ARTWORK project

I chose to distribute Art Works near the theatre in the Castro. I chose this location because the demographic in the Castro tends to be open minded, outgoing, and generally friendly. Out of all the people I spoke with while handing out the newspaper, three encounters stuck out in my mind.

            The first was a guy named Chris. He was probably in his late twenties to mid thirties, and was sitting on the street near where I was standing. We talked about the concept that artists can no longer just be artists, and how with the failing economy art promotion/publicity, advertising, and exhibits have been exponentially decreasing. He brought up a personal story and said that he had been an artist his whole life, doing mostly drawings, painting and poetry. However, with the lack of opportunities to make a living through art, he eventually became a writer. He referenced Dave Archer, whom he said was a friend, saying “okay so we’re artists- now how are we going to feed ourselves?” He was very interested in the magazine because it seemed applicable to his own experience. 

            The second was a girl named Sarah. Her reaction when I gave her a magazine and discussed it with her was to tell me about the Hospitality House here in the city. The program helps provide homeless and low income people have the means to produce art, and even offers opportunity for employment in certain artistic fields. She also told me about Roaddawgs, a program similar to the Hospitality House that focuses even more specifically on art. The program pays young people for their poems, writings, comics, paintings, drawings...etc, anything that could be considered art. She felt that these programs are an important part to helping the problems addressed in the magazine.

            The last conversation I had was with three boys, all of whom were art students at the Academy of Art. When I handed them a magazine and began to introduce what it was about, they smiled and said, “This is our biggest problem…” and went on to tell me about how they were art students who had no idea what they were going to be able to do with their degree. They were interested in what the magazine had to say and were all too familiar with the real life situation the magazine describes.