photo of teacher Cecily Langford, 2008

survey by Damon Locks

The discussion continues regarding the pros and cons of educating.

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Eve Fineman, 

age 38

What subject/s do you teach? I teach upper level studios in an undergraduate Interior Architecture program, including furniture design, portfolio, thesis and independent design studios.

Where do you teach? The Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago

What age group do you teach? 20 – 50 year olds. Many of my students are non-traditional college students, on their second degrees or careers, so the average age is in the mid-twenties.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? Great question! One benchmark for me is the highest level of quality I can get my students to produce, as measured not by the strongest students but by the ones who find it the most challenging. If I can teach them to tap into their abilities and discover new strengths and a higher level of confidence, then I think I have been successful.

Additionally, my success is measured by the outcomes of the students, and whether they have gained new knowledge or skills during the course of my time teaching them. Sometimes it takes a long time to see these come to full fruition. I love seeing their talents and abilities mature once they have graduated and are putting them into practice.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? Most of my students are putting themselves through school and are taking out major loans. As a result, their schedules are insane, where they are working full-time jobs and taking 4 studio courses at a time. That is not right, and causes them extreme stress and fatigue. They are not able to put as much into the class material as I’d like them to. But I don’t blame them, I blame the system that has caused higher education to be prohibitively expensive.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? YES!!! If I am lucky, I will be teaching alongside some of my brilliant former students.
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Therese Quinn, age 52

What subject/s do you teach? Art education classes related to teaching art in schools, like fieldwork and apprentice teaching seminars, and histories, theories and philosophies of American public education, and sometimes classes that connect to museums.

Where do you teach? School of the Art Institute of Chicago

What age group do you teach? College, both undergraduate and graduate levels

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? Through the engagement and successes of my students, such as when they go on to teach in public schools across the city and country, and develop exhibits for museums, and publish their writing about teaching and everything else they do.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? Our national lack of regard for teachers of any subject, and specifically, the way our social understanding of “artist” is so limited (only for a few very special people, and not a way of understanding and responding the world that all of us should be able to access) and often precludes other identities, like “teacher.”

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? Yes, teaching is intellectually challenging and political work, and always dynamic. And teaching people who will go on to be teachers, and doing this in Chicago–well, there’s nothing more exciting. Chicago has always been at the sharp edge of thinking about public education; from Jane Addams and John Dewey’s work in progressive and socially engaged education, to the initiation of elected Local School Councils in the 1980s, on through to Mayor Daley’s takeover of the Chicago Public Schools and Arne Duncan’s failed attempts to raise scores by closing public schools and opening quasi-private charter schools–this is the city where all education ideas and practices, good and bad, get tested. I can’t think of any kind of labor that is more interesting right now.
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Nicole Mitchell

What subject/s do you teach? Jazz History and Jazz Ensemble

What age group do you teach? I teach high school and at a university.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I measure success by enthusiasm, independence, inspiration and development of the students.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? The major factor that impedes my work is the complication of being a professional artist in my field and teaching. Teaching schedules can be very strict which limits my accessibility to students. If institutions can be more supportive and flexible with active artists, students will be able to benefit more.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I will be teaching in 10 years because teaching and mentorship is part of the balance in my lifestyle. It’s important to give to the future.

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Kelly Kuvo a.k.a. Ms. Richardson, age 40

What subject/s do you teach? Fundamentals of Art, Arts and Crafts, Ceramics

Where do you teach? Baltimore City Public Schools, currently at Heritage High School

What age group do you teach? Middle/High School students ages 13 -21

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? Students completed art projects & improvement in art skills over time, student understanding of principles of art/elements of design/aesthetics: describing, analyzing, interpreting, and judging their own and others artworks both verbally in class and in writing on a critique worksheet. Student work being chosen to represent my school in city and state-wide art exhibitions.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? Inept school administrators that have no interest in understanding what I do as an art teacher, nor the amount of supplies I need and why I’ll need them, and no concept of the extra time it takes to prepare art materials before each lesson in contrast to other subject area teachers who simply work with paper worksheets and pen/pencil everyday.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? Yes, in New York City or Los Angeles. Definitely not in Baltimore

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Diane Lena, age 42

Where do you teach? Early Childhood Montessori, Oscar Mayer Magnet school in Lincoln Park

What age group do you teach? 3-6 year olds

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I measure my success as an educator by observing my students and my classrooms environment. Are my students happy? Are they excited about learning new things. Are they working together as a community? I know I am successful I see my students teaching each other, talking to each other about what they have learned, and asking question to deepen their understanding.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? Developmentally inappropriate expectations. Many administrators do not have or even try to a thorough understanding of child development.There is a trend to make preschool more academic. I do believe it is important to challenge children, but not pushing to the point of frustration.

Another impeding factor is the lack of appreciation or understanding of the importance of the creative thought process in education.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I do think I’ll be teaching or involved in education in 10 years. It will hopefully be in my own school or a school that has been developed with people that share the same educational philosophy as me.

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Olivia, age 37

What subject/s do you teach? Humanities – integrated English Lang Arts, Spanish Lang Arts, Social Studies, Fine and Folk Arts

Where do you teach? I taught 6-8th grades for 10 years at Telpochcalli Elementary school, a small CPS school in La Villita at 24th and California. This has been my first year out of my regular classroom – now am working with other schools and teaching workshops for teachers to help them build strong dual language programs so our students emerge bilingual, biliterate, and “culturally competent.” I also co-teach a Social Studies methods course at the U of C for their Urban Ed grad program.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? A successful teacher should be measured by the individual growth of each student they have taught and by their ability to reach every student in some powerful way. When still students call me for advice 10 years later, when they have the courage to express their individual identity no matter the pressure to conform, when they retain the artifacts and memories of our learning experiences together, when they have fish, know how to fish, have explored the metacognitive process of learning to fish, have written poetry about the…you get it, when they demonstrate that they have had experiences that they can build on and have developed tools with which to do so – those are the measures of my success.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? The biggest challenges to my work are 1) the intellectual laziness of many grownups with power 2) shallow attitudes about language and culture 3) policy and infrastructure that do not support solid teaching practices, most awfully, assessment practices that delegitimize any demonstration of learning that doesn’t lend itself to quantifiable measure.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I will definitely be teaching in 10 years.

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M. Brooks, age 43

What subject/s do you teach? English as a Second Language

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I measure success by the amount of interest I can generate in a student to learn and to recognize the importance of becoming a life long learner. This is measurable through a change in attitude towards grades, achieving higher grades, doing better in class and in school etc…This is not how success is generally measured by school systems who like to focus on standardized test scores mostly.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? The major factor that impedes my work as an educator is not having enough time to do all of the things I am required to do adequately…not having enough time to work with struggling students. Also, not being paid over the summer and not receiving raises has made it necessary to get a part-time job which means less energy for working with my students.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I will not be teaching in 10 years. Hopefully, I will have moved on!

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Mary Dominis, age 43 yrs

Where do you teach? Mesa, Arizona

What age group do you teach? Kindergarten for 11 years

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I know I have experienced success when any one, and hopefully all of my students make gains academically, sociallly and emotionally throughout the school year. I also measure my success by my student’s level of comfort and joy in the learning process and the environment I provide. It is one of my goals to personally connect with each of my students at least once per day, via handshake, hug, quiet conversation at my desk etc. It also is one of my goals to share laughter in the class each day. My passion for multicultural studies, literature and music is also shared in my class as a way to teach tolerance and inspire an interest in the arts.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? The incredible amount of government, state and local district red hoops that teachers are being forced to jump through. I understand that there is a need for continuing education and checks and balances, but these things have gotten completely out of control. Teachers have endless meetings and are required to do ridiculous amounts of paper work leaving very littlte time for preparation and actual teaching. Kindergarten began a version of standardized testing several years ago and we are now being pressured to teach for test scores as scores are tied into our salaries.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? Not sure. I have been thinking about alternative occupations for several years now. I make very little money and am finding it more difficult each year to survive on a teacher’s salary. My garbage man makes ten dollars more per hour than I do for driving around in an air conditioned cab with a robotic arm that picks up and dumps the trash for him.

I do however have a passion for teaching and as long as I can find joy in what I do despite all of the aggravations I spoke of, I will continue to teach.

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Marliese Colantuno Roth, age 43

What subject/s do you teach?/ What age group do you teach? The Montessori curriculum is interdisciplinary, so I teach all subjects.  As Montessori educators, we are coached not to “teach subjects” in the conventional sense; rather we prepare a rich environment in which children can select from beautiful hands-on materials that interest them, teaching themselves via their own investigations and experimentation, with our guidance as asked for or needed.  This is true at every level. Also, a fundamental component of the Montessori method is a mixed age grouping comprised of a three-year span, so Montessori guides are prepared to offer lessons over not one, but three years’ worth of curriculum.  For the age group for which I am trained (which encompasses children from 2.5 years old through 6 years old), this includes Peace Education; Practical Life Skills; Sensorial Experiences; Language Arts; Mathematics; Science and Nature; History, Social Studies, and Geography; Art, Movement, and Music.

Where do you teach: I have been working with children since I was in high school; my high school ran a pre-school as part of its Child Development Program.  Currently I teach adult educators at The Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies, a graduate-level teacher preparation program housed on the campus of the Barrie School in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Since 2000 I have held this position concurrently with my work as a teacher of young children.  Since 2007 I have been teaching at my own Montessori program in Mount Airy, Maryland.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I will share with you a quote from my Montessori mentor, Tim Seldin, of the Montessori Foundation:  “Education, properly done, is nothing more than holistic environmental engineering designed to meet human needs.  The purpose of Montessori education is to facilitate the development of self-actualized human beings in percentages dramatically greater than occur normally in the human race by chance.”  Although the children in her programs were known for remarkable academic achievements, it is this that Dr. Montessori described this as the most important result of our work.  So it is this I use as my paramount consideration.

I evaluate my efficacy not only from the perspective of what academic material the children demonstrate that they are learning, retaining, and applying, but by numerous other factors as well.  These might include the demeanor, moods, and character development of the individual children with whom I work; the level of cleanliness, order, and spontaneous care for the environment that the children achieve; the depth of their concentration while they are working independently; the kindness and care with which they treat each other; the level of harmony and creativity in our environments; the quality of the relationships between my colleagues and the families with whom we work; and so on.  I look for clear evidence of each child’s independent and joyful scholarship and their skills as individuals and in a group managing their own spontaneous interactions with one another.  

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? Education, and educators in general, suffer from a lack of respect.  Beyond that, within the field of education, as well as in the mind of the general public, Montessori education, like other models called “Partnership Models” by Riane Eisler (see Tomorrow’s Children), is still not well understood by the dominant culture, and therefore is not highly valued.  I would not necessarily say that this impedes my work, however it is a factor that makes it challenging. By way of example, Montessori educators in general are required to have significantly more training than conventional educators and have a significantly greater workload, while often making a lot less money and having fewer benefits, less job security, less free time, less planning time, and less access to resources for their students than their counterparts in conventional programs.   Another factor that I can identify as a challenge is the ambiguity in people’s minds as to the most important purposes of education.  Thus we are further hampered in our efforts by the fact that the “debates” about how to “reform” education are largely focused around what I see as meaningless, irrelevant, or erroneous aspects of this puzzle.  Additionally, teachers are often convenient scapegoats in the political process, while at the same time, we are prevented from doing what we know from experience would work better, and prevented from being innovative; none of this serves the best interests of children.  In the meantime, as a society, we continue to confuse symptom for cause, and continue to do more of what doesn’t work.  When it “fails”, we continue to attempt to apply the same approach with more determination, being punitive to teachers and children in the process.

Do you think you will be teaching in 10 years? In words also attributed to Michelangelo:  “I am still learning.”  I hope to be still learning always, and yes, I do envision myself continuing on this path, continuing to be a part of illuminating possible pathways for others, as was done for me; continuing to define my role for myself, continuing to expand what it means, and continuing to expand my job description accordingly as I go…

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Donna Wipf, age 38

What subject/s do you teach? Language Arts, Science

Where do you teach? Mitchell School

What age group do you teach? 6th-8th graders

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? There’s student engagement. Do they want to be at my school? In my class? Learning what I present? Are they enthusiastic? Are they treated as if they have something worthwhile to contribute? Are they given opportunities to discuss important issues, concepts, and thoughts?

Then there’s the class climate. Have I created an environment where students enjoy both the learning and the socializing? Are they kind to one another? Are they learning to be good people? Am I modeling tolerance and an openness to new ideas?

Am I providing them with a variety of opportunities to learn outside the classroom? Are they exposed to things they would not otherwise experience?

Obviously there’s the curriculum content, skills, knowledge, and tests they have to pass. I want my students to test well, and go on to succeed in high school and college. Is every student being challenged at her/his level? Is our school progressing? We use a variety of data and assessments to ensure we are meeting academic goals.

Then there are the small, individual successes that are hard to quantify, but often are my favorite. Anai, a bilingual student is starting to joke around in English. Frank, a “very special” student is behaving more appropriately this year. Kadaivion, a boy who lives with grandma because his mom was shot and killed has started talking about high school, college, and his future career goals. Daniella, who’s home is incredibly troubled, has started really loving what we read, and writing about her ideas. Anselmo promised not to be like George Bush during his speech for student council president.

Then there’s my teaching. Am I improving? Trying new ways to present materials? Am I learning as an educator and challenging myself? Do I love what I do? And I definitely do.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator?
I have two:
1. Time! We basically get paid for the time we teach, but do not get paid for the time it takes to prepare lessons, grade papers, meet with parents, organize the classroom, tutor students, etc. At my school we do get 50min per day, but that does not even begin to be enough time to do it all.

2. Babysitting “difficult” students. It can be difficult, even in a good school, to give the “good” kids the attention they deserve if “difficult” or noisier students command your attention.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? This is my 13th year. Not sure if I’ll be teaching 10 more. Probably

photo of teacher Lucille Ellis, 1972

survey by Damon Locks

With the education system a heated topic of discussion in this country, I wanted to talk to those that are on the front lines of the battle to educate, to find out how they  feel about their jobs. With all of the hardships that face an educator today…do the pros outweigh the cons? Here is a healthy sampling of teachers’ thoughts about; teaching, learning, growth, inspiration, compensation, their investment in the process and the system that surrounds it.

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Carlos Patino, age 39

What subject/s do you teach? 5th grade everything- Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies

Where do you teach? in Bucktown at a CPS elementary school (Burr)

What age group do you teach? 10-11 year olds

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I measure success as helping my students attain the Illinois learning standards. That said, I also measure success knowing that I have improved my students’ achievement and been a positive role model in their lives.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? A work day that is too short, excessive and unrealistic demands, non supportive administration

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I will be a principal or assistant principal. If that does not occur then I will still be teaching in classroom

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Diyan, age 38.75

What subject/s do you teach? Printmaking (all kinds, all levels), Multiples in Contemporary Practice, Drawing

Where do you teach? Emily Carr University, Vancouver BC

What age group do you teach? 17+

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? This is a hard one, because the results are sometimes only visible years later. But there are a number of things that I look at in measuring how I’m doing. One, is designing curriculum that’s interesting, challenging, and hopefully relevant, that the students respond to and engage with. Two, is seeing students’ work develop and refine over the course of working with them. Three, would be seeing students open up and further develop their critical thinking, questioning their own as well as my assumptions.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? I would say funding for students, the cost of education and living for students in a city as expensive as Vancouver especially. So many of my students work many hours as well as go to school to fund their education, they don’t have the luxury of time or money to really mull over and experiment and play and discover — there’s anxiety about grades and having solid job-applicable skills.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? Yes. I taught my first class 14 years ago. I’m still teaching now. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing if I wasn’t teaching in some way, shape or form. It’s a lot of work, often very exhausting, but so rewarding. The interactions, the people I meet and learn from, the conversations around art and ideas and making things…I wouldn’t trade that.

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Sarah Lasken, age 32

What subject/s do you teach? Humanities

Where do you teach? YWLCS (Young Women’s Leadership Charter School)

What age group do you teach? 10th grade

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? Student engagement, and student’s ability to synthesize a difficult topic.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? The current obsession with testing is problematic. Not because tests can not be a helpful indicator of student success, but because their test scores are often treated like the only important measure of success. We do a lot more then prep students to circle a, b, c, or d.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I hope so. But, teaching jobs are fast disappearing. I worry that in a few years I may not be able to find a position anymore.

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Gwen Fagan, age 45

What subject/s do you teach? Life Studies, Materials and Processes, Fiber Manipulation, Visual Studies, Critical Studies, Drawing and Painting, Combined Materials.

Where do you teach? I teach at Ballyfermot College in Dublin, Ireland.

What age group do you teach? Students are typically 18 – 23 yrs of age, with a few mature students thrown in for good measure.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? One thing that has stuck with me since I studied with Steve Waldek at SAIC, was when he said to me, “Part of what I do is to help you learn how to teach yourself.” If I could impart that ability to my own students, I would consider myself successful as an educator.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? I think the main impediment to my work as an educator is the red tape which has a tendency to slow processes.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I do think I will be teaching in ten years, yes. I love it.

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Danielle Beverly, age 40+

What subject/s do you teach? I teach Intermediate 16mm Film Production, Advanced 16mm Film Production, Screenwriting and Women & Documentary.

Where do you teach? The University of Notre Dame

What age group do you teach? My students average age 20-21, but there will be a few Sophomores next semester.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I measure success by engaging students to think in ways they might not have before. I want to blow their minds with films, with ideas, and with the sudden realization of their own creative and cognitive abilities. I see teaching as a way to help them think about the world, and about others who may be unlike them in many ways, but ultimately human just like them. If I can do that, there has been success. The rest is up to them.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? I’m very lucky to have a great deal of professional and personal support at Notre Dame, and very small classes. So there are very few factors (yet, I’ve just started) that impede my work. I wish students would speak up more however, and am sick of the sound of my own voice.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I’m not sure if I will be teaching in 10 years. I’m “trying it on” again after a long period as a freelance documentary filmmaker – one that took me all over the country and provided lots of freedom and excitement, while I lived paycheck to paycheck. Part of me bristles at having any sort of routine or commitment! But the other part that I’m currently embracing is that teaching offers so many resources: to equipment, grants, colleagues, books, and even things like printers and computers! It is also forcing me to re-engage with my craft and the scholarship informing my craft so that I can serve my students. So in that way, it’s making my mind sharp and curious again. I’m thinking that if academia will have me, then I will have it

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Anonymous, age 33

What subject/s do you teach? Asian American Studies, film, and anthropology

What age group do you teach? I teach college undergrads and occasionally graduate students.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? I measure success by how engaged the students are and by how well they understand the material.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? A major factor for impeding my work is not having enough time to prepare. This is because I’m currently a graduate student. I’m hoping conditions improve when I’m done with schooling.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I will be teaching in ten years, i hope.

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Mara Drogan, age 43

What subject/s do you teach? History (U.S., world, women’s) and an interdisciplinary course called Politics and Film.

Where do you teach? University at Albany and JHU Center for Talented Youth (Princeton site)

What age group do you teach? College and high-school

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? Most of my students take my classes because they are required, so if I can convince a few of them each semester that studying history is not the worst thing that ever happened to them, I feel I’ve done well. (Having a student tell me they’ve decided to become a history major after taking my class is the ultimate.) Judging the success of a particular course is very subjective and changeable since it depends as much on the particular group of students as it does on anything I bring to the classroom.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? Number 1 is the extremely low pay. The ugly truth is that this affects the amount of work I am willing to do. The second factor is very poorly prepared students. I have college students who have trouble with reading comprehension, grasping basic concepts, and writing. This makes it very challenging to teach history and critical thinking.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? Yes, I hope so. Despite the obstacles, I love teaching. It is fun, challenging, and intellectually stimulating as few things are.
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Leslie Lockett, age 29

What subject/s do you teach? I teach Special Ed Literature, Composition, and Civics. I co-teach the Lit/Comp classes with general ed. teachers (not certified in special ed.)

Where do you teach? I teach at Rowe-Clark Math & Science Academy (A Noble Street Charter School.)

What age group do you teach? I teach 9th grade.

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? It’s really hard to answer this question. I measure success by how I feel at the end of the day. If I feel I had positive interactions all day and that at least one student learned something new, I usually feel good. I also like when they use correct subject verb agreement. That always feels good.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? The amount of paperwork that I have to do sometimes impedes my work as an educator. When I worked for CPS, I didn’t feel like I was really a teacher at all.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I most definitely hope to be teaching in 10 years.

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Stephen Haynes, age 55

What subject/s do you teach? I work one on one with autistic children

Where do you teach? local high school

What age group do you teach? 16-18

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? Daily, in small bites. As a child of the sixties, I believe change is affected on a small scale in an intimate fashion.

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? Level of pay. Non-recognition of my life experience. I am “under-employed”

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I have always taught in one manner or another, formally and/or informally. You cannot truly learn and NOT be charged with transmitting knowledge. This is the bodhisattva factor. you dig?! My work continues to keep me in intimate contact with humility… really.  Life continues to be an unfolding mystery.

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Allison Vivian Fine, age 61

What subject/s do you teach? English, Creative Writing, Literature, College Writing, Communications, Theatre Arts, Dramaturge, Acting, Directing (not all at once and not all at Westwood College–I am currently only teaching Literature and Writing there)

Where do you teach? Westwood College

What age group do you teach? adults 20-40 and beyond

How do you measure success as it pertains to being an educator? Impossible to tell at this time. If, at the end of the term, my students have a more positive attitude toward reading and writing and can write a coherent paragraph!

What is a major factor that impedes your work as an educator? The school I work for, the admissions policy, the administration, the educational background of the students who attend (appalling) and the corporate policy of the loathesome for-profit college paradigm.

Do you think you will be a teaching in 10 years? I sure F(**&&* hope not! I am a full fledged artist–writer, actor, director and musician. If I am not dead in 10 years I want to be working full time at my craft(s) achieving some audience and success and earning a living at it!

see more responses to the survey in Tomorrow Starts Today part 2

photos by Damon Locks

In a hotel restaurant in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Rob Mazurek and Roscoe Mitchell sit down to talk about music with Edmundo Clairefont. Both Roscoe and Rob are composers, musicians and improvisers. Roscoe was a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and tonight he is the featured guest in Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra.

Roscoe Mitchell:

Music and art functions at its best when it’s out amongst the people. For any style of music you are playing, music has always had its laws for how that style goes. You have to learn what the laws are, study those and keep improving yourself. I enjoy music where no one is responsible for keeping it going…where things can shift. Anybody can be the root. Ensembles building orchestral textures inside of an improvisation…I find that very interesting. There are certainly a lot of young people out there that want to get into some different things. I’ve talked to a lot of disillusioned college students that have gone to these ridged school systems and they come out and say “Now what?”  So many of them don’t have a real identity. One of the things you would like to develop is your own musical identity. A lot of the time, the ways schools exist, they get the students in there and they are trying to get them to live up to other people’s example. When you are doing that you are always behind. I am probably not going to be able to do what you do better than you. What I can do it learn from what you are doing and figure out my own way of doing what I’m doing. Once you tap into that, you tap into an endless resource of ideas. The things that come before us are there to learn from.  Art is bigger than all of us. It has it’s own laws and it’s own direction that its traveling. This is not a bad time for people that are serious about their work. If you want to break through this, go home and really get down. What are you gonna do? I am waiting to see what you’re gonna do? We just need to get back where people are really looking at something they want to do…not to be swayed by what comes along in between. Keep their own focus…out of that emerges something that turns out to be meaningful to everyone.  Music is a big study. It would take more than one lifetime to get to what I would like to get to in music.

Rob Mazurek:

Information is only information unless you experience it. When you experience it, it turns into a kind of knowledge right? A lot of people don’t have the patience. It’s just a matter of being honest with yourself. How much music do you make that gets thrown out…like 80%? A lot of people make stuff and say, “Oh I don’t listen to that.” My criteria for what I am doing is “Am I going to put this on, on my record player at home and listen to it?” That is why I started painting too. I wanted to paint something because I wanted something specific I could look at in my house. You know what I am saying?

words and photos by Eamonn Vitt

Northern Uganda is hurting.  Conflict has raged in this homeland of the Acholi people for almost twenty-five years. There exists an Acholi proverb “When two elephants struggle, it is the grass that suffers”.  In the bush lurks the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group led by a homicidal madman named Joseph Kony.  In the LRA’s battle against the Ugandan Government, the peasant population has been caught in the middle.  They have suffered greatly.

Most terrorized have been the children. They were abducted in tremendous numbers by the LRA and used as child soldiers.  These kids were forced to commit unspeakable atrocities. Frequently against their own brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents.

The conflict has recently diminished and people are trying to rebuild their lives.  Seemingly insurmountable obstacles remain.  HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria are major killers here.   Until recently, access to quality health care has been impossible.  Adequate nutrition is an issue.  Unexploded landmines litter the hillsides. The government is infested with corruption.

In 2009 I spent six months working in Acholiland with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.  I was in charge of our very remote hospital.  We provided expert medical care, essential medicines, mental health support, and training for local workers.

Our general clinic attended to two to three hundred patients a day.  People would walk a full day to seek medical attention.  The HIV/AIDS program served over 700 patients.  While maternal to child transmission of HIV is now essentially unheard of in the developed world, it’s unfortunately common here.  Which means lots of babies and children who must confront HIV/AIDS disease.  We treated hundreds for tuberculosis, spread because of overcrowding and housing problems in the refugee camps, and aggravated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Most lethal for the children is malaria.  The deadliest subspecies of all, Plasmodium Falciparum stalks Acholiland.  Our hospital was diagnosing over a hundred cases a day at peak malaria season.  It was hard to believe.  It was terrible.  So many children were lost.

These children, how do they survive?  They have suffered tremendously.  Many are still suffering.   But as the conflict subsides, their chances are improving.  They are eager for a better life.  They have no shoes and they walk miles to school.  They learn Acholi and English and math and science.  They see mobile phones and burst with curiosity about the world.  They help their parents work long days in the fields.  They take their medicines when they are supposed to.  They proudly sport t-shirts with positive messages encouraging safety and awareness. They will make you smile so hard your cheeks crack.  They run around and play and sing and dance like hell.  These kids have been to hell.  They are back. They are the smartest and toughest kids in the world. They are going to be OK.

Navigating New York City means existing in a constant state of flux; sidewalks shuffle horizontally, stairs/elevators thrust vertically, subways tunnel below, bridges reach towards the sky.  Day to day experiences often consist of endless journeys from point A to B and back again.  Opportunities for reflection concerning the spaces/places travelled though/around/in, unfortunately, tend to be rare.

My work begins with this concept in mind.  I create photographs and collage compositions that highlight overlooked and banal elements within a neighborhood/area/space.  The compositions are meant to show the viewer what they are missing, so that when they leave the gallery they too can spot various overlooked idiosyncratic elements that surround them everyday. Once an installation location is identified, I spend days scouring the immediate area with my camera, collecting images which I use as found objects.  These images are then downloaded into the computer and various sketches are made using Photoshop.  Each element is printed separately, and stuck onto the wall one piece at a time.  The images in the [flo] series use a material called Photo-tex, a removable sticky back inkjet printable paper.

[flo] #4 – LIC

flo]#4 – 2010 – 20’x9’ – was created specifically for a new gallery called The Homefront, in Long Island City, Queens, New York.  The space previously housed a showroom for a new condos being built across the street, and retains elements of this previous use.

It is a site specific large scale photographic collage that chronicles the radical gentrification glaringly evident in the area surrounding The Homefront.  It visualizes the dissonance between the neighborhood’s low rise brick industrial and residential buildings and the slew of imposing high rise glass mega buildings growing seemingly overnight all around them.  A cacophony of change abounds:  extensive street diversions and construction, structures rising and falling, parks and street furniture appearing, sidewalk repairs, and subway station upgrades.  The streets are ripe with brightly colored freshly painted shapes and lines, a code that only construction workers can translate. Conversely, buildings display the vestiges of time: fading handmade signs warning of obsolete violations, worn metal doors to shuttered garages, house numbers scribbled in sharpie, “sidewalk closed” at nearly every turn.

[flo] #3 – 7W 34th St.

[flo] #3 – 2010 – 23’x14’ – was a site specific work created for the Affordable Art Fair in May 2010.  It was installed in the lobby of 7W 34 Street in midtown Manhattan.  The work used imagery from the fair floor, the building itself (especially the elevators), and the view of midtown from the fair floor windows (11^th).  This activated the viewer’s perception of the spaces they would be traversing on the way to and during the fair.

[flo]#2 – DUMBO Arts Festival

[flo]#1 – A.I.R. Gallery – left and back wall

[flo]#1 – A.I.R. Gallery – back wall-floor

[flo]#1 – A.I.R. Gallery – left wall

[flo]#1 and [flo]#2 (2009) focus attention on the immediate landscape in and around the 55 Washington Street (in DUMBO, Brooklyn) elevator lobby/overall 111 Front street building.  By photographing the ducts, pipes, light fixtures, office equipment, and other necessary but often hidden features of a gallery, the collage deconstructs the space, highlighting the architectural elements that make the building function, but often go unnoticed. The viewer is invited to appreciate the space in its entirety instead of imagining the artwork to be separate or unaffected by its context. The literal and imagined ductwork, electric lines, sprinkler system and other pipes lead the viewer’s eye around the space, serving as pathways to the building’s exterior and the surrounding urban geography.

Leaning – 2008 – 4′X6′

Gravitate – 2008 – 4′X4′

Glob – 2008 – 3′X4′

Spurt – 2008 – 6′X6′

collages in public

Construction barricades disrupt our sense of place by genericising stretches of sidewalk, acting as vague placeholders for “the future”, but ultimately functioning as faceless voids in an otherwise chaotic street level landscape. “Free” spaces are nocturnally filled with some form of street style “on-the-fly” mark making: movie posters are slathered onto their surfaces, paint colors are hastily applied to every nook and cranny, graffiti tags are scrawled on top of each other, all creating a system of unique symbols and signifiers. By collaborating with these pre-determined slap dash irregular canvases, my work speaks with their native elements by both becoming one with and overlapping the marks present. They add sounds to a language that seems almost familiar (fly-posting, tagging, etc.), but become a language all of their own, like alien graffiti.

These pictures were drawn using a hot chrome and metallic analog sausage roll.

- John Herndon

interview by Damon Locks

fashion photography by The Collaborationist

Is fashion political? Is your work political? Sometimes it is, although not overtly. I reference where we are currently and the socio-political climate is definitely taken in to consideration when I am thinking about the collection, fabric references etc…

Can you name a few “all time” inspirations? Things that never cease to inspire? Art, Texture, Geometry, Nature, Film, Architecture and above all, Innovative thinking.

At different times, fashion could mark changes in cultural. In 2010, do you feel fashion has an impact culturally? Absolutely, I feel that the arts in general have impacted us greatly in 2010. The arts are exploding in the face of the depression we are in!  Also, In a strange way I feel that the First lady. Mrs-O, has brought fashion to the main stream. People are looking to see what she is wearing as the new first lady, and the fact that she is supporting younger less established designers, is very relevant to the times, and the the idea of Change. Historically speaking the first lady has been dressed by more conservative, established designers. Michelle Obama takes risks along side the classics. I never thought in my lifetimeThank you Mrs-O !

What would be your dream aspiration in terms of your work? If everything went exactly as you would want, what would you want you work to do, say, be considered? My aspiration is to be respected for my work. Although the work I make is artistic, I design with real women in mind. I want people to be moved emotionally by what they see, and moved to wear it as a genuine self expression of confidence. I have come to learn that everything else is out of my control!

interview by Alix Lambert

This interview is an outtake from Alix’s book entitled “Crime.”

About “Crime” – Through a series of exclusive interviews with artists, authors and actors such as Ben Affleck, David Cronenberg, Elmore Leonard, Viggo Mortensen, Ice-T, David Mamet and Takeshi Kitano, as well as real life bank robbers, gangsters and current prison inmates, editor Alix Lambert explores the gaps and overlaps between real crime and its representation in the arts, each commenting on and assessing the impact of the other.

What was is your earliest memory of crime?

I think my first memory of crime was me stealing bicycles. My father wouldn’t buy me a bike. Oh, wait, you know what happened? My first memory of crime was I got my bike stolen. I didn’t just go out and start doing wrong. I had gotten my bike stolen on Christmas day. I was living in NJ at the time. I had gotten this bike and I was really excited about it and I ran down to my friends house to show it off. I parked it in front of his house. When I went to knock on his door his mother came to the door so, I had my bike like parked, she ended up talking me into coming into the house because I think they had racing cars inside, and I wanted to see them. I got caught up racing the cars. When I went out my bike was gone. I had to be like around ten years old, maybe. I first thought it was a joke. I thought somebody had hid it. But it was gone. I never got it back. We went to the police station, filed a report, all kind of stuff. Then my father was like: You’re not going to get another one. I started to steal bikes. Other people had these old bikes and I would get up earlier than I had to to go to school, cause nobody would watch me. I couldn’t stay out late, but I could get up early. I would go creep into people’s backyards. I would take the bike. I had my own little chop shop. I would take the bikes back and I would take them apart and I would paint them, and change the colors. It sounds so crazy. I haven’t thought back to this since – ever. I kind of put a bike together. But then I had to hide it from my father. One time he came in the back and was like: What are you doing? And I lied, and said: Yo. My friend gave me this bike. That was my first introduction to criminal activity. I would paint them with model paint, like these little spray cans that you got for models. I knew how to take the Schwinn emblem off and paint them and them put them back on. Pretty crafty.  A one man operation so nobody could snitch. From there I didn’t do any crime, I went to elementary school, I guess mischief and stuff, but actually starting to break the law wasn’t truly introduced to me until high school.

What happened in high school?

When I got into high school you start to see people have things that are beyond their means. You see guys in the 12th grade that got cars and you’re looking at everybody going: what’s really going on around here? Drug dealing and all that kind of stuff really hadn’t come into play. But my boys started to sell weed. They would buy like pounds of what would be called today, homegrown weed. Just the cheapest weed. You could get a lot of it cheap, back in the day. They would take it and roll joints and sell dollar joints. That was like an operation, but I never got into that. I was like: Yo, I’m not running around high school with drugs. But they were hustling like that. Then my other friend, his sister, used to steal the lunch tickets from the school. The big lunch ticket roll, she would steal the tickets from the inside of the roll, like tickets that weren’t going to get used til way later in the year and then she would sell them. She was making a lot of money. Then she put us to work. She was like: You guys sell them, and I’ll give you half the money. I was like this little broad’s running an organized crime ring. So all this stuff started to happen at our school. Then I learned how to steal textbooks. Every year people would turn up at the end of the year and have to pay for the textbooks. But we had access to the book room. The print class, we turned that into a counterfeiting ring. We learned how to make special cards, which you could use to get into every event. They cost like 50 dollars. We forged them and we were selling them for like ten dollars. As a kid hustling and making 5 or 6 hundred dollars, that’s a lot of money. So then what we did, we figured out like the science book cost 25 dollars so if you would meet us at nutrition and tell us what the book number was that you lost we would get one from the book room – they were stamped in the front and they were stamped on like page 25, we would rip out page 25 and then we would re-stamp the book with the number of the book you lost. But what happened was, some of the lost books started to show up. So in other words, two books with the same number showed up. That’s how we got caught. What they did was they busted us, they ran a sting. They figured it out, they figured the books had to be coming out of the book room, and they caught us on this like elevator thing with the books one day. It was ugly. We told them we just started to do it and fortunately only a few books showed up even though we had probably ran through like 500 books. I was learning that you could outsmart the game at an early age. But it really didn’t escalate to any serious money. It was very petty. Then what happens is you start to hang around with people who really take pride in beating the system. That’s the scary part. Like if you ain’t a hustler then you’re not cool. That’s where you really start getting sucked in. You start to believe that the only money that’s good is stolen money, working money is not cool.

I was out on my own at 17 years old. I was living with my Aunt. My mother and father had passed. I was living with my Aunt in Los Angeles and I wasn’t getting along with her and I was getting social security checks so one day I just told her: give me that money, which was $250 a month, and I’m gone. And she gave me the money and I bought a hundred dollar a month apartment, I put another hundred dollars into food and I had fifty dollars left. I was living on my own when I was in the 12^th grade. So that made me the coolest kid in the whole school. I had my own place, are you kidding me? It was like the size of a closet but it was still my own place. At that point they were doing little corny things like selling fake jewelry. We’d go down town to the jewelry mart and get the fake shit, you know, you’ve seen people do it, the fake chains and they put the 14 kt. gold thing on it, we’d hustle that. Then we ran scams, we learned how to run cons with like fake diamond rings at the bus station down town you walk up on a guy and you tell them that you just bought this for your mother and now you’re stuck out of town and you can’t get home, and they’d give you some money to get a bus ticket or whatever and a little extra money. They always thought they were beating us for the ring, we would tell them the ring was worth 800 dollars and the guy would end up giving you a hundred dollars and the ring only really was worth like ten dollars. That’s the key to the con. The only people that get conned are greedy people, you know. You never get conned if you’re honest. Once your brain kicks in to thinking you’re beating somebody, that’s when you get took. Honest people be like: Oh my God, you only have that ring, that’s your mothers, you’re going to give it to me? No. Here’s fifteen dollars, get the bus ticket. They’d help you. And they’d be out fifteen dollars whereas this other guy: Oh, well you know I’m gonna have to take that from you. I’ll give you a hundred and fifty bucks. They’re the ones that’re greedy trying to beat a poor kid. So, fuck ‘em. Rule one: if it sounds too good to be true, it’s not true. So that basically was my life.

What happened that started to change things?

What happened was I got my girlfriend pregnant at the end of 12^th grade and I was living alone and I started to feel a little bit of responsibility and that’s when I went in to the military. Now when I came out of the military my small time friends had elevated the game and they had decided that jewelry stores were the target and they had all kinds of ways to beat the jewelry store. Eventually it just escalated from going in and what we would call playing the jewelry store to…well there’s about ten ways you could rob a jewelry store. The favorite one is what we call playing. Playing a jewelry store is really confusing them and lifting jewelry out of the store without them knowing. That requires a team, and there’s a lot of ways, but what it was was there’s a lock that used to be on jewelry cases that we called a pop lock. It was a lock that if you inserted a piece of metal into it, basically a nail file called a trim, you could file it down in a way that it became like a lock pick and you could reach over; and these locks you’d push em in, turn em and they would pop out. When they popped out, that disengaged the case and now the jewelry case was open. With teams of people and confusion we were able to throw the jewelry store off long enough for somebody to reach over, what we used to call: reach over and bust, reach over, pop the lock, reach in, take the jewelry, close the lock back, lock it back and get out. Usually you’d use a girl and a guy and usually they would be wearing jewelry, they’d come in looking very non-criminal. Back in the days we used to wear Fila and carry tennis rackets and portray yuppie kids. Like: Oh, my father, he’s a developer, he’s building the building down the street. There’s always a building down the street. Or I used to come in and say: my father, he’s a white guy, he’s a state trooper based in Fresno. Cause I’m light. So, we would come in and con them and distract them. It’s not like a one minute lick. It’s really planned. At the end of this game they’re not even supposed to know their shit is gone until later. And that was a victory to us. That was finesse. That finesse later elevated to a lot of different things from what they call bashing which is really just walking in with sledge hammers during the day and taking the whole jewelry store down. And that jewelry store only needed to be cased out to the point that there were no guns. Burglary, which is where you’re trying to find certain jewelry stores, like if you really look they don’t put the jewelry up. It’s like, they’ve put sheets over the cases instead of taking the time to put them in a safe. Usually you’ll find those out of town. Like not in NY, but if you go two hours out, they don’t have crime. That would be a 459. There’s a lot of ways to get into the stores, there’s all kinds of techniques you can use. Then they got the basic one which you still hear about which is called the snatch and grab. Which is more or less, you have to almost have them put the jewelry in your hands. They bring it out, and you say: Can I see this watch? Can I compare this one against that one. What they do now, is as they give you one, they put that one back in. But some fools will bring all that shit out.

Have you ever spent time in prison?

I never been to prison. I never been caught. It’s like the getaway is more important than the actual crime. You have to figure out what you’re going to do with it before you do it. If you’re going to get something that’s very expensive, pre-sell it. Talk to the people that want it and have it sold before you do it.
Who buys it?

You’ve got drug dealers. You’ve got drug dealer’s girls. Drug dealer’s girls are really the best…they want every fucking thing. They want minks, they want this, they want that, and the guys that’re selling the drugs, they’ve got illegal money that they can’t really spend in stores. They want things, you know what I’m saying. In this game a lot of casing goes on. Casing is pre-looking at places. I could be like in Salt Lake City Utah and I could go and check out faces and I could find what we call in the game “a lick.”  A lick is not a store with armed guards and dogs and bullet proof glass, that’s not a lick. A lick is a little store with an old lady that just happens to have a lot of shit and there’s no one around. It’s a situation that lends itself to being taken. And that’s why I tell people today, I’m like – criminals are very opportunistic. They’re looking for something that lends itself to whatever they do. Like in a Mall, a jewelry store that might just happen to be right by that exit door, that’s a great lick. Because if I hit em, I don’t have to run through that mall. I duck out and I’m through those emergency doors and then it’s me and whoever’s after me.

I saw a lick recently in Vegas. I basically went through withdrawal trying to not tell any of my friends because I don’t want anybody to go to jail. But I looked right at it. I told my wife, I’m like: Yo, this could get got, really, really easily. I was like: well, somebody else will probably do it but if I tell my friends, I’ll bring somebody out of retirement. I don’t care what you’ve done in your life, if it ever was a part of your life that part never leaves. If you were a guy that used to knock guys out for talking shit, and somebody’s talking shit and maybe you don’t do it no more, your brain still says: I would knock this fucking fool out. If you were a girl who used to hustle guys and knew how to get up on guys and get money and you see a guy throwing his money around, you go: I could take this idiot off. That element will never leave your brain if you’ve ever done it. You just don’t do it no more because you know there’s probably ramifications.

In crime there’s a million ways to do things. In bank robbery you have what they call playing a note, you have: take over, you got people that want you to go in the vault, you got people that just want to play the door, you know, you got people that want to catch the night deposits, you got people that want to try to take one of the trucks which is really risky, there’s a lot of different levels of it. You gotta know the elements of banks too. They’re told to give you the money. You just don’t want to get too greedy. But what happened with me was, everybody that I was rolling with started to go to jail. One of my friends was in the middle of a bank robbery and his friend got killed by the police so they ended up giving him the murder. You know, in L.A. California, if you’re with somebody and me and you go out and commit a crime, you get killed by the cops, I get the murder. You know I say in one of my records: You raise the risk, you raise the profit. What happens in the game is that eventually those small crimes aren’t going to sustain the lifestyle you live. When you’re young and you want to hustle and you sell a little weed here and there, you try to get some rims, okay, it’s a great hustle. Now, if you move up to Benzs and Ferraris, you can’t sell joints, you gotta sell pounds. The more the crime escalates the more violence escalates. Whether you’re fighting against your own crew, getting double crossed, or being set up, because, in the game you have hustlers and then you have predators. You got the one guy who says: Hey, I’ll sell the dope. And you got the other guy who says: I’ll rob the dope dealer. Let him sell it, fuck it. You’re dealing with professionals. This is what they do, they lie, they deceive, they cheat. Like a lot of times in a game, there’s two games going. One game is for me and you to hit the lick, the next game if for me to beat you. I was in as deep as I could get and my friends started to go under. Cats I really admired were catching really long sentences. My boys were going to jail and I’ll never forget, I went on this one lick in the Pacific Palisades with all these cats that I normally wouldn’t fuck with. It was like the most slapstick disastrous shit I ever been on. We got away, but I was like: Yo, no. No. This is why I never fuck with these guys.

It gets crazy. All my friends went to prison. I’m looking at all these cats that I admired, I started to ask myself: Do I think I’m smarter than them?

Thank God this music called Hip Hop came along, and then Rap came along, I was doing a lot of things, you know what I’m saying. We was pimping. We was in the game. We had girls doing stuff, making money. When people say “Pimping” they think about a guy standing on a corner with girls. That’s one form, but another form is just basically having females around that are hustling and they doing all types of things to get you money. In other words if a guy is in a room with a girl, and that girl has another guy that she’s more dedicated to than him; he’s in a bad situation. As long as they know that I’m the top dog, then that’s pimping. They’re following my instructions to the T. So, we doing all that and rap came along and I was like really idolizing Iceberg Slim, I really was into him. I took my name from him. The whole symbolism and the style and the flair of his conversation, the way he talked, but at some point I realized: Yo, as much as I want to be a pimp, dude is a writer. So, if I’m really idolizing this dude I not only gotta live the game, I have to document the game. So that’s when I started to rap. Cause I didn’t really feel I could be a writer, so I felt like here’s a music where I can talk about the life.

What about gangs?

Gangs are a whole nother fucking structure. Gangs are basically war. I mean gangs aren’t really criminal organizations until they actually start to move drugs. A gang is just male units that are at war. So in Los Angeles, you got Crips, you got Bloods, but then you have sets and the sets are, like there’s hundreds and hundreds of sets, which are divisions of the gang. In L.A. Crips are fighting Crips, Bloods are fighting, Bloods. Your real age for gangbanging is between the ages of 15 and 25. Once murder has come into the game you carry that murder code with you and that’s what gangbanging is based on. If you were going to join my gang immediately I would indoctrinate you with what the other sets did, or who’s our enemies. You’d be out to retaliate, that’s how you get stripes.

I was affiliated with rolling 60 Crips. And what I mean by “affiliated” is I knew all the shot callers, I grew up in the hood, but I never jumped into a gang, but I wear the colors. I got it in my record, you know, but an affiliate would be somebody who would have juice with the gang, know the gang but wouldn’t necessarily go out and put in work or do any of the drive-bys, or whatever is required to be more of a hardcore member. I always been kind of intelligent, so I always knew how to get with the shot callers and they liked me.

If you really go deep in, I mean them kids are at war. They’re not at all like thinking about making rap records or nothing, they just want to move on the enemy. Because somebody close to them probably got killed. These babies are slowly being indoctrinated into the belief that this other gang is somebody to hate. Because they killed his uncle. So, it’s deep.

The thing about Ice – T music that’s different is I always try to show both sides of the game. That’s what makes my music different from pretty much any body else’s rap. If you listen to my records, even though I might say, hey I’m this guy, I usually die at the end of the record. I tell you about the fun in the beginning but there’s pain in the end. So, anybody who tells you about crime and doesn’t tell you that there’s pain and you know, they’re full of shit and they never been there. If you’re talking about it but you’re not telling me that there’s any down side to it – you’re lying. Because if you’re a real criminal, you know a lot of people in prison, you getting them phone calls, you’ve been in situations where you could have been dead, you know what it’s like to have people after you, I mean, you have to be pretty crazy to really like it. I mean, I’m not that guy. I’m not. I think when I was younger, you know, you’re a little bit more fearless. But as you get older you look at it like: This shit is crazy. Usually when you go to prison, finally you figure this out. Half of my crew is locked up. So, they telling me what’s going on, and I listen. I live by the code that: dumb people learn by experience, smart people learn by others experience. I’ve always been like a sponge and I listened to it and I had to kick it real and the thing of it is is that you know, when you deal with the press, I could go and say: Yo, and homelessness and this that and the third and AIDS and education, but then the same cat after that will go: so what’s it like to rob a bank? Then at the end of the article they say I’m promoting it. I didn’t even bring it up. I think the more you talk about it and the more you express it, you know, it’s kind of like, to me, I felt that was my retribution. I tell people in my life I feel like I was running down this road, this hustling road, where I think it’s going to be roses and money and everything at the end; all that good shit. And I got to the end of the road and I seen there’s a cliff, and off the edge of the cliff there’s fires burning. Now I’m like running back up the road yelling at people: don’t go down that road. It looks good, but honestly, I cannot tell you a crime story with a good ending.

From an artists perspective, those rappers and artists that do get out of it they got great stories and experiences to share. It’s extremely entertaining. See I think the thing of it is, is that, people can be entertained with other people’s pain. I think that’s really what it is. This is exciting and it’s fun to listen to but to actually live it is something totally different. A great story about being stranded in the desert is a great story to read or watch, but to be the actual people that do it; that’s not a good place. To watch the Mafia is a great exciting thing, but to be in it and to live every day with potentially somebody blowing your brains out is not so sexy. There’s also another side to it, you know, it’s fun to tell war stories. And a lot of these cats, these aren’t even their war stories. This is something that they fabricated in their brain. I mean, come on, Tarantino writes some of the most crazy movies but he’s a nerd. I mean look at Quentin, I mean he’s never done nothing, I mean he’d probably be the first one to tell you that. But in his brain with his characters he can create these very cool images and theories of how things would go. Like Pulp Fiction probably was one of the greatest movies ever and this is Quentin’s imagination. Because he has a great imagination he’s considered cool. So you can actually become cool by living through other people. I mean you can only ask a kid to speak at his intelligence level. So you take an eighteen year old kid; he don’t know about world politics, you can’t teach him that this may be negative, cause he’s selling dope, he doesn’t even see that as a problem. So as you get older, sure, you get to see the world in a different way. But when you dealing with these young kids they on that shit. If you had interviewed me when I was seventeen years old I’d be like: fuck, square ass motherfucker, man. I’m hustling. This is what I do. I don’t have any conscience. I’m getting paid and fuck you. And I’m winning and I ain’t got caught I mean, what’s to tell me it’s wrong? Until you see the pain, or you get that other side of it, A lot of these kids, some of them don’t even know no better, they don’t know. And you gotta stay out of their way. Because when them kids is moving at that speed and they don’t know no better, they’re invincible, and they’ll murder you.

When did you get into acting?

I got into acting, really my first movie was in the movie Breakin’, my role, I was a rapper, they came into a club that had break dancers and stuff in L.A. and I was on the stage rapping and they said: Would you like to be the rapper? I wasn’t really a good rapper but I was kind of like one of the first rappers people ever seen because that movie came out really early in the genre. After that I did New Jack City. Where I was really an unseasoned actor who got a chance and I just tried at it. People enjoyed it and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’m very fortunate. New Jack City, at that time I had already like, deprogrammed myself from the streets and I was learning that it’s all about opportunities and the real hustler is going to take advantage of an opportunity. So I had to re-format myself. Which, at the end of the day means, I’m not trying to break the law, I’m just trying to get money, if I can do it without breaking the law that’s even better. I elevated myself to that. I started to play cops, people were like: Well, that’s a paradox, you didn’t like the cops. I’m like: Well, I didn’t like the cops when I was breaking the law. They were the opponent. I didn’t have no hate against the police. Of course I got hate against certain people who have civil right infractions, and doing things wrong, but just a basic cop, it’s like the movie Heat, man, he’s out to get me; I’m out to get him. Touché, let’s go. So I always respected the cops to an extent. A real criminal can take a pinch. You know: You got me, motherfucker. You don’t turn around at the end of the day and say, oh the laws are wrong, when you robbing somebody. You know what you doing. Nowadays, I’m like, I don’t hate the police, I have no problems with the police. I don’t like cops that bring their personal issues to work, or whatever their doing, if they’re racist or all that, I mean, we can’t tolerate that but an average cop, I’m not mad at him. I don’t have any allegiance to crime.

I just sucked up every bit of game from the actors around me. I just worked with Ludacris and he’s the same way, I asked a lot of questions. They were just like: you can memorize shit, you’re a rapper, just try to put the voice on it that they want. You get better and better at it and after a while you start learning tricks. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot more after the response I got from it. I’ve been very, very fortunate doing it, I feel like I can say: I am an actor. Before I felt like I’m a rapper that’s acting. But I’ve been on Law and Order now 9 years acting every single day, I’ve been in over fifty movies so I think I know what I’m doing now, finally.

Law and Order, the show I’m on, I mean really? Are there that many homicides in New York City? I mean, if you really watch my show, you’ll think rapes and serial killers are running around here every day.  (my wife) Coco’s mother came and was scared to go in Central Park, from watching Law and Order. Movies and TV do give you a warped reality. A lot of people aren’t intelligent enough to read into that. They just believe it at face value. Me, myself, I know a movie is a movie, cause I watch the movies, I’m in movies, I know that the blood ain’t real. I know all that. The average person gets caught up in this stuff, so a lot of this stuff can enforce stereotypes, the angry black man, and all that kind of stuff. I don’t know if you ever going to be able to change that.

I love video games. The best one is Grand Theft Auto, which is just fucking mayhem. It’s just mayhem. I’m in the Scarface game which actually teaches you how to sell drugs. It’s crazy, it teaches you how to sell grams. It’s pretty interesting how you move the drugs from the Islands to Miami and drop them off at dope houses. I was in San Andreas (Grand Theft Auto). I played a cracked out rap star and somebody had stole all my lyrics and he became a star. So, I went on crack and then the end is me getting my reputation back and getting my mansion back. You start off in San Andreas as a kid in South Central L.A. Then you build up your rep and then you get a gang, I mean, it’s definitely like some crazy shit. I will say honestly the Vice City Games are like the worst shit ever – in a good way. It’s so intentionally wrong that you’ve got to just get into it. Rick Ruben one time told me there’s an art in saying the worst shit. Some people in entertainment know how to do that. Comedians know how to do it. Eminem is a great example. And I’ve always done it. I’ve done the interviews where I’ll say kids are top priority and AIDS and this that and the third but I got to run right now because I got to get to a Pit bull fight. Just say the most wrong shit. Because it’s funny. Because it’s wrong. In a way these games are just so over the top that you got to laugh. It’s like: Oh my God if I’m out of money I rob a liquor store? Inside this world, all the things that you think about, you can do. But, does that make you really want to do it in real life? No. To me it kind of diffuses it. I think they work opposite. People say: Oh, they make kids violent. I don’t think so. I think honestly, it’s like an outlet for that aggression. You get to do it on the video game. I think all of us have this aggression, and you’ve got to have an outlet. Video games do it for me. I think it’s a very masculine thing.

I think human beings have some weird blood lust. I mean I watched this show called 48 hours where it’s about murder. It’s about the wife that killed the husband and I’m like what the fuck am I watching this shit for? But I want to see, and then they show the crime scene, I mean I don’t know, maybe you got to get with a psychologist but I think there is something in humans that is triggered by death and violence like they say: why when we’re watching the car races, everybody wants to see the wreck? We watch boxing, what is all this? What is it? I do Metal, I do hard rock, and the kids mosh in the front. There’s a pit. What in the fuck is going on? You’re banging into each other. That’s not dancing. What are you doing? And then guys get bloody and it’s kind of like if you go in a rap studio and one guy gets up and says: Yo, peace …and the guys kind of go: ok, that’s great …and the next guy goes: I’ll blow your mic hand off, and the motherfuckers like: yeah! It’s like what is that? I think since the beginning of time people have been intrigued with this warrior spirit.

I was at the movies the other day and I watched this big commercial for the Army. And they were showing people jumping out of planes. I was in the military. Every single picture the motherfuckers had a gun. And I told Coco, they’re recruiting killers. They’re telling you that there’s honor in killing for your country. The guys who are our best killers are our most honorable people. It conflicts itself so many different ways. I think it just roots back to us being animals. It’s ill though, it’s ill.

by Eve Fineman

In the past several years, the proliferation of information about planetary disgrace has yielded a multitude of movements, small, large, splintered and focused, all directed at finding new ways to exist without trashing the earth. Despite the fact that we have been headed down this ruinous path for decades, and regardless of the ever-present social and political problems involving humans, this seems to be the issue, time, place, and vehicle for which people feel empowered and are demanding and enacting change. What was once an alternative, unorthodox way of thinking and living is now the dominant strain of thought weaving itself throughout most subcultures and demographics in our society.

Along with this newfound reverence for the earth comes a generation at once empathetic and curious, seeing itself within a larger context, connected and group-minded. And so, despite the central focus being environmental devastation, young people are also seeing the correlation between this and other social issues, large and small, global and personal.  As a design educator, I have noticed a trend in my students’ thinking toward more social and political awareness, as well as a desire to enact change through how they live and the work that they do. This is an incredibly refreshing and challenging time for classroom culture. Students can make more out of what they study. They can do things, rather than just rely on being self-referential within highly specialized disciplines. They can externalize their skills and apply them in ways that are meaningful and whose impacts are readily apparent. They are thirsty for this.

And yet, it seems that as they desire to learn more and take action, the knowledge they are gaining is at times debilitating, creating a sense of paralysis and doom.  My students are repeatedly wondering, with so many bad things happening and so much irreversible damage having occurred, how they could possibly have an impact.  It is here where I suggest that, rather than hoping to solve problems or create massive waves, that they, we, everybody take micro steps in an expert way. If we recognize what we are good at and use our area of expertise to engage in a larger discourse, we will indeed have an impact.  No gesture is too small to have an effect on the larger whole.  So, rather than overwhelming us, I propose that we allow the overabundance of available information to enable us to approach an issue from any given discipline. Let us divvy up our tasks and actions based on our individual strengths, believing that the smaller and more focused our response to a problem, the more potential it has to transform things.

So how, specifically, do we go about being activists on a micro level? In his book Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken shows us how hundreds and thousands of micro movements can be seen as one giant tidal wave of change, arguing it is the largest social movement the world has ever seen. Yet, instead of forming groups with mission statements and boards and non-profit status, we might also take an approach even more microscopic, which may be separated into two very basic categories: life and work.

The first infuses our daily lives with the political; we can think about everything we do as a choice and address it in an educated way. All that we say, buy, eat, watch, read and discuss is within our personal power. The latest film about corporate irresponsibility, Food, Inc., shows us ways that we can make change as individuals, literally one bite at a time. Bring a mug to work, ride a bike, eat an organic apple and discuss healthcare, and suddenly the ambient din of our everyday existence is activated, becoming exponentially influential. (If any of the above looks cool or sounds intelligent, people will ask.)

The latter, our work or studies, can be a more challenging arena in which to enact change, but can often be more influential than the personal.  To myself, I have posed the following question: “how can the act of designing furniture subvert the business model of ‘growth as good’, challenge the notion of planned obsolescence, and change manufacturing processes from linear to closed-loop systems?” My solution is to invent a system of ownership that is fluid, such that people can “subscribe” to a design where parts can be returned or exchanged, melted down, re-used and repurposed, and where, when peoples’ needs change, the pieces and parts of their furniture system can be reconfigured to meet them.

Although I realize that I will not change the current way we own and use objects, I would like to think that if all designers questioned and reinvented their approach, such change would be inevitable.  The point is not to solve problems, but rather to begin to chip away, attack and continually approach them from different angles, provide new perspectives, spread the information, build on the discourse, and then hopefully, eventually, the shape of that huge, daunting, overwhelming problem is altered beyond recognition. Perhaps such a small gesture as making our own beauty product or planting a tomato seed can be the final bite that causes the eventual collapse of an issue that once seemed insurmountable.

interview by Damon Locks

I have had the opportunity to perform alongside flutist Nicole Mitchell on many occasions in the group Exploding Star Orchestra. We generally set up right next to each other on stage so we can work together and bounce ideas off each other during a performance. This has given me the rare opportunity to enjoy her work from a mere few inches away. As a musician, she is an incredible talent. Her tone is lyrical and soulful, like a beautiful story that should be told again and again. Her musical intuition is always on point. Her achievements and accolades are many (Downbeat magazine’s “Rising Star Flutist 2005-2008, and awarded “Jazz Flutist of the Year 2008″ by the Jazz Journalist Association, to name but a couple). She fronts the Black Earth Ensemble and Black Earth Strings. She is a tireless musician and a hard working mom as well. One of the great things about Chicago is that there is a wealth of talent and creativity and sometimes you are lucky enough to be standing right next to it.

What encouraged you to pursue music?

My mother’s artwork, the wonder of creation, and my love for the sound of the flute.

I started playing the viola in 4th grade. I chose it to be different, because everyone else wanted the violin.  I was the only viola so  I  had learned how to read music, because there was no hiding! Then in 5th grade, they introduced us to the wind instruments and it was an instant thing when I heard that sound. I asked, “What is that?!”  and the answer was “It’s a flute, stupid.” I wanted to play it so bad, but my parents were like, “We already bought this viola and you’re going to play it.”  For four years I begged and bothered them for a flute.  I had entered a drawing contest that was in the TV Guide, so some artist lady came to the house to talk to my parents about how I could be a gifted visual artist and they should pay a bunch of money for me to take art lessons.  They were thrilled and asked me if I would like to do that. That was my chance. “Could you take that same money you’d pay for art lessons and get me a flute and some lessons?”  Bingo!  So then I was playing flute and viola.  I still practiced viola and played in orchestra. That same year, when I’d only been playing a few months, there were auditions for all-city orchestra.  I auditioned on flute and viola and ended up making 1st chair viola.  I was miserable, looking at those flute players having a great time.  I went in the back room and I found the judges’ sheets on the floor of the bandroom.  I was shocked to discover that I had made 2nd chair flute, but they decided to put me 1st chair viola because they needed me there.   At that very moment I decided that I was NOT going to play viola again. So I stopped.  Too bad…it would have been nice to continue on. It’s interesting how experiences shape you.

When you are working on your music do you think in terms of genre?

I really don’t think much about genre.  There are different musical styles that swim in my veins, that I’ve been attracted to and absorb. They subconsciously influence my creativity. I consider myself to be a “creative musician,” because with “creative” music people don’t have a specific expectation and they can be open to receive what you bring.

As a member of the musical community of Chicago you work in a medium and within an idiom that has a rich history and tradition. Do you feel a responsibility to respond to that tradition and work within that tradition?

Chicago does have a rich legacy in jazz and creative music and I definitely feel that my work is part of that continuum. As a musician and composer, it’s not so much a feeling of responsibility, but a spiritual connection to those musicians that have come before me. My responsibility is to be myself and express my own voice. This is really clear also for members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a collective that I’m a part of (that will have its 45th birthday in 2010). The AACM is one of the great entities that has shaped musical history in Chicago and internationally, through the ideas of supportive community, self-help, and the encouragement to create original music. I do feel a sense of responsibility to carry the torch for the AACM, because many musicians before me struggled to make a name for it, and because of all the gifts of guidance that mentors like George Lewis, Fred Anderson, Hamid Drake, Arveeayl Ra, Ed Wilkerson, Douglas Ewart and Ernest Dawkins have given me and others. One of the great things about the AACM is the relationship between so many generations playing music together, with members in their twenties to members reaching toward eighty. I just recently was named chairperson, and our new executive board is all younger folks, including cellist Tomeka Reid: treasurer, drummer Mike Reed: vice chair, vocalist Saalik Ziyad: secretary and percussionist Coco Elysses: Dean of AACM School. It’s a big change and I feel a heavy responsibility to serve the organization, its members, our neighboring communities that are music-starved and to keep getting AACM music out there so the world can hear it.

How important is recorded material versus playing live?

When music is recorded, I feel a sense of completion with it, because evidence has been made that it exists.  It represents a moment in time captured of a musician or project that allows us to know and go back.  It creates a sense of history.  Honestly I think recorded music can never be as special as live music though.  Live music is something special between the musicians and the people that were there–something that begins and ends.  There’s a mystery to that.

How do you approach releasing your music?

I started out by making my own label with my life-partner, saxophonist David Boykin.  We put out my first three albums. Since then I’ve realized that it’s good to pass it around, so that other ears can hear your music, so I enjoy working with other labels like Delmark, Greenleaf and Firehouse 12.  It’s good to have a balance. I’m curious how long the CD thing is going to last, and if we’re heading to download as the only answer.  Long story short, I’m open to try new things. It all comes down to sharing the sound and getting it out there.

How has Chicago, as a place or as a musical community, shaped your artistic trajectory?

Chicago has had a huge impact on my life and my art.  I have many childhood memories here, from visiting my grandparents on the southside. I romanticized my mother’s presence here, as she was born and raised in Chicago and she passed when I was a teenager. I never really felt at home anywhere until I made Chicago my home. It was where I needed to be. There’s so much culture here and community.

Is it difficult to survive as a full time musician in Chicago?

I think it’s near impossible anywhere! Most the musicians I know have other jobs and do music because they love it. I’ve been blessed to be a full-time musician, but I never live with any expectations of things being easy, or the same!  Things can change at any moment for better or worse, so I appreciate the positives in the moment.

www.nicolemitchell.com

www.aacmchicago.org

www.myspace.com/blackearthsounds