Glass Houses Explained

The Glass Houses print seems fairly self-explanatory, but l should explain some of the ideas and motivation behind it. A basic idea is that we, meaning we as a society, are familiar with the cautionary anecdotes about “glass houses” and “houses of cards”, yet despite warning signs we allow dangerous practices to go unchecked. People with money have the power to change many things in the world. Unfortunately money and power are often used to prevent change, no matter how broken the current system may be, especially when their wealth is a direct result of that system. Over the past couple years, the U.S. has seen several chronically toxic systems—healthcare, energy, finance, auto manufacturing—melt down into large-scale catastrophes, causing widespread suffering. The administrators of these systems, from Wall Street to big oil, haven’t been spared from suffering, but instead of letting the perpetrators bear the brunt of their disastrous judgment, our political leaders have done what they usually do: whatever their financial (read: corporate) backers want them to.

I don’t want to diminish some of the positive reforms that have been passed by our Congress, because I think that things like making it illegal for health insurers to deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions or mandating an audit of the Federal Reserve are better than nothing. What saddens and angers me is that all these systems have proven themselves unsustainable and in need of massive change, yet the only changes made have been minor and mostly cosmetic.

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LOVE ME NYC – Curtis Kulig

Curtis Kulig has a new print available at Poster Child Prints. It is titled “LOVE ME NYC,” it is an edition of 250, 18 x 24 and is for sale for $60. People say he looks like face from the new A-Team. Buy it here.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photographer – Henry Diltz

Henry Diltz has been one of the most important photographers in rock ‘n’ roll for almost half a century, shooting rock icons from Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain. I met him through Henry Rollins when he was working as a still photographer on The Henry Rollins Show, and have been a fan ever since I first saw his work.

Diltz started out as a folk musician, playing with the Modern Folk Quartet, and bought his first camera while on tour with them. He started hanging out with The Monkees and taking photos of them, and shot an album cover—the first of over eighty he would go on to shoot—for The Lovin’ Spoonful. He immersed himself in the rock scene and became the go-to photographer for bands like The Doors and Crosby, Stills and Nash, and was the official photographer for Woodstock and the Monterey Music Festival. He transcended the hippie generation and continued to shoot an extremely impressive roster of artists too long to list here. The reference photo of Neil Young for this piece was taken in 1969 and my all time favorite photo of Neil. Thanks for collaborating Henry.

-Shepard

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VH1 HIP HOP HONORS x Save the Music

Shepard recently donated some prints to help support the VH1 Save the Music Foundation and to celebrate this years 7th Annual 2010 VH1 Hip Hop Honors featuring the music, the influence, and the artists of the South.  Benefits from this auction will go towards music education in Southern public schools.  Check the links below and support.  The auction ends June 21st.

www.charityfolks.com/hiphop
www.vh1savethemusic.com

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Human Rights Watch

Around this time last year, I created an image of Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, who despite being elected prime minister in 1990 has been kept out of power by Burma’s military junta, and has been placed under house arrest for the better part of the last 20 years. The military regime has also imprisoned over 2,100 other political activists, including artists, poets and musicians who have expressed their dissent through their art.
It saddens me to know that there are places in this world where artists can’t make art or express themselves otherwise without fearing imprisonment or worse. It is a fundamental violation of human rights, according to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
I believe that all positive change stems from acts of self-expression, but the Burmese military regime fears change and fends it off by stifling expression. To an artist, that censorship is like an acid that corrodes the soul. Within a society, it is a contagious paranoia that Aung San Suu Kyi once summed up perfectly: “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”
Today there is some slim hope for democracy and human rights in Burma as a result of the diplomatic pressure that the UN, the U.S. and Japan have exerted. The junta has announced that there will be elections later this year, though they haven’t said when, and if the four illegal extensions of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest are any indication I’d say they have a habit of going back on their word. I consider Burmese democracy an important cause that demands more awareness and activism in the U.S. and around the world, not only because of the plight of Burma’s dissidents but because I believe that a global grassroots movement can help create real change there.
To the artists currently imprisoned in Burma, I would like to say that your voice can never be silenced, because it is the voice of everyone who believes in freedom. I hope that you will soon have the means and the rights to create again.
If you’d like to get involved in the grassroots movement to free Burma’s political prisoners, visit the Human Rights Watch site dedicated to the cause: http://www.hrw.org/free-burmas-prisoners/take-action

Here is a DOWNLOADABLE version of the Aung San Suu Kyi image

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Clean Up Your Own Mess

The sign in this photo points out a depressing irony. While BP seems to clearly understand that people should be responsible for their own messes at their gas stations, they may not intend to fully clean up their own mess in the Gulf. Most likely, billions of tax dollars will go to cleaning up the BP spill. A concept that I don’t think many people understand is that of COMMON ASSETS. About ten years ago I did a logo for an organization called the Common Assets Defense Fund. The idea is that companies that profit from harming the environment should pay for their environmental impact. When the government pays to clean up environmental damage created by corporations, in essence, tax dollars are subsidizing for profit companies. A concept similar to Common Assets Defense is Cap and Trade. Cap and trade is one method for regulating and ultimately reducing the amount of pollution emitted into the atmosphere. It is viewed as a more democratic solution to regulating pollution than a carbon tax as it creates a commodity out of the right to emit carbon and allows the commodity to be traded on the free market. Ironically, the conservatives who are usually advocates of free market principles fight cap and trade as stifling business… it seems they prefer the current corporate welfare, or at least government subsidy of corporate interests. I am more worried about pollution stifling the survival of the planet. The biggest obstacle to the passage of cap and trade is corporate lobbyists. Corporations spend huge amounts of money to influence legislation. Most people who oppose cap and trade are either on a corporate payroll, or are worried about corporations passing their environmental clean-up costs on to the consumer. The latter is a real possibility, but an even more likely result would be the corporations trying to be cleaner to avoid the penalties and save money in the first place. My friend Adam Werbach who was the youngest president of the Sierra Club, and the person I worked with on the Common Assets Defense Fund, has recently consulted Wal-Mart on their greening effort. I’m no fan of Wal-Mart, but they are getting greener to SAVE MONEY, possibly in anticipation of cap and trade passing, but either way, they are saving money and being less destructive to the planet. I think green technology may need to initially be subsidized, but ultimately its development will be driven by market forces if cap and trade is in place. Thanks for caring.
-Shepard

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The Cobra Shop x LA

I’ve known Mark The Cobra Snake since he was 17. He sent me a really funny letter with photos of creative and subversive things he had done with my images. One of them I especially liked was an “Obey totem pole” he had made that basically consisted of glueing my images all over an extremely heavy object and rolling it on a skateboard to the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica to be left as an annoyingly heavy propaganda object. I was impressed by the psychology and ingenuity of this endeavor… if putting the totem pole there took slightly more effort than anyone was willing to put into removing it, then the object and propaganda would triumph. Mark asked me if he could come poster bombing with me sometime. I liked his energy and drove to Santa Monica to meet his mom. We had a good time postering and Mark soon became my first assistant (not my top assistant out of several, but actually the first one I ever had). I think that seeing my design studio and underground art dissemination played a part in Mark starting his website. We all want to earn a living doing mischief we want to do anyway, and Mark is no exception, other than that he’s been better at it than most. I’ll be DJ’ing his store opening Tues. night and there will also ATTENTION be a limited number of my prints pulled from my personal archive that are sold out on the internet. I’m sure Mark will have all sorts of random treasures he’s collected and curated. Check it out.
-Shepard

The Cobra Shop
Hollywood and Highland, 4th Floor
Opening Tuesday, June 8th, 6-9pm
RSVP at [email protected]

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Obey Clothing Summer Sample Sale 2010

Summers here and you know what that means! Shorts! Don’t worry we have you covered, Obey Clothing Summer Sample Sale 2010. Same rules as every year: Cash, Visa, MasterCard only. All Sales final. No returns or Exchanges. No Bags. No Backpacks. No Obey is to be worn.

Date/Times:
Friday, June 25th
from 8am – 7pm

Saturday, June 26th
From 8am – 2pm

Address:
3500 W. Carriage Dr.
Santa Ana, CA 92704

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