Valentine Craftivism!

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A new month, a new winter craft!

We got wry and spry with our valentines this year, I decided to make “Valentines for Politicians”

Download them here from our CraftNight Website. 

Some of the valentines are mean, but… you know, making sweeping general unconstitutional bans that strand desperate people at airports for over 20 hours without food, and then maybe later down the line cause them to lose their lives… well, that’s not just mean, that’s absence of human decency. So we decided, on February 8th, to make love notes for Washington DC this year, and send them to those in power who could use a message from We the People. 

While some of these valentines coyly remind our elected officials that it’s only two years until citizens visit the voting booths, other valentines are anything but vague and take our country’s leaders to task for behaving like reprehensible bratty miscreants.

If you’re infatuated with the Trump administration, these valentines might not be for you. They tend to take politicians to task over things like civil rights, the environment, free speech, you know… silly little leftwing concerns. HA HA HA.

I also made a guide showing which politicians could use support, which ones could use encouragement, and which ones could really just use a crass souvenir of creative cheeky dissent.

Happy Valentines Day!

~JP

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Protest Poster Painting Party!!! We DID IT!!!

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Getting off to a GREAT start of the year on January 16th, SparkleBlob’s CraftNight had it’s biggest CraftNight EVER.

I decided that once a month at least, CraftNight would take part in at least one “Craftivisim” to get the public focused on fighting for social justice, civil rights, human rights, planet rights, and basically, the right to be treated like human beings with benevolence and tolerance for each other.

I think it was a good idea, because for our first attempt at rallying people: Akbar was stuffed to the gills!

People wanted, needed to put their thoughts and feelings on poster board, and do it along with other people having strong feelings about the new administration. We’ve never seen anything like it. David LeBarron and Bill Cole were my trusty cohorts, they were shellshocked about how many people we had busting down the doors to make signs! We couldn’t pour paint and replace water fast enough, we didn’t have enough brushes! We had to create a line to keep it from getting too crowded!

The experience was powerful and telling. For many of us, we haven’t had to work our activism muscles this much in a long time. Some of our younger participants had never put paint and brush in hand to express their first amendment rights. It was great to see people involved in the political process, and SparkleBlob will keep finding ways to keep our community engaged. And no, signs alone and marching are not the answer to the world’s problems.

Protesting is merely one branch of activism.

We also have phone calls to make, petitions to sign, and we need to lean on our politicians and journalists to do right by the planet and its inhabitants.

Because you know what?!?

If we destroy the earth, there will be no one left to argue about this stuff anyway, so let’s start by saying something about it!

~JP

 

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