More Coolo NASA Travel Posters

NASA has the best travel posters!

I wrote about some of their earlier posters HERE.  Well, they're at it again - repeated graphic excellence.  Check out the new posters HERE.

NASA travel poster!

Isn't that gorgeous?  Just makes you want to buy a ticket to far star-strewn places doesn't it?  Between NASA's poster campaign and the new Star Wars films space is suddenly cool again... maybe we'll get that Mars Colony in my life time.

And now that I've set up an inevitable and not-in-my-favor comparison, let me show you some more of the protest postcards I've been designing lately.  (Protest?  Why ever?)

A handy be-kind-not-cruel card to send to legislators about immigration issues.  

A health-care issues postcard.

And, for ticked-off women who, whatever your politics, are annoyed by powerful men
Not Listening...

In my head the Statue of Liberty is starting to live quite a heroic superhero adventure.  The perfect avitar for this moment in American history.

Please, if you're writing to your congressional representative or senator and you like a postcard design, feel free to print 'em and use 'em.  Pass 'em on!  

(Print on card stock at 4 1/4" x 6" or stuff, any sized, in an envelope.)

Oh, and don't forget the artsy one - the arts need all the help they can get:

From a behind-the-curtain artist's view, all these designs are collages done with computer image / photo editing software (rather than scissors and glue) from public domain images.  Turns out, for me at least, political upset means a chance to hone my computer / art skills!  Who knew?  So, if our American Experiment slides into Authoritarian Tyranny, maybe I can at least get work as a Propaganda Poster Hack.  Who knows? 

Or they'll need artists on Mars.

And, before I lose this stickynote again, here's a gem of a topical poem I found in the NY Times written by Susan McLean:

Trump seethes at what the writers say.

He'll pull the plug on the N.E.A.

The jokes on him. Art doesn't pay.

We write our satires anyway.

Theater for All!

Kitchen Dog Theater is proud to announce our new accessibility initiative: Admit:ALL - which provides 20 FREE tickets to every KDT performance this season (after opening nights) for those otherwise unable to afford them. 

These tickets will be available at the box office on a first come-first serve basis. Arrive half an hour before showtime and just ask for an Admit:ALL ticket! 

BIG THANKS to Communities Foundation of Texas for the seed grant to get this program off the ground! 

Paper Flowers - running now through March 11th. To see a full calendar of performance dates- go to kitchendogtheater.org 

Presidents' Day

"The only security of all is in a free press.

The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed.

The agitation it produces must be submitted to."

Versus:

I think I'm going to go with Thomas Jefferson on this one.

Fit For Empire

As an antidote to reading waaay too much current events / political coverage lately, today I'm rereading Francis Bacon's Essays.

Written about 450 years ago, I figured these musings by the shrewd English philosopher and statesman would give some perspective.  

Yes indeedy.  

Turns out, people are still pretty much the same people now as then.  Political forms are different - absolute monarchs being thinner on the ground today (though that could change) - but politics is still politics.  

Then, while still remembering this morning's headlines about the beginning of sweeping deportations, I read this ancient news-flash:

" All states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers, are fit for empire."

Bacon goes on to talk about how the Roman empire was the most welcoming of foreigners, inviting them into full citizenship.  This warm welcome and easy assimilation was the great strength and richness of their empire... the very thing that permitted their civilization to flourish and grow.  

Any present day applications come to mind?

A bronze statue of an aristocratic boy - Roman - the Met CC0

The essay is "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Empires."  The Roman Empire lasted 500 years, will ours last the next 260 if we become "ill-liberal" towards strangers?

Setting the Art Free

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has just announced that it's set 375,000 art images free.

Fly!  Be free!

All under a Creative Commons 0 license HERE... which means you can do what you like with 'em.  

Free I tell you!

PS In all my excitement I forgot to tell you that the wonderful falcon is ancient Egyptian, the sky a study by John Singer Sargeant, and both live at the terrific Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.  Go visit.

Up is Down, Black is White

Feel like America has fallen Through the Looking Glass?

Me too.

Anyway.  

Whenever you're talking to, emailing, faxing, writing to, or protesting at your senator or representative on the latest Outrage du Jour, please remember to mention NEA funding too.  The National Endowment for the Arts supports all sorts of art - it's especially important in getting arts into the countryside and into smaller towns, where students (or adults) wouldn't otherwise have art funding at all.  

My personal experience of NEA support comes mostly from Kitchen Dog Theater, where for five consecutive years (the only Texas theater who can say this!) we have received national funding for our New Works Festival.  

New plays by living American writers!

If you do feel moved to write your congressional folk, you're welcome to use this postcard:

Please feel free to use - print at 4 1/4" x 6" on card stock

This year will be Kitchen Dog's 19th New Works Festival.  In our time we've produced 26 world premiers of new plays and 125 staged readings of new works.  That's NEW work by living writers.

Please help us - and all those other artists that count on it - by helping the NEA.

Women in Theatre

I've been invited to sit on a panel discussion of The Designers! :

Monday, February 6 at 7pm at WaterTower Theater.

Tickets can be purchased online HERE or you can buy at the door.  To quote:

"The objective of the Women in Theatre panel series is to explore challenges, issues, and opportunities women working in the theatre face. This year's panel features Leann Burns, Clare Floyd DeVries, Sylvia Fuhrken Marrs, Frida Espinosa Muller, and will be moderated by arts journalist Lauren Smart. Each of the designers will bring personal insights, from a uniquely female perspective, about their experiences navigating the often challenging world of theatre."

Come on by!  Lighting designer Leann Burns and I recently completed WaterTower's production of Silent Sky, which turned out well.  (We're probably going to sit on its stage.)  A great chance to hear about Design Life - with whatever special viewpoint female designers may bring to it.

I'm curious myself to find out.