Day 6. Your Call to Action

Compel people to ACT with art.

Helloooo, my fine DrawTogether and Grown-Ups Table peeps. So happy you are here.

It’s day 6 of DrawTogether in Action. First things first:

LIVE DrawTogether Drawing Party to Get Out The Vote: THIS SUNDAY Sept. 15, 10-11am PT, On Zoom. ***EVERYONE WELCOME***

You MUST register for the zoom HERE AND sign up with VoteFwd to get addresses and letters for voters in swing states. It can take a day or two to go through, so please sign up today. Studies show decorating envelopes increases voter turnout, so we’ll hang out, get a visit from a special guest, and draw voter envelopes together. ART STRIKES AGAIN.

I cannot wait to see you there.

Now back to today’s regularly scheduled art/activism lesson.

Today, we’re going to combine all of the elements that we’ve studied this week: text/phrases, collage/layering, portraiture, and symbols and produce an image that compels people DO SOMETHING.

We’re focusing on what the advertising world refers to as a “Call to Action.”

I worked in advertising for several years - as both a copywriter and a campaign director. Those jobs taught me to use visuals to get people’s attention, come up with captivating concepts, tell a story in a single image, and get real clear about the image’s message and the action I want the message to inspire. Today, I am are going to share with you some of what I learned working in that field that’s helpful for creating artwork that compels people to DO SOMETHING.

Art v Activism

As artists, we often want to create artwork that provokes questions. We want our work to expand hearts and minds, and encourage people to think and feel more critically and deeply. We want to offer people the opportunity to see the world with fresh eyes.

Activism is different. When we put our activist hat on, we usually want people to understand a very particular point of view we hold: War is terrible. Women should have control over their bodies. Less guns are good. Stuff like that. And often, not only do we want our artful activism to compel people to think differently, we want to make the viewer DO SOMETHING about it.

We want our work to provoke some behavior that will help solve the problem.

Quick poll: Can art be activism, and activism be art? What do you think?

Text + Image = Clear, Strong Communication

When we create something that we want to provoke a specific action or feeling, it’s important that our messages be clear and strong, and connect with the viewer. That’s one of the reasons why you often see text and image used in tandem so often in activist art. Image and text together can convey a strong, clear message AND provoke feelings.

Some messages are meant to appeal to the heart. These are usually broad, like Peace on Earth, etc. These messages are meant to sway hearts and minds.

Other messages are intended to inspire behavior change. VOTE, for example. These are more specific and involve a VERB. Messages that request people DO SOMETHING we refer to as a Call To Action.

CALL to ACTION

To stir action in people with our artwork we gotta be clear in what we want the action to be. A poster of California poppies that says “Love the earth” is less specific than the same poppy poster that says “Don’t litter.” Both posters encourage environmentalism but the “Don’t litter” poster offers a direction of how someone can love the earth. It is specific and clear.

That is what we are focusing on today. Creating Call to Actions for our drawings.

Below are some wonderful examples of art works that are strengthened by strong, pithy call-to-actions. And yes, VOTE is indeed a call to action, and the image can do the lift of explaining why it’s so important.

Ceated in 1987, SILENCE = DEATH posters drew attention to the AIDS crisis by calling for action around AIDS/HIV. The LGBT community reclaimed the use of the pink triangle in the 1970s - a symbol that Nazi’s used in concentration camps to single out gay prisoners - and its use here is poignant, powerful and striking as an image and CALL TO ACTION.

Designer Seymour Chwast’s created this poster in 1968 to protest the Vietnam War. He’s placed bombs inside UncleSam’s mouth and instead of saying “end the war” it says “End bad breath” - a clever and eye catching spin that is a strong CALL TO ACTION.

“The simplicity of this poster’s two-color silk screen works brilliantly with the bold typeface and composition, knocking out the text from the background and the powerful blackness of Davis’ natural hair,” - SFMOMA associate curator Jospeh Becker. Angela Davis was an unjustly detained as a political prisoner at the time of the printing of this poster. The words “FREEDOM for ANGELA DAVIS” are a helluva strong and just Call to Action.

Today, the pro-democracy organization People for the American Way has a program called “Artists for Democracy” that works in partnership with notable artists to create limited edition artwork that encourages democracy and justice - and voting. The work is featured on billboards throughout the USA, and the limited edition prints are being sold as a fundraiser.

Here are a few of examples of this years artworks:

Artist and educator Beverly McIver combined a striking visual and text in her painting. She uses the image of a uterus and fallopian tubes to form the “T” in “VOTE” and pairs it with a painting of a strong, joyful, proud femme figure. The message around freedom and autonomy over one’s body and its relationship to voting is clear, and the image is striking, and moving. Call to action? “VOTE.”

Shepard Fairey shared an artist statement to accompany this piece: “Hard-won voting rights are essential to democracy, but rising voter suppression is leading us toward a possible future in which some voters are intimidated, deterred, or altogether shut out of elections. Democracy does not function properly unless there is equal access to the vote for ALL eligible voters. Let’s do all that we can to pursue justice and prevent barriers, checkpoints, and all forms of voter intimidation that are part of the push toward fascism.”

In this sculptural piece, the artist Carrie Mae Weems printed a text on a plate “Not again, not on my watch!!” Her personal statement becomes a statement we can all embrace. The action one can take? Vote in 2024.

Finally, a trio of voting posters by the Artist and Activist

Jen Bloomer

who takes a different approach with posters: she makes her work downloadable for free on her website.

Posters by Jen Bloomer, each use visuals to express a different reason to vote - which is, or course, a simple, powerful CALL TO ACTION.

Alright, now it’s your turn.

Today we are applying the tactic of using a Call to Action on our drawing to compel a viewer to DO SOMETHING.

Assignment: Call-to-Artion

All the assignments we’ve done this week were variations on a theme you chose to FOCUS on; different ways to convey the message you want to express. Today, you are going to return to one of the images you created and add a strong CALL TO ACTION. (Or create a new one - no rules in art!)

Here’s how: