.

Etsy is pretty great. It's not the flea market that is ebay, its not quite a high-end boutique, but seems to fall somewhere in the middle-where you never know what you're going to find. And really, the imagination is the limit.
Just look at this: someone is making neato little moss terrariums in jars. I want one! (hint, hint)