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Hi Eleanor, Unfortunately the Councilmember has a prior commitment most of Saturday late afternoon and going into the late evening on February 21.  Please feel free to keep our office apprised of any developments from your town hall meeting. Take care. Chris Miley City of Oakland Aide to City Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan

Hello Eleanor, I received your invitation for Congresswoman Barbara Lee to attend your Town Hall Meeting about the State of the Arts on February 21st. Unfortunately the Congresswoman has a prior commitment that day and will not be able to attend. If a staff member is available, they will contact you directly. Thank you, Casey Payton District Scheduler Congresswoman Barbara Lee

This movie looks like a feast for the eyes.  There is something in the air about crafting in stop motion – miniature and using it for financial gain.  I love it. If only I was a well known blogger…

Hello, On behalf of Supervisor Chiu’s office, we want to take this opportunity to thank you for the posters and your invitation to your upcoming Town Hall Meeting. Supervisor Chiu will not be able to attend due to a previous engagement on February 21, 2009. We wish you the best on your event for the visual artists in the Bay Area. Regards, Lisa Montanino Office of the President, Board of Supervisors Dear Eleanor, Thank you for the posters.  I like one of them and put it up in my office.  With respect to the other one, I do not agree with asking non-profits to pay an artists fee.  They can barely raise enough money to do the services their mission requires them to do.  I do agree with the TOT being entirely for the arts and not for Chabot, Museum and Zoo. Sincerely, Nancy Nadel

We will be documenting here our delivery attempts, sucesses, and failures in our endeavors to get these posters in the hands of elected officials. On January 27th and 28th, we passed through many, many metal detectors as we delivered to San Francisco based politicians with varying degrees of security.  Many people were wary of us whenever we asked for their pictures, so some of these pictures are on the sly and some are simply of the buildings where the offices of all our elected officials (or their underlings) work.  In general the delivery process went smoothly, however we wonder how many will actually end up in our official’s hands.  At Speaker Pelosi’s office the gentleman behind the desk asked if the Congresswoman was expecting them.  When we said no, he gave us a gentle smile and said, “ok”. City Hall, San Francisco This stack awaits delivery to the mailboxes of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors On January 29th, we delivered to elected officials in Oakland.  It was weird how many of the offices of all the state representatives in Oakland had bullet proof glass separating the secretaries from the public.  Barbara Lee’s office had the most relaxed atmosphere, with workers in jeans.  The secretary of Mayor Dellums was very nice, while Loni Hancock’s secretary asked the most questions and seemed the most interested in our project.

Oliver sent this to me: A Handbook for the Nerd Companion

Welcome to a new day for optimism. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hanson

Celebrating their 25th year, 4th estate, a book publisher, decided to make a video celebrating the world of books.  The stop motion animation is fantastic.  On their Vimeo site, you can watch the making of this project (also stop motion,) which is pretty impressive.  They had help from APT and Asylum Films. This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Cause you can at the last minute go camping very close by and it looks like this:

A couple of New York based musicians (Jaime Austria and Peter Weitzner) inspired by a Quincy Jones interview, where he said “…next conversation I have with President Obama is to beg for a Secretary of Arts.” are spearheading a call to the Obama administration for the establishment of a Cabinet level Arts position.  Names that are being thrown around are A Secretary of the Arts, Arts Czar, and Minister of Culture.  The campaign is drawing a lot of attention and currently the signatures on the petition number at almost 124,000.  You can add your name here. The position would not only create a direct voice for artists to the president, but would be able to look at the broad picture of the arts in this country.  Combining many disparate parts of government, the position could look at everything from arts education, the NEH, NEA, non-profit arts roles, cultural tourism, to arts copyright issues. Seems like a good idea to me.  As we have learned from TPG8, there are more US citizens that are artists than there are in the US military.

Do it. www.thepresentgroup.com/TPG-submissions.pdf

Click image to see full map. As Barack Obama enters office next week, his mantra of change will finally have a chance to prove itself.  Looking at this map from the Atlantic, we see not only the state of the nation he inherits, but also that things over the past 8 years have changed quite a bit already. Sources

Another example of someone believing in creating change in small doses- Ramit Sethi isn’t waiting around to see the change he wants in the world.  He’s contributing to it. Check out the grant/advice he is offering. It’s due this Thursday!!

The end of the year is always crazy- holidays, getting sick, and a TPG release.  But for some reason, this year it seemed even crazier.  Maybe in part because our car was totalled by a drug-crazed lunatic, we did a show in LA and we were leaving for the holidays even earlier than normal. When we got to my parents house, we got crazy sick, but in the end had a long, forced rest that we badly needed. And now it is a new year! Here are some of the things we’re looking forward to: *Another year of making great projects happen!  TPG9 already in the works! *We’re taking the car crash as a cue and testing out life without owning a car. *We’re gonna work from home in a different place: 1 month in Utah *We are going to let more people know about TPG. One way or another. We love this project- it needs to be able to sustain. *Exercise and healthy living. *Finish some projects and organize our life. *Perhaps we will unveil our next level of TPG projects.  TBD. It’s gonna be a good one.

Facilitated by Artists Space curator Joseph del Pesco, “State of the Arts” is an unconventional exhibition project where the medium is the message. The four enclosed letterpress posters are the result of two think-tank style conversations between groups of artists living and working in San Francisco and Oakland. During a series of follow-up emails with the curator, major points were identified and distilled into arguments, demands, and observations about the conditions for artists. Two of the posters address the situation in the state of California in general, and the other two speak directly to the SF Bay Area. All four posters will be delivered to elected officials in the Bay Area in addition to the subscribers of The Present Group. It is an edition of 96. In the conversations: Amy Balkin, Anthony Discenza, Aaron Gach, Eleanor Hanson, Packard Jennings, Helena Keeffe, Mads Lynnerup, Anthony Marcellini, Christian Maychack, Lee Montgomery, Lucas Murgida, Steve Shearer, Chris Sollars, David Stein, Oliver Wise Joseph del Pesco is curator-at-large for Artists Space (New York) and co-founder of the Shotgun Review (San Francisco). He has organized independent curatorial projects for the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, Canada; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; the Rooseum in Malm, Sweden; and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Italy among others. His writing has appeared in various magazines including Proximity, Fillip, NUKE, (and the next issue of Flash Art) in addition to several international exhibition catalogues. Documentation of these exhibitions and other projects can be found at  www.delpesco.com

UNIQUE LOS ANGELES is an exciting two-day shopping event that showcases independent design talent at great prices. Just in time for the holiday shopping season, the event brings together 200 of the best designers, artists and merchants. AND we are one of those amazing vendors.  We are sharing a booth with our good friend Lauren at Sweet Meats and it’s gonna be great. There are crafting stations, a funny mod bar/lounge, yummy local food, and tons of shopping. If anyone is in the LA area and wants tickets- we’ve still got some free ones for you!  Just email us and we’ll leave them at the front desk for you. But if you do buy tickets, 50% of the proceeds go to Create Now! a LA based non-profit working with at-risk youth. THE DETAILS: December 13th and 14th, 11-7 California Market Center (Penthouse – whatup) $5 Admission (unless you get some free tickets from us!)

 

A Sneak Peak into the making of TPG8 and into the life of James D. Lang, the owner of Horwinski Printing Company.  Founded in 1906 and dedicated to the craft of letterpress, this business has a long history of  working with artists, unions, politicians, and businesses of all sizes to spread their message. more after the jump >> Continue Reading »

Congratulations to our friends Alex and Petter on their happy day

– Coleman Barks reading/translating Rumi