sixteen

roots.

In 1992, at the age of 12, Japanese-Canadian Severn Cullis-Suzuki raised money with members of ECO, to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Along with group members Michelle Quigg, Vanessa Suttie, and Morgan Geisler, Cullis-Suzuki presented environmental issues from a youth perspective at the summit, where she was applauded for a speech to the delegates.








This young lady is now in her thirties. She is almost exactly ten years older than I am. im nearly twenty and I find it nauseating to realize that I can agree with this girl eighteen years later. Now I'm rolling around the idea in my head that if I ever have a child, and when I show them this speech, they will be able to relate the same way we do. Is there some arbitrary turning we have had along the way that made us worse off than we could be today?




here is a quote from Suzuki's book that has a more positive outlook on the potential of this generation:

"There are … so many amazing things happening right now…..

I’ve met a couple of people lately who have a very interesting attitude. They [said], “How lucky are we? How exciting is this time? How lucky are we to be alive when the forces of good and evil are just so clear, when we’re undergoing such a massive time of shift and when our actions really, really matter, for good or for bad?”

This is a really unique period in history and it’s a time when an individual can have more impact than ever before in our human history because of the Internet, because of communication, because of how easily we can travel. … We really have to realize how empowered we can be, how much we actually matter."






^^These are prints from 2006, all in New York City while I was at Parson's University (The New School).

twenty fifth

SWOON

in 2007 I had started a job in high school at a venue that we all know as chain reaction. A few of the security guards I became friends with educated me about street and graffiti art, as they avidly practiced the craft themselves. Since then I have studied street art religiously. When driving in LA county my gaze is glued to every overpass, my eyes going over as many tags that can catch my eye in those few seconds. I have discovered many street artists that I have fallen in love with through the knowledge gained by observing the graffiti world. SWOON is one of them. I first disovered the artist SWOON when I purchased the book in the street world series, "Graffiti Women". A native of Florida, SWOON has lived and breathed new york city for some years now. Her work is truly inspiring to me, she is one of my favorite artists. A couple months ago on my last trip to San Francisco, I was excited to witness my first SWOON sighting - A beautiful portrait wheatpaste of a girl in an alley filled with other familiar street art, located in the mission district.








Today I purchased SWOON's recent book of her work and thoughts. I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it for the last 2 hours.








"When I first began to do street work, part of my impulse had to do with those things that are meant to disappear and the ability to just let things go. I use recycled newsprint that I order in 90-pound rolls. It’s extremely thin and is one of my favorite papers to use because of the way it decays. It yellows. It cracks. It has this whole life cycle that I really like.”

-SWOON