[Our friends, Chuck and Iris, were visiting this weekend, and I heard about this great opportunity (below) from Chuck who got an email from a friend at the Walker Art Center. Chuck and Iris are former New Orleans residents I’ve told you about before. They’re in Baltimore now where Iris is faculty at the University of Maryland, and Chuck is commuting to Washington to work on a project for a museum. They have their New Orleans house on the market if anybody’s looking.]
You’ve always wanted to get your art on national television. (Maybe not? Then read no further.) Here’s one way to make it happen. Apply to the My Yard Our Message project, a juried contest for artist-designed yard signs–signs that will be placed around Minneapolis in September when that town hosts the Republican National Convention. TV loves a little ruckus and I’m sure this project will get coverage as a human interest story.
The contest is sponsored by Walker Art Center, mnartyists.org and the UnConvention, and artists can submit their designs now through June 30. We-the-people will get to vote online for the signs we like best starting July 1, and the winning 50 will be produced as yard signs, put up in Minneapolis for the convention and will be available for purchase if you want one for your own front yard ($20 including shipping!). The theme of the placards is: what it means to actively participate in a democracy (no hateful or defamatory stuff, like duh). Send your design as a a jpeg, Illustrator or Photoshop file–you can submit up to 5 designs. templates and other info available online here.
Property of China by Roger Sayre. A statement about our nations huge financial debt to China. This is a sample yard sign from the My Yard Our Message project.
KEY DATES AND DEADLINES:
DESIGN SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE: June 30, 2008
PUBLIC VOTING on yard sign entrants will run from July 1–27, 2008
The 50 winning designs will be announced August 1, 2008.
Here’s from the project’s website:
Yard signs are as ubiquitous and familiar to the American political landscape as baby-kissing and stump speeches, combining catchy images and pithy campaign slogans to increase visibility for vying candidates and their parties’ messages. In honor of this election season, My Yard Our Message turns this tradition of political ephemera on its ear with a unique national competition: we’re putting the message and the creative design for these political yard signs in the hands of artists and then–in true democratic fashion–you, the people, will vote among the entries to determine a selection of fifty winners, whose designs will be made available to order as full-sized political yard-signs after August 1
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