Coloring Outside the Lines: Black Cartoonists as Social Commentators

November 11, 2011-April 7, 2012

This exhibition, curated by Kheven LaGrone includes the work of:

Jerry Craft
Barbara Brandon-Croft
Brumsic Brandon
Keith Knight
Nate Creekmore
Cory Thomas
Darrin Bell
Morrie Turner
Makeda Rashidi

Keith Knight

 

The best cartoons expose some truths and, to quote the Bible, “the truth will set you free.”               -Kheven LaGrone

I’ve been censored too many times to mention. Mostly in the Bay Area.
-Keith Knight

When his art is released, the artist has no control over how a viewer may react.  Not everyone will understand what the artist is trying to say or do and in most cases an artist will displease as many people as he pleases.
–Nate Creekmore

DURING “LUTHER’S” VERY EARLY DAYS, HATE MAIL UNWITTINGLY SUPPLIED ME WITH A MOTHERLODE OF MATERIAL.   
–Brumsic Brandon

I don’t feel that I’m any more or less of an outcast than any other individual.  No one is without his or her quirks. Maintaining very much focused on the idea that we (people, groups, individuals) are all equally absurd.
-Nate Creekmore

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Download: Coloring Outside the Lines African American Cartoonists assignment

The Men Along the Shore and the Legacy of 1934

October 21, 2011-April 1, 2012

The Men Along the Shore and the Legacy of 1934.

At the beginning of the 20th century, employers launched an all-out campaign to crush the labor movement. Union organizers were portrayed as un-American in the media, and union members were subjected to a reign of terror, including vigilante violence, mass arrests, deportations, and lynchings. Radical union leaders were driven underground and many workers were forced to join company unions.

In 1934 the workers fought back. In May, maritime workers went on strike, shutting down the entire West Coast. A new labor movement was born. It was a birth paid for in blood. Police and vigilantes opened fire on strikers and demonstrators, killing and wounding workers in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and San Pedro.

This unique display of historical photographs, graphic arts, newspapers, artifacts and documents was originally commissioned by the Longshore Division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to portray the union’s origins in the historic 1934 strike. Historical materials were gathered from the ILWU library in San Francisco and union sources in San Pedro, Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle. Additional items were obtained from museums, historical societies, public libraries, universities, and the personal collections of ILWU members.

The exhibit pays tribute to those who sacrificed and gave up their lives so that future generations could live in a more just world and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

D0wnload: IlWU Assignment and Bibliography

Link to the Labor and Community Studies Department at City College of San Francisco

 

Hoy Como Ayer: Generations of Latin Music

September 22 2011-March 24, 2012

Hoy Como Ayer, created in collaboration with City College of San Francisco’s Music Department, focuses on 4 styles of Latin Music: Samba, Corrido, Salsa and Afro-Cuban Music. As Professor Rebecca Mauleon, author of the exhibition text, points out, these are just a few of the many styles  within the pantheon of Latin music. The exhibition includes photographs by Stanley Lopez Padilla, student projects, LP covers, CDs and cassettes, handwritten musical scores by Inaudiz Paisan Mallet of Santiago de Cuba, photographs, books and musical instruments.

Check out these resources in the CCSF Library and do the assignment:

Latin Music Assignment and Book List

Photographs by Stanley Lopez Padilla:

John Santos and Orestes Vilató

Fall 2011 – Spring 2012 Rosenberg Library Exhibitions

Woven Works from John Adams

Showcasing Textiles From Deborah Corsini’s Tapestry class and Janice Sullivan’s Weaving I, II, III

 
Photos 1 and 2 by Swan Vega from the Floor Loom Weaving class, photo 3: Tapestry weaving on a handmade frame loom

The John Adams Campus Library is proud to host this amazing selection of textiles created right here in our building!
The Weaving classes are offered through the Fashion Department
and a Textile Certificate is now available.

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October 11—December 9
Reception: Monday, November 14
11:00-12:00
John Adams Campus Library
1860 Hayes Street
2nd floor, room 204
San Francisco, CA 94117
415 561-1946

Library Hours and Link:

Monday-Thursday 9:00-6:45

Friday 9:00-12:45

http://www.ccsf.edu/NEW/en/library/about-library/library-locations/jad.html

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Tapestry is a hand woven pictorial weaving.  Students build their own frame looms and learn the techniques and language particular to this type of weaving. Color, design and history are all aspects that are examined throughout the semester. This exhibit showcases some recent student work in all of its variety. Deborah Corsini’s Tapestry class is primarily a beginning class, but many students choose to continue studying after their first semester. It is non-credit, and may be repeated as often as the student wishes. Tapestry is offered on Friday, 9:30 -1:30.

The textiles woven by the Floor Loom Weaving classes represent intermediate and advanced students. These students work on looms that are capable of weaving many yards of cloth with very intricate patterns. They also work in a variety of fibers, wool, silk, cotton and rayon. Surface design techniques can be incorporated onto the woven cloth. That means that the cloth can be hand dyed, printed or discharged (color removal) after weaving. These techniques can be applied to the warp and/or weft and enhance the cloth to create a richer, more complex surface. The Floor Loom classes taught by Janice Sullivan are credit classes, Weaving I, II, and III may be repeated a limited number of times. Weaving II & III, Monday 12:00pm – 5:00pm and Weaving I, Tuesday, 9:00am – 1:00pm.

John Adams Campus is a great place to weave!

Tapestry: The word conjures up images of the blue-green forests of medieval times, a thousand flowers, castles, hunting scenes, unicorns, and the tales and myths of knights and maidens, knaves and kings. But the rich history of tapestry is even more prodigious than that imagery suggests.  Tapestry traditions are thousands of years old and are found in cultures around the world: from Coptic or tiraz tapestries from ancient Egypt, Pre-Columbian tapestries of the Central Andes of South American, classical European Gobelin / Aubusson tapestries, kelims of central Asia, Navajo rugs, Chinese kesi, and folk tapestries from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.  All are part of the vast wellspring from which contemporary tapestry artists draw inspiration.

In essence, tapestry is a hand woven pictorial weaving.  It is technically defined as a weft-faced, plain weave using discontinuous wefts. For the non-weaver this means that the weaving yarns are woven in small areas to build up a color instead of traveling from selvedge to selvedge with a shuttle. The weft yarns (the weaving yarns) completely cover the warp or structural threads that are held taught to the loom. The weft yarns create the design of the tapestry. The unique quality of tapestry is that the surface image and the construction structure are intimately connected and embedded. Various techniques are used to join and blend colors including slits, dovetailing, and interlocking. The weaving of tapestry is one of the slowest and most labor-intensive of art-making processes. Despite its time-consuming nature, tapestry is created by weavers around the world because of irresistible qualities — the depth of color, the range of designs that can be created, the challenges of the woven mark — that make tapestry unlike any other media.

- Deborah Corsini, Instructor

See the flyer for this CCSF Library Exhibition

Find books and articles on textiles in the CCSF Libraries

Find more classes in the City College of San Francisco Fashion Department

Group project copying a medieval tapestry, each student creates one section

Scarves woven by the floor loom weaving class, various techniques: Handspun yarn on Peruvian and Navajo spindles, boat shuttle

         

Top: projects from the floor loom weaving class
scarves and runner, double-weave wall hanging, scarf and wall hanging

Bottom: landscape based tapestries

  

Reception event photos,  photo credit: Alan D’Souza

Download: Weaving Assignment John Adams Campus Library

Reduce.Reuse.Recycle.Recreate

April 20-November 4, 2011
2nd Floor, Rosenberg Library, City College of San Francisco

A Gallery Full of Reclaimed Junk

Looking around the 2nd floor gallery at the Rosenberg Library, can you guess what these materials looked like when someone dropped them off at the dump?

Recology’s Artist in Residence Program at the San Francisco Dump

The Artist In Residence Program at Recology San Francisco is an innovative program that inspires and educates people about recycling and resource conservation by providing local artists with access to materials, a work space, and other resources at the Recology Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center.

Trash to Treasures
Since 1990, artists have worked in a large, well-equipped studio next to the Recology Transfer Station west of Highway 101 near Monster Park in San Francisco. The Transfer Station is located within a 44-acre property that includes several recycling facilities and the Public Disposal Area (also known as “the dump”).

Art is created from what would have been sent with the rest of San Francisco’s trash to landfills across the Bay or recycling plants across the nation.

Check out the Library’s resources on:
Art Garbage Recycling Environment Environmental Justice

Download the Recology Assignment on the R.R.R.R Library Exhibition

Go to Recology’s website to learn more about their special events!

Breaking Boundaries

April 6-October 7, 2011
Rosenberg Library, 3rd Floor, City College of San Francisco

An Exhibition in Collaboration with
the Disabled Students Program

Photographer Richard Bermack visited the  two City College Disabled Students Classes, Arts and Crafts For The Disabled, taught by Carole Fitzgerald at the John Adams Campus and Drama For The Disabled, taught by Judy Goodman at the Mission Campus. He spoke with and photographed Judi Kaplan demonstrating how to read lips and captured images of some of the tools that CCSF students use in class: the viewer that enlarges text and the process for real-time captioning.

See more of Richard’s work at www.RichardBermack.com

The CCSF Disabled Students Services Department:

There are thousands of people with disabilities at City College of San Francisco. They are students, faculty, and staff. Their disabilities include impairments in mobility, vision, hearing, and speech; and less obvious problems such as learning disabilities, post traumatic stress syndrome, psychological disorders, and developmental disabilities. There are also individuals who experience other functional limitations as a result of an acquired brain impairment or other health problems such as arthritis, diabetes, seizure, cardiac disorders, and so on. DSPS  works with CCSF students to reach their educational goals.

Find Resources on Disabilities Through the CCSF Library:
Selected Resources on Disabilities

Contact the DSPS Department:

For Website, CLICK HERE

415) 452-5481 Voice – Ocean campus
(415) 452-5451 TDD (for persons who are deaf) – Ocean campus

or

(415) 561-1001 Voice – John Adams campus
(415) 561-1007 TDD – John Adams campus

Telephone appointments with counselors are available for those who are not able to come to campus.

Revolutionizing Memory, Constructing the Future

March 16-September 16, 2011

Stencil Art from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Rick Kappra describes his photographic exhibition
in the Rosenberg Library:

In the summer of 2007 I went to Buenos Aires to study Spanish for two months.  I knew some of the history, but I didn’t know the details.  I was curious and wanted to learn more.

I found that people were very willing to talk about politics in Argentina, unlike in the United States, where political discussions are not considered appropriate for “polite” conversations, or where our political discourse is often more mythology than fact.  In Argentina, discussions of politics were everywhere – in my Spanish classes, on TV, and among friends.  People were not afraid to talk about the dirty war, the 30,000 or more Argentines who were “disappeared”, the economic collapse or the things that caused it.  After 25 years of being afraid to speak, Argentines believed in the power of their voices, their memories and their political action.

This belief in the importance of political action was reflected in the daily protests that closed streets and schools and shut down train lines.  Direct action seemed to be the greatest political weapon that modern Argentina had, or perhaps its last resort.

I first discovered stencil graffiti in the neighborhood of San Telmo.  I believe it was my second day in Buenos Aires.  “Soy puto y soy feliz” – ‘I’m a fag and I’m happy’ was one of the first that I saw.  “Besa a quien quieras” – ‘Kiss whomever you want’, was another.  Among this collection of powerful statements of queer militancy, were teddy bears and other whimsical figures.  It was my introduction to a world of expression I quickly learned to love.  As I went about documenting it, it became like a treasure hunt.  Each piece of graffiti revealed one more aspect of the tremendous fight Argentines were waging to free themselves from their past while not forgetting it.  Queer rights, women’s rights, class struggle and calls for prosecution of those behind recent human rights violations were some of the many issues that were expressed through the stencil graffiti.  The struggle to save their schools, a cause of many of the street protests, appeared alongside other rallying cries. The graffiti was simple, direct and for me as a learner of Spanish as a second language, easy to understand and digest.  In its simplicity lay its power.

Rick Kappra, Photographer
ESL Instructor, Civic Center Campus, City College

Find Information on:
Argentina and Street Art through the City College Library

Marion Brown and the Department Store Employees Union

Rosenberg Library, 4th Floor Reference Case
February 1-September 9, 2011

In 1936, Marion Brown, a 19 year old clerk at Woolworth’s Department Store, was radicalized by the unjust firing of several workers and went on to found the Department Store Employees’ Union. Drawing by Giacomo Patri

Photo Left: Marion Brown, photographer unknown
Photo Right: Emma Adami, Rose Lancilotti. In an effort to tell their story  to a maximum number of passersby, these two strikers used placards understandable to many a patron of the five-and-ten-cent store at 1343 Stockton St. where the two are on picket duty along with 450 other striking employees of Woolworth and Newberry stores. In case you haven’t guessed, one sign’s in Chinese; the other in Italian. Aug. 13, 1937. Photographer unknown.

The 1934 San Francisco General Strike inspired a wave of union organizing in the city: unions spread to the city’s warehouses, hotels, street cars, garment workers, and department store clerks.  Women played key leadership roles in many of these struggles.

In 1936 the F.W. Woolworth Company warehouses were organized by the International Longshoremen’s Association.  When the company refused to recognize the union, warehousemen went out on strike and also set up an informational picket outside the main San Francisco Woolworth store at the corner of Fifth and Market.

Invited by I.L.A. strikers, nineteen year-old Marion Brown and six other store employees attended a Sunday meeting at the San Francisco Labor Council to hear more about the issues.  Observed by a Woolworth’s assistant manager, all seven were summarily fired upon returning to work Monday morning.  An angry Marion Brown promptly joined the picket line outside.

When the Woolworth Company decided to end its warehouse strike I.L.A. negotiators made re-employment of the seven fired store employees a settlement condition.  But Marion Brown recalled years later that F.W. Woolworth Co. and she were in perfect agreement at that point in time – they didn’t want to put her back in her old job and she didn’t wish to go back, “under any circumstances.”  She went on instead to help found the Department Store Employees’ Union (later Retail Clerks Local  1100)

Chartered in 1937, the Department Store Employees’ Union rapidly organized the major department stores in the city, including the biggest, the F.W. Woolworth Store at Fifth and Market Streets.  Union’s often used street theater to capture public attention and support for their cause.

On the line in front of Penny’s Department Store, 1939, Photographer unknown

Check out Giacomo Patri’s pioneering graphic novel “White Collar”

Download a List of Library Resources on Women and Labor

Download Marion Brown Assignment

Exhibition and all photos from the Labor Archive and Research Center at San Francisco State University. Check out their Facebook Page.

Spring-Fall Exhibitions at the Rosenberg Library

Poster by CCSF student Kasper Rodenborn, Graphic Communications 68