OCCUPRINT, 2011-2012
In the fall of 2011, I was in Joplin, Missouri working on a community mural when news of the occupation of Zuccotti Park arrived like bolt of lightning. I immediately felt a strong affinity for both its process (horizontal) and purpose (to create a more equitable and caring society), and I wanted to help amplify those ideas even if I was way out in the Midwest. It didn’t take long. Friends associated with the Justseeds artists’ cooperative formed Occuprint, an open source platform for sharing Occupy posters, and I jumped in.
As with many of the posters I make, it was my hope that these would help spread the spirit of the movement and help inspire those involved. Visual art like poetry and song has great power to energize, expose, and question, and I am committed as an artist living here and now to have my work speak in service of the struggles and movements I believe in. In 2013, Occuprint published a portfolio to help raise funds for ongoing work. My poster, “Tip of the Iceberg” was included as a special edition in the first twenty portfolios, one of which is now in the Museum of Modern Art.
"Tip of the Iceberg" was my response to the dismissal by many that Occupy was just a New York thing. It’s based on both a metaphor, that Zuccotti Park is an iceberg, and on a veiled analogy to the Titanic disaster. What’s not spelled out in the image, but helped drive my process, is the story of the Titanic and the hubris that led to its sinking. In early versions, I had a little ship about to hit the Zuccotti iceberg, and even tried out text like “Beware Captains of the 1%.” In the end, I felt like I was complicating my main idea — that the movement is much larger than the encampments — so I took out the Titanic references.