thoughtcrime blog
Your purchases: helping to power A-bookfairs, other radical projects.
So the last time we mentioned raising funds for grassroots projects in Canada, via the shirts you were buying, we still had our vision of raising $5000 for the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair. Raising $5000 didn’t quite happen, but at least we dreamt big!
Partway through the year, we did ask ourselves if a single Anarchist Bookfair truly warranted getting $5000 when surely there were other people needing assistance in getting bookfairs started. We ended up donating some to other bookfairs in Canada. Your money you gave us for shirts broke down like this:
Victoria Anarchist Bookfair - $150 donated
Calgary Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated
Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated
Saskatoon Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated
Winnipeg Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated
Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated
Because Edmonton’s bookfair has aspired to pay travel fees for everyone, we also donated additional funds ($400) for travel fees for Ward Churchill, and also donated buttons and lit to sell at the door (about $400 worth) to offset costs. This year we also donated buttons and supplies to Edmonton Anarchist Black Cross and were able to afford a lit donation to the Calgary Anarchist Black Cross.
Finally, thoughtcrime ink gave a small amount to the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) Solidarity Fund, roughly $200, and helped out an anarchist collective in Oaxaca, Mexico, for $500. More updates on this funding later.
Even more exciting news is that we are able to launch our book imprint, thoughtcrime ink books, and our “Infoshop in a Box” initiative. This provides a plentiful selection of anarchist and radical literature (radical to some, common sense to us), along with optional shirts and buttons, at cost to people looking to table lit at events. If you are interested in Infoshop in a Box, just mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) about it.
posted Friday, August 15, 2008 by Rob Butz | add a comment
Design competition/cooperation to raise funds for Anarchist Bookfairs and similar projects
ThoughtCrime Ink, a volunteer-run, anti-capitalist “apparel-based community maker” which raises funds for mid-size and new Anarchist Bookfairs across Canada, is holding a t-shirt design “competition/cooperation”. We’re selecting up to four winning designs, and giving out 100 dollars (CDN) to their creators, plus one dollar for each shirt sold. All remaining profits from the t-shirts go to support Anarchist Bookfairs and similar grassroots community projects across Canada - we are a volunteer collective and we don’t take a ‘cut’ in any way.
More details can be found here:
http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/design
We are hoping that you might consider entering the t-shirt design “co-omperatition,” or share this weblog entry with an artist interested in political design, art, craft etc. If you are not a designer but have good ideas, consider teaming up with an artist to produce a kick-ass t-shirt — collective submissions are OK! If you like, feel free to submit prototypes of your design to our “critiques” section and get constructive feedback before entering them. You may also submit as many entries as you like.
Although we in the thoughtcrime ink collective identify as anarchists, not everything we like screams “anarchy!” So, feel free to make the politics of your design as subtle or “in-your-face” as you want. Express any style, feeling or mood in relation to your subject matter. The criticial requirement is that designs you submit must be original (ie. yours - if you just want “public domain” graphics (from the Spunk archive, for example) printed up on a shirt, there are easier ways of going about that.) We are looking to stoke new expressions of visual resistance.
Keep in mind that there are printing limitations for this contest (which are described on the design page linked above). Also, this time around, we’re not doing “slogan-only” shirts, though text is certainly OK to incorporate into your designs. You should also design with “placement” on the shirt in mind, and t-shirt colour. We print on a mix of Justshirts (fair trade) and American Apparel (“sweatshop-free”) stock, so you can print on any of the colours here:
http://store.americanapparel.net/2001.html
We’re hoping to take thoughtcrime ink to the ‘next level’ by making the design cooperation/competition “live.” Logged-in visitors to thoughtcrimeink.com get to score the designs and leave constructive comments for works under consideration. The scoring really helps us determine which shirts should be printed. We’re hoping that everyone who reads this will create an account on thoughtcrimeink.com in the next few weeks and score some designs. We’ll send another callout when the scoring wall is up.
We’re aware that technology is a barrier for many artists, however, so if you’re a brilliant woodcut artist who wants to enter the design cooperation/competition, and you don’t know you way around computers, just let us know at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we’ll do our best to help your design get entered.
Questions? Just email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or visit http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/design to read more info, download the designer’s kit and get started…
Solidarity,
Rob
for thoughtcrime ink
http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/thoughtcrime-ink/21316665733
posted Monday, August 11, 2008 by Rob Butz | add a comment
New books section on thoughtcrime ink!
We launched the books section of thoughtcrime ink today. Just two four books for now! The first is a sweet edition made of a section of Alexander Berkman’s “What is Anarchist Communism” we titled Reformers, Socialists and Communists: An Anarchist Critique. We have the first English translation of Makhno’s Russian Revolution memoirs, courtesy of Malcolm Archibald, and Archibald’s brief biography of Maria Nikiforova, the “Anarchist Joan of Arc.” Finally, we have online the zine-sized, beautiful, perfect-bound edition of Kropotkin’s essay we’ve brought to several bookfairs, Anarchist Morality. These titles will be followed by many more in the coming weeks. Onward!
