I’ve been living in New York City for a turbulent two months (exactly). It’s been really hard to find a place where I feel like I belong, not to mention a place where I can feel peaceful. I feel really beaten down sometimes, and lonely, a lot.
There are little sprouts of happiness throughout my days though, and I’m discovering them more and more lately. These are the times when I feel inspired, excited to be here, and enthusiastic about exploring.
One of these little sprouts is Adobe Photoshop. At Deep Dish TV, where I have been volunteering since I’ve been here (and hopefully will be moderately employed as a grant writer… and helping the amazing DeeDee Halleck with her Waves of Change project), I have for some reason become the graphic designer, even though I had never used photoshop before.
My first project was making a program for a screening and panel discussion we held at the Labowitz Theatre at NYU, on November 20. The event was called Behind Bars: Exposing and Transforming the Prison Industrial complex. The screening consisted of clips from the archive of programs we have – everything from a piece on Mumia Abu Jamal to one about the last graduation and end of college programs in prison. After the screening, a really interesting panel of people spoke about their experiences as activists working to end the prison-industrial complex. Pilar Maschi, who I was really moved by, talked about how she was running from the cops when she was pregnant with her first daughter, and now she works as an organizer in the South Bronx for an organization called Critical Resistance. Her daughter, who she calls her “safety blanket” sat on her lap the whole time, and I got to sit across from her at dinner afterward and talk to her more about her story… Here is the program cover that I designed for the event
Starting yesterday, Brian (the director of DDTV) asked me to make a logo for our DIY Media Series: Movement Perspectives on Critical Moments. This is a DVD series that looks at grassroots movements that have developed in response to injustices – there are DVDs on the rise of ACT-UP about AIDS, the environmental justice movement, the protesters of corporate globalization, and the movements that arose to combat US government intervention in Latin America. Anyway, here is the logo that I designed for that all day today.
Anyway, creating keeps my spirits up – need to do it more consistently.
