Alias Arts

Graffiti For Israel from Jared Levy on Vimeo.

COPE2, SUEWORKS, Claire Reid and other New York artists come together at Tuff City Styles to create a mural in support of Israel’s 62nd Independence Day celebration.

Toxic Wastes Earth Day 2010 (Wastebed 13) Re-Edit from john fekner on Vimeo.

“A few days before the start of National Park Week and the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22nd, a major volcanic eruption in Iceland occurred. Whether it’s Mother Nature as in this case, or man-made induced, these disruptions to our daily life create a moment to pause and contemplate the possible catastrophic impact on civilization and future generations.

Every day in the news we see and read stories concerning toxic waste and pollution. Intentional or not, the burying of toxins in the ground and accidental spills are contaminating our environment, poisoning our communities, wildlife, rivers, streams, land and air around the world. Last week, federal and state environmental officials were assessing the health risk in Camillus in upstate New York, a small community fighting an ongoing battle over a proposal to bury toxic wastes from Onondaga Lake in Wastebed 13 owned by Honeywell International. There is a petition that can be signed in support of a safe alternative to the use of Wastebed 13.

The concern over Wastebed 13 prompted me to revisit a work entitled Toxic Wastes from A to Z (Coming After You and Me) created almost three decades ago when the personal computer was in its infancy in 1981 (Years of transfers to different storage systems, and general wear and tear are evident in the video.) My project serves as a reminder that we cannot coexist with hazardous waste. The 1978 Love Canal tragedy was influential in creating the original work; now, Wastebed 13 has prompted the re-edit..”… John Fekner

For this and other petitions click here.

(photo by Jeremy Balkin)

For a long time, Sara and I have been struggling with the fact that for us, the Wooster Collective website is still a very small and personal blog with no agenda other than to use it as a way to share with our friends the things that inspire us. Some of those friends we know very, very well. We meet each week face-to-face in New York to talk about art, family, New York, etc. Other “friends” we have never met, but we know from the emails that we receive that we share with them a common view of the world and the way we wish to live in it. The blog is a way for us to learn about new things, meet new types of people, and to take us out of our comfort zone so we can achieve new goals. It’s 100% a passion project and a passion project only.

What we struggle with is the fact that the popularity of the blog has brought to it people who expect more from it and more from us than we are willing to give. While Wooster started as a “street art blog” it was always more than that for us. We’ve always posted on the site things that we love, regardless of whether it was a piece of street art or not. We’ve also posted a lot about our family, especially our dog Hudson and our daughter Samantha. We’ve never felt that we needed to say more than what we wanted to say. Transparency came from our integrity, not from a need to answer every question posed from others. And we always knew that the more personal and intimate the blog was, the more “connected” people became to us, and us to them. And this is what has kept the blog going. We’ve always felt that the people who read the blog a lot “get” us. So when I say we do the site for our “friends” these are the friends that I am speaking about.

We never wanted to turn the Wooster site into a business but at the same time we’ve allowed it to grow into something much bigger than the two of us. We struggle with this every day, but the joy we get out of the site still makes it well worth it. Today, while tens of thousands of people come to the site each day, we still treat it (rightly or wrongly) as a small personal project.

Six months ago we were invited to see a rough cut of Banksy’s film, Exit Through The Gift Shop. When the film was over, I looked at Sara, she looked at me, and we saw that both of our jaws had dropped. We were blown away by the film. We both felt that it was so much more than a “street art” film. For us, the film was about the human condition. Why do we seek fame and acceptance? What do we do to achieve it? That night we said that we would do anything and everything we could to help make this film a success. We loved it so much. It wasn’t about money, it was about passion.

And while Sara and I are both involved in marketing, for us, supporting the film on our site and by getting involved in more traditional marketing methods comes out of our true love for what the film is and the fact that we want it to be successful. We hope you see the film not only because we post about it, but because you’ve heard about it from others.

To be honest, we’re not sure how long we can do the website. We have no intention of stopping it, but one of the joys of the site is that we can end it tomorrow if we wanted to. Since it’s not a business, the only ties we have to keep it going is our true passion. Our support of Banksy and the commitment we have to the film is at the heart of that passion.