Field Trip: Activism Art Panel Recorded at WonderCon

Exactly the inspiration you need. Exactly the perfect time. Pass it on to anyone who loves art and/or speaking up. I went to Comic-Con’s little sister, WonderCon, to moderate a panel on protest art with expert Carol Wells, the founder of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and C. Andrew Hall, from the Spesh Ep: Functional Magic's Environmental Art episode we did in 2021 about the non-profit he founded. So come along to WonderCon – free admission – as we chat about protest art, different approaches graphically, camouflage among ads, defining propaganda, the tiniest mightiest posters, collectible gig posters for the climate, and how the anti-war movement affected history. Also, short warning, we do discuss a few images of war photojournalism in this episode.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alie Ward?

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• 1:33Alie Ward?

  Oh, hey, it's your friend's new boyfriend, who makes really good onion dip, Ally Ward. Come along with me, if you will, to Anaheim, California, to a little place called WonderCon. Now, if you have heard of the annual Comic Con convention in San Diego, WonderCon is kind of like its younger, scrappier little sister, and it takes over Anaheim for a few days every spring with like tens of thousands of people in this big convention center full of booths and comic book art and film stalls and collectibles and artists like making and signing work. Also, adults in capes. Join me. All right, we're in front of the fountain at WonderCon. So far, we've seen a Loki. I've seen a Westworld lady. Oh, there's a Winona Ryder

• 2:17Alie Ward?

  from Beetlejuice costume in the red, the wedding outfit. Oh, with a Beetlejuice accompaniment. We've got a lot of Pokemons. We've got some Star Trek outfits, plenty of those. That's a Captain America, but he's Captain Mexico. Oh, I love that. Check that out. That guy's Captain Mexico.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  He's my favorite one so far. I love the Captain Mexico.

• 2:37Alie Ward?

  It's like Halloween, but it's in March, and no one's dressed like a hot dog. Everyone's specific, and I like that. I loved it. Now, another perk was that I was there to moderate a panel with a dear, dear friend, C. Andrew Hall, or Andy Hall, who you may remember from an episode we did in 2021 about his environmental nonprofit. He founded it. It's called Functional Magic, and it commissions these really incredible artists to create gig poster-style artwork that's collectible. And because of that episode we did, and y'all, all of these listeners, that first print run he did in 2021 sold out, and Functional Magic was able to donate $25,000 to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. And just as I note, Functional Magic was then

• 3:21Alie Ward?

  known as the Drawdown Design Project, but has since been renamed. And Andy says that Functional Magic is dedicated to spreading this unapologetic hope about our shared future via pop art that they put out into the world. So we'll link that original episode in the show notes, because it's a great look at climate solutions and staying proactive with optimism. So Andy organized a panel at WonderCon about activist poster art, and I was more than game to help. I was like, the time, the place, I'm there. Also on the panel was someone named Carol Wells, and she is the founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, which is amazing. It's this archive in Los Angeles

• 4:01Alie Ward?

  that collects and preserves and documents and exhibits posters relating to these movements of social change. How many posters they got? They got over 90,000 posters. So if you have ever had a message you wanted to get across to strangers, or a passion that you wanted to scream from the rooftops, but you know that That art goes farther, this episode is for you. So, free admission, let's get an update on Functional Magic's work, which involves a launch this week of a T-shirt line that is gorgeous. And let's soak up the decades of history of activism art with Andy and Carol as we cover some history of protest art, different approaches graphically, who it speaks to, camouflage among ads.

• 4:44Alie Ward?

  Where does street art go to be archived? Propaganda, the tiniest, mightiest posters, collectible gig posters for the climate, and how the anti-war movement galvanized so many artists. Also, short warning, we do discuss a few images of war photojournalism in this episode. So, get in, we're going postering with this field trip to WonderCon: Activism and Art.

• 5:27Alie Ward?

  Welcome to the best panel all weekend. I'm so excited to be here. My name's Ally Ward, and I host a podcast called Ologies. And I always love to start off by finding out where your passion comes from. So, I would love to know, Carol, where did you first get a spark for political posters and activism?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Well, actually, I've always been passionate about art. And then, high school, civil rights movement, I became passionate about social justice, Vietnam War, et cetera, et cetera. I became an art historian, but I taught about the art of the rich and powerful by day, and I protested the institutions of the rich and powerful on the streets on weekends. I really like her. But they weren't connected, until I was hired to collect posters of the New Revolution in Nicaragua in 1981 by a professor at UCLA who collected posters for years.

• 6:20Alie Ward?

  So, very, very brief side note here. So, the Nicaraguan Revolution started in late 1970s with an uprising against this family dynasty dictatorship. And then- And the rise of the socialist-leaning Sandinista National Liberation Front. And then the subsequent opposition to them, Bata Contras, which was a right-wing militia. So Carol, at the time, was working to collect that activist art on behalf of a professor. And-

• 6:46Speaker 02

  A poster changed my life, and I wasn't interested in the political poster before. And in that one moment, I literally had an epiphany and became addicted to political posters.

• 6:55Alie Ward?

  Where was it? Were you standing on the street? Was it in a train station? Was it in a newspaper?

• 7:00Speaker 02

  We were living with a family, and we went to the women's movement, and they were having a big demonstration and had a fresh delivery of posters for those women's march. And I gave one to the family we were living with, and she put it on her living room wall. And she was like the local healthcare person. And one neighbor comes in with her eight-year-old son, nine-year-old son, and the two women go off. I'm alone in the living room with the son. He's not interested in me, but he's looking around the room. He'd never been there before. The poster, all of a sudden, grabs him. He walks over to it, and I watched him mouth the words on the poster, which in English would say, "In constructing a new country, we are becoming the new woman." And I watched him trying to figure out. I'm sure he never figured it out, but that was the moment of my epiphany. That was the moment I realized that's how posters work.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  You're going about your daily life, and something breaks through the bubble that we all have around to get through the day, and it makes you ask a question. Whenever you ask a question, you're not the same person you were before you asked the question. I dropped my dissertation, which was three-quarters of the way through.

• 7:57Alie Ward?

  Oh, my God.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Medieval architecture. My life totally changed.

• 8:02Alie Ward?

  So this poster with very simple line art and just a few basic colors, this kelly-green background, the tanned brown of a South American woman's skin, and she's holding a basket full of red coffee berries. This art was made by a feminist organization, which arose as part of the Sandinistas. And Carol, seeing that little boy reading it and absorbing it, made her realize the power of grassroots artwork. Okay, we know posters work. We know that they capture our attention. We see them. But in your opinion, how do they work? Why do they work?

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Well, they make us look at the world in a different way. And as far as quantifying it, I mean, think of how many millions of dollars are spent on advertising. And in many ways, a poster are anti-advertising, they're a counter-advertising, but they work in the same way. And we're surrounded by image overload. The trick is not just knowing that images work, but finding an image that will break through all the other images and attract your attention.

• 9:00Alie Ward?

  Just real quick, how valuable is marketing exactly? What's the street value of a message? Well, how much is spent globally on advertising every year? I wonder this. Companies spend an average of 12% of their revenue back into marketing. And according to this one big data aggregator, $917 billion went into advertising globally last year. And the US spent the most, more than the next six biggest spenders combined. And we know from social media, our eyeballs and attention is worth a shitload of money. But why make art that is selling a concept or a movement? Are you reinforcing what someone already thinks?

• 9:43Alie Ward?

  Are you completely changing how they feel or think about something? Or are you polarizing them another direction? Where do you think activism and art take our brains?

• 9:53Speaker 02

  It's all of the above. The people who agree with you need to know that they're not alone. Then you have, it also reaches out to the people who have made their mind up. They're only getting one perspective. So it makes them think, oh, there's more than one way of looking at it. And then there's the folks that are not going to agree with whatever you say, no matter how you say it. But every once in a while, you do reach someone and they start questioning what they never questioned.

• 10:16Alie Ward?

  What are historically some of the posters that have changed the world or that were really big in movements?

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Well, I actually did an article on five posters that changed the world.

• 10:27Alie Ward?

  Well, there you go.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  So, and the first one is actually very graphic. So I just want to warn everybody, it's, um, it's... A lot of dead bodies. It was during the Vietnam War. I'm probably one of the oldest people in this room, but during dinner, the war was shown every night on the 6 o'clock news.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Two Americans were listed as dead. One was a machine gunner and the second, his company commander, who took over the machine gun from his fallen comrade and was killed himself. Thirteen GIs were wounded. Four enemy soldiers were counted among the casualties.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  So everybody was eating their dinner while we would see this story, literally seeing pictures of war, of murder, of death and dying. And this particular massacre done by US troops, over 500 women and children, mainly, a few elderly men. No guns were found. Over a year later, Seymour Hersh, who's an independent journalist, who's still breaking news, he uncovered it and the photograph. You know, New York Times, Life Magazine, they all showed this photo. And Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes interviewed one of the soldiers and he asked the soldier, "And babies?" And the soldier answered, "And babies."

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Men, women and children?

• 11:36Speaker 05

  Men, women and children.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  And babies?

• 11:38Speaker 05

  And babies.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Why did you do it?

• 11:42Speaker 05

  Why did I do it? Because I felt like I was ordered to do it. Well, at the time, I felt like I was doing the right thing. Or I did.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  You're married?

• 11:52Speaker 05

  Right.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Children?

• 11:55Speaker 05

  Two.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  How can a father of two young children shoot babies?

• 12:00Speaker 05

  I don't know. I just wanted things.

• 12:03Alie Ward?

  This legendary color photo was taken at the scene by Army photographer Ron Hailborough. And it shows this rural dirt path through an otherwise green grassland. And in this dirt road are a pile of over 20 victims of this Mele massacre, including many children. And the photo showed the actual real horrors of the war, imagery that news outlets may have shielded from viewers, kind of like the deluge of images you may have seen daily on social media of Gazan families and children killed in the last year and a half in Palestine. I know my algorithm was showing them to me all the time. And for more on that, you can see our genocideology episode with Dr. Dirk Moses. But yes, back to Vietnam and babies.

• 12:48Alie Ward?

  A group of New York artists, activists from the Art Workers Coalition, took the image and superimposed the words, "And babies?" And babies.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  And the Art Workers Coalition had made 50,000 copies of this and it kept it alive. The photo itself made headlines, but if it bleeds, it leads and the next week, there's another photo. But the poster it carried in all these demonstrations, kept it before the public. And the majority of people believed the lies that the US government was saying until this photo. They did not want their tax money doing this. That plus the grassroots organizing, and you don't have just the picture without the organizing. So all of these thousands of people who were demonstrating and protesting and students who were going on strike, we used this picture and others. And basically, that's what started to change the public sentiment about the war.

• 13:36Alie Ward?

  During that period, the 60s and the 70s, did you find that a lot of the arts and activism was anti-war?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 13:44Alie Ward?

  So at the time, in addition to civilians, many military veterans, especially since there was a draft, were also part of this anti-war movement. And Carol says that there's no right or wrong approach. Not all activism is poster-sized and depicts grim realities. And she advances a slide here, which is a simple, almost crude, kind of crayon-looking art. It's got a bright yellow background with a thick, black line art drawing of a sunflower and handwritten lettering that reads, "War is not healthy for children and other living things." And it's called Primer. It's by artist Lorraine Schneider. And it debuted in its original form as a miniature painting, just two inches by two inches, for an art show in 1965.

• 14:29Alie Ward?

  And it became so widespread and iconic an image that Schneider donated all the rights to the image to the anti-war nonprofit, Another Mother for Peace, and it raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the anti-war effort. I know this one in particular is meaningful to you. You're wearing a necklace with this art engraved on it. So you carry this with you around your neck. Can you describe why this poster meant so much to you, why it's left such a different on you?

• 14:56Speaker 02

  It's interesting. At the time, it was everywhere. It was probably the most widely reproduced poster during the Vietnam War, done by Another Mother for Peace. And it was used, basically, to fund workshops in high schools against ROTC and against enlisting. So they was really using it to help organize. Originally, it was two by three inch.

• 15:16Alie Ward?

  Oh, that's tiny. That's like tiny, tiny, tiny.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Tiny. And it was submitted to a contest and lost. And she made cards out of it. And another mother for peace saw it and asked if they could use it as their logo. And the rest is history. And so they blew it up into that size poster, made medallions, stickers, bumper stickers, patches. I mean, the pendant that I'm wearing is the same shape and approximate size as a dog tag. So the GIs would wear it with their dog tags. It became a very powerful, powerful statement. And then the organization gave the Center for the Study of Political Graphics permission to reproduce it during the Iraq War. And a friend of mine kept coming in and buying them. I said, wow, you're just really giving them out. She says, no, I have one in my front yard and it keeps getting destroyed.

• 15:59Alie Ward?

  Wow.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  And I had never thought that that poster could piss people off.

• 16:03Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Because, you know, who's going to object to war is not healthy to children and other living things?

• 16:08Alie Ward?

  Is it important to have icons or archetypes or imagery that's familiar to someone? Like with comic book art, you know, we're at WonderCon here. What is the role of comics and the style of comics in political and social activism art?

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Well, I think what you said about the familiarity is a key point. Unlike a corporate ad, which has usually a huge budget and a lot of time to come up with what they think is an effective ad, political poster artists generally act really quickly. George Floyd, for example, that poster gets made immediately.

• 16:41Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Immediately, because there's demonstrations the next day.

• 16:44Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  And in a case like George Floyd, you'd have a portrait. But in other cases, it's really helpful to have something that looks familiar, but not quite.

• 16:53Alie Ward?

  Uh huh.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  So you'll see comic strip characters, you'll see advertisement, you'll see fine art incorporated in so it looks like a commercial. And then all of a sudden, wait a minute, that doesn't look like a commercial.

• 17:02Alie Ward?

  Carol advances a slide to show these early 2000s ads for Apple's then brand-new device called an iPod. And these ads always featured a brightly single-colored background, maybe in a golden rod yellow or a royal blue or a magenta, and a black silhouette of someone hot, dancing, while holding their innovative, small, little white box of an iPod with their iconic white earbuds on the cord. Who remembers this, right? Yeah. Before anyone had iPods, it was like, that. That was the life everyone wanted to live.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  And the ad hasn't been used in over a decade. The same journalist that I mentioned, Seymour Hersh, also uncovered the torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which was run by the US military. Again, not supposed to happen, and US isn't supposed to do that. Other people are torturers, we are not. But this obviously lied to that. And there were many, many, many photographs.

• 18:01Alie Ward?

  And around the same time, and this was early in the Iraq war, the US Army and the CIA committed violations of human rights laws against those detained at Abu Ghraib prison. Now, there was this one leaked image, which you may or may not remember. It was a photo of a prisoner in a dark blanket-like poncho and a pointed hood. And he's balancing on a box. Both arms are outstretched to the side, and you can see electric shocking wires dangling from his arms. And this photo was nicknamed "The Hooded Man." And with just a few graphic design tweaks, maybe blur your eyes a little, and that image was this really eerie echo to the glossy consumerism literally plastered all over the world at that time.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  That photo became very iconic, I think, because of its religious connection. And so, there was an artist on the East Coast, both of you pseudonyms, there was an artist on the East Coast and the one in LA. There were two guys, they called themselves Forkscrew Graphics, also a pseudonym, because they were afraid to be sued by Apple. I kept telling them, "No, no, no, you won't be sued because it's fair use and it's a political poster, it's free speech."

• 19:06Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  You're not trying to sell an imitation of an iPod ad. You're not trying to sell anything at all. You're just using it to grab attention. So, they both hit the streets almost at the same time.

• 19:16Alie Ward?

  If you hadn't been born yet, this was in 2004.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  And what they did, they incorporated the ad into the real ad. They incorporated the protest poster into the real ad. So, when you're walking by, all of a sudden, you see something familiar in the iPod ad, but what? The torture image of the hooded man with the wires coming from his? It's like culture jamming, but once you get it in your head, once you see that, you can never see the real ad again without doing a double take. Is it the real one, or is it the political one? So, it was absolutely one of the most brilliant political poster interjections into popular culture that I've seen.

• 19:52Alie Ward?

  So activism art can be tiny. It can be thrust overhead in a crowd. It can be wheat pasted on city streets, or it can hang up as collectibles. And again, our 2021 episode with nonprofit environmental art organization Functional Magic, founder and creative director C. Andrew Hall, AKA Andy, he shared that his aim is to use beautiful artwork of climate solutions to inspire people in their own daily environments. And he piped up to Ask Carol.

• 20:20Speaker 06

  I have a question. Now, we could disagree about the details, but broad strokes, whether you're Republican or Democrat, there is very little appetite in the American public for boots-on-the-ground American soldiers in other countries anymore. Do you at all think that a lot of that activism was successful? Do you take any pride in that? Do you see any movement since when you started this work?

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Pride is not a word that I use. I think because of what we did, the movement did, they got smarter. The war mongers got smarter. So when Bush starts the Iraq War, no cameras allowed. No journalists were allowed when the body bags came home.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Oh, that doesn't seem suspicious at all.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  They were not allowed. So they've learned, and so we've had to become more creative also. I don't know who said it, it's an old slogan, but first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. So we're in the ridicule-fight stage. We've been there for quite a while.

• 21:17Alie Ward?

  That quote is, "First, they ignore you. Then, they ridicule you. And then, they attack you and want to burn you. And then, they build monuments to you." It's not from Gandhi, as many people attribute it to him, but rather, it's from a 1918 speech by a union activist named Nicholas Klein. Klein, such a G. He was orphaned. He grew up to become an attorney and a labor activist. He even wrote for a paper called The Hobo News. I was like, what's that? Demographic hobos, real hobos. And apparently, it legitimized the identities of unhoused and itinerant workers. And it also started the modern street newspaper movement. So, change needs people. And people are in public. And the

• 22:02Alie Ward?

  Public space needs a street team, no matter what the cause. In a timely last minute edition, this episode is coming out on March 1st. But in a few days, just a few days, on March 3rd, 2025, your favorite toothologist, Dr. Sarah Mack, Dr. Sarah McEnulty, a squid scientist, who was also in the modern togographology episodes on murals and street art that we put out in October, is running a free beginner's guide, a Zoom to making street art, and it's happening this Monday, March 3rd. It's at 8:00 PM Eastern Time. It's at 5:00 PM Pacific in the US. And on this Zoom, she's going to cover everything that a brand new street artist needs to know about getting important messages in front of people in the public space. And you can RSVP at the link in the show notes.

• 22:47Alie Ward?

  Again, March 3rd, free Zoom. Pass it on to everyone you know. Sarah's the best.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  One of the important things about the Center for the Study of Political Graphics is not just that we have collected all these posters to show how many struggles have been going on for so long. I mean, the immigration struggles have been going on forever. The ecology struggles have been going on forever. Women's rights have been going on forever. We do exhibitions and they show how long people have been fighting the same fight.

• 23:13Alie Ward?

  Pride festivals have existed for over 50 years, arising from the anniversary celebrations of New York City Stonewall riots and then blossoming into this full spectrum celebration of rainbow solidarity.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  And sometimes we win and sometimes we lose and sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back. The other thing that it does, the posters document the victories that we've had. And that's one thing that the corporate media does not want us to know. They don't want us to know that people have power. People have the power, as in the Patti Smith song.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  And so I think that's one of the things that the posters actually tell the stories that we don't learn in school and they don't really want us to know.

• 23:54Alie Ward?

  And with recent huge cuts in US federal administrations like Park Services and even epidemiologists at the CDC, anything remotely related to equity or diversity and climate scientists at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, how does the word get out? Art can be one avenue, as evidenced in the Center for the Study of Political Graphics catalog of 90,000-plus posters. Talk to me a little bit about when we started to see environmental activism art. Is that something that's only been, you know, like since the ozone layer started to get fucked? Or was that like way before that?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  We've got posters from the 60s that are already talking about the environmental movement. So there's been an ecology movement, at least you can date it to the 1970s, and it hasn't stopped. I don't think it got the attention that it has now because the existential aspect of it is like in our face.

• 24:45Alie Ward?

  And now, Andy, I feel like there is also a culture of gig posters as fine art and as these limited edition collectibles. And what you have managed to do is take activism and take art and turn it into something that you want to put on your wall that is collectible. When you were coming up with the styles and the things that you wanted to convey, how did you narrow it down? Because there's so many ways you could have gone with this. And we'll hear that answer in just one minute. But let's put some money where our mouths are and we'll make a donation to two organizations this week. They should not surprise you. One is the Center for the Study of Political Graphics. And since we

• 25:26Alie Ward?

  recorded this, the world has gotten even more bizarre. Carol sent us a message just yesterday saying, "The intense changes that we've witnessed in the world since this interview took place, especially the rapid dismantling of rights generations have fought for, show that the work of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics is more important than ever. And by collecting and exhibiting the graphics of past struggles and how people organized and often won, CSPG's posters tell the stories and histories that are currently being censored, hidden, and denied. So we are proud to donate to them and their work." And Carol adds that if you have or make human rights or protest posters about any issue or would like to display one of their poster exhibitions, please contact [email protected].

• 26:10Alie Ward?

  And we're also making a donation to functionalmagic.org to keep up the amazing work commissioning art that inspires people to seek and fight for climate solutions, including a Kickstarter, which is linked in the show notes, that's dropping the same day this episode is coming out, featuring some gorgeous art for a t-shirt and you can be a walking billboard for change. We'll hear more about Andy's work in a sec, but thank you to sponsors of the show for making those donations possible. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. If you haven't heard me gushing about Squarespace for years, it's an all-in-one website platform. Whether you're trying to grow a business you have, or if you're just a baby business getting started, it has everything you need. That's where I secured my domain name. It helped me build a professional site.

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  Ologies with Ally Ward is sponsored by Silvania. It's time to upgrade your nighttime drive with Silvania LED Ultra Fog and Powersport Lights. These powerful lights deliver cool white clarity and crisp visibility that's built to last. And thanks to their compact design, Silvania LED Ultra Fog and Powersport Lights are engineered for a DIY install, no mechanic required. They're also backed by a limited lifetime warranty and 125 years of lighting expertise, bringing you LED Ultra Night Vision to help you see better at night. Switch today and see better tonight with Silvania LED Ultra Fog and Powersport Lights. Trips are full of unexpected discoveries. Maybe you see a sea slug, or you find out that your friend still sleeps with a stuffed animal.

• 30:02Alie Ward?

  But when it comes to your vacation rental, there should not be any surprises. When you book a Verbo vacation rental, if what you expect isn't what you get, Verbo Care has you covered. If something's broken or just not right, Verbo will work to make it right. Plus, you get 24/7 live human support with every booking. Grab your stuffy, we're going on vacay. So book today on the Verbo app. If you know, you're Verbo. Terms apply. See verbo.com/trust for details. So yes, a quick reminder, after Andy's first episode in 2021, y'all sold out his collectible climate solutions posters depicting electrical power, regenerative agriculture, empowering girls and women, and engaging with government. And you helped Andy, again, raise $25,000 for the Coalition for Rainforest Nations.

• 30:47Alie Ward?

  And then since that episode, functional magic has made four new prints, and one is encouraging voting with a stunning hand-printed, letter-based work by Amos Kennedy Paul. Junior, Another by Violetta Hernandez, celebrates plant-based diets. Caspar Wingard's kind of trippy, critter-filled piece encourages wildland protections. And there's a vintage comic-style nod to electrifying vehicles by Rafa Orico Diaz. And all of these are available at functionalmagic.org. And the Kickstarter launch of the t-shirt art features the work of Kaya Soder, a Southern California-based illustrator and designer and poster artist, whose clients have included Phish and Primus and Teton Gravity Research.

• 31:30Alie Ward?

  And Kaya told me she hopes that her artwork will inspire people toward joyful activism and collaboration to make our communities and by extension, our world, a better place. So Functional Magic's Kickstarter of her work launches literally today, and this is the organization's first foray into that t-shirt medium. But let's ask Andy how he approaches his organization's activism art. Why does Functional Magic make these beautifully designed and commissioned, collectible, handmade gig posters to fund climate activism? What inspired him? And also, why a screen print?

• 32:04Speaker 06

  Well, screen print is traditional to gig posters, and I just think they look great. It's just a beautiful analog process. And so there was an aspect of this where I was creating something that I just loved as an art piece. And my idea was that I was going to foreground the art. They're different, right, than the kind of political posters that Carol's talking about. They're not message-first. And I was hoping that people would hang them on their walls and enjoy them and get to know the climate change solution a little bit that the posters were inspired by. And there's like a social contagion thing that they call in activism, right? Where if people get excited about something, someone else will, someone else will, you know, there is a real narrative in the media and even some activists that the energy transition,

• 32:48Speaker 06

  the agriculture transition, a lot of the transitions that need to happen are all just painful and austerity and sacrifice. And it's not really true. The more I research solutions to climate change, a lot of them just will make our lives better regardless of their emissions reduction, right? Our lives will be better if everything's electrified and there's less air pollution. You know, our lives will be better if farming becomes regenerative and there's healthier food available. So let's get excited about that and work on these things.

• 33:16Alie Ward?

  And so trying to put a positive spin on what you can do. As opposed to what you have to limit yourself from doing.

• 33:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I don't think it's a spin. I mean, I believe it.

• 33:26Alie Ward?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think when it comes to propaganda, propaganda kind of gets a bad rap. But there are positive aspects of propaganda. Is that correct?

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm trying to redefine propaganda. So propaganda, we've been taught that what the other side said is propaganda. What we say is the truth.

• 33:46Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  And the other side says the same thing.

• 33:49Alie Ward?

  For a deeper dive on misleading or misinformation used as propaganda, you can see our recent updated episode on agnotology or willful ignorance.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  So I think, yes, everything is propaganda.

• 34:03Speaker 06

  Can we? I know we're running out of time, but I really wanted to ask Carol a question.

• 34:06Alie Ward?

  Yeah, no, go for it.

• 34:07Speaker 06

  Okay, so I know Carol knows this is a super famous poster.

• 34:12Alie Ward?

  So this is the now century old poster of a white bearded man in a suit and a star-spangled top hat pointing right at its viewer with the words, "I want you for US Army," kind of like if Michelangelo's heavenly creator were younger and had a better jawline and was in business clothes instead of like a celestial bathrobe. Carol's like, oh, I don't know if you heard, the mic picked that up. But talking about iconography and very recognizable faces, we've got a poster of Uncle Sam, "Who Wants You for the US Army."

• 34:48Speaker 06

  You know, there's like these iconic images that have been super successful and you associate with any number of things. This is for recruiting. You know, you think of Smokey the Bear, when you think about forest fires, you can think about Rosie the Riveter, when you think about selling war bonds. I don't think there's been one yet for climate change. And why do you think that is? What do you think about that?

• 35:09Speaker 02

  The closest thing to an icon for the ecology movement is in the late 60s, Ron Cobb, who was a political cartoonist, who then went on to do some of the computer graphics for the first Star Wars. He developed the theta symbol, which part of the explanation of it at the time was that it means if we don't deal with the ecology now, it is going to be death for the world. So often you'll see the green American flag with maybe the peace sign on it. That's more common.

• 35:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  But it's a challenge for all you artists and graphic designers out there.

• 35:44Alie Ward?

  Since we are among a pop culture and comic book crowd, let's not forget that the Greek letter theta was used as an abbreviation for the mythological figure of death Thanatos, who inspired the supervillain to end them all, Thanos. You cute little nerds probably already knew that. But things you don't know, let's hear from the WonderCon audience, their questions.

• 36:07Speaker 07

  I was curious what disruptive public art or guerrilla art looks like in the more digital world and digital space, if you see stuff like that. So, online disruptive protest art.

• 36:17Alie Ward?

  Great question, yeah. Are memes protest art?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  I think the word that got me was disruptive. Because when you're looking at your computer screen or your phone, and you're looking at all these images, and they're all over the political map. And then you go on to the next one. You're not doing anything. It's a very passive way of receiving information. And you really is talking about an economic level of having access to a phone or a computer. Paper posters are actually still used more and more because you can't carry your computer screen in a demonstration. You can't plant your computer screen on your lawn. You know, so paper is still being used. Now, what the computer does, what the internet does, what social media does, it makes it very easy to transmit the posters.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  I think this started with Occupy did a lot of free downloads. And so you have artists make the posters, and then whoever likes that one, or that one, or that one, they just download and print themselves.

• 37:15Alie Ward?

  And Carol is referring to Occupy Wall Street, which was a series of protests against income inequality in the fall of 2011. Now, Carol also has plenty of poster download resources, and we'll link them on our website.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Then the immigration movement in Alto, Arizona, they did a lot of free downloads. Just Seeds is a great organization. And when a poster's on a wall, in a market, or in a library, you go in there because you're going to use those facilities, and all of a sudden, you see something you weren't expecting to see. And that's really the power of the poster.

• 37:48Speaker 06

  Well, I just really want to thank you. It's so exciting for me, as someone who's just starting this and trying to be as effective as I can be to have this resource. And I can't thank you enough for keeping that going.

• 37:59Alie Ward?

  Thank you all for being here and having this chat with us. Thank you both for letting me ask you so many questions.

• 38:04Speaker 06

  Thanks, Ally.

• 38:11Alie Ward?

  So ask activist people artistic questions and make a poster. Use your voice. Thank you again so much, Carol and Andy, for orchestrating this. And again, we have links to the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and to Functional Magic in the show notes, and also a link to Andy's Kickstarter for Functional Magic with gorgeous new t-shirt designs by Kaya Soder. Check those out. We'll also link the social media for both organizations. We are at Ologies on Instagram and Blue Sky. I'm at @AllyWard on both. Smallologies are shorter, kid-friendly episodes in their own feed. They're linked in the show notes. We have Ologies merch at ologiesmerch.com. And to support the show, you can join our Patreon at patreon.com/ologies. Thank you

• 38:53Alie Ward?

  to Erin Talbert, who admins the Ologies Podcast Facebook group. Avilene Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly Ardoyer makes the website. Noelle Dilworth is our wonderful scheduling producer. Susan Hale managing directs the whole shebang. Jake Chaffee is an editor on the decks and lead editor-producer of this field trip episode, who also did additional reporting and some writing, is Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Thank you so much for taking the lead on this one. Nick Thorburn wrote the theme music. And if you stick around until the end of the episode, I'll tell you a secret, and I am proud to tell you, I started reading a book for fun last night, and I got like a ways into it. And TBH wasn't enjoying the vibe. And I was like, uh, but I should finish this. This would be a good book to put on my to-have-read list, even though it was just for fun. And then I remembered, we're all gonna die. I don't know how much longer I have left. Something could fall

• 39:38Alie Ward?

  out of the sky, beam me right in the head. And guess what? No one will ever be standing over my casket like stern-faced, reading from a spreadsheet of the books I did or did not finish reading for fun. So I stopped reading this book, picked up a different book. I loved it. No regrets. My problem is, I feel rude to the book I'm putting down. But guess what? No one has to know. There's a book for everyone out there. Anyway, just read a book for fun. Times are tough, so it's okay to escape a little bit into a book. Okay. Bye-bye.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  I've got something to say.

• 40:29Alie Ward?

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