Occupy Wall Street Screenprinters Cooperative

Special edition prints for the global march against Monsanto,...

Sat, 25 May 2013 01:04:00 -0400

Our clever take on an f-bomb.

Special edition prints for the global march against Monsanto, May 25. Available at http://www.owsscreenprinters.com/product/special-edition-march-against-monsanto-t-shirt-and-tote. Printed on USA-made organic cotton tees. Let’s imagine a world without an evil, corporate intermediary between our food and communities.

March Against Monsanto Union Square NYC | Facebook

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:24:00 -0400

March Against Monsanto Union Square NYC | Facebook:

Join us for the March Against Monsanto this Saturday!

We will be live printing at Union Square in support of fair food labeling and banning GMO frankenfoods. Stay tuned to our Twitter & Facebook pages for specific times and location updates.

There is also a possibility that live printing will be extended to New Brunswick, NJ! (Oooh, multitasking.) Details TBA…

We’re bringing our classic F-Bomb design and a new one that’s in the works…

Plus, we’ve just ordered a fresh supply of USA-made, organic cotton tees available for a $15-20 donation! Of course you can always bring your own favorite garments for upcycling — as we always say, “if you strip, you don’t have to tip…”

Join us for a day of educating, organizing, art making, celebrating and stickin’ it to one of the world’s most abominable corporate entities.

And of course… #FUCKMONSANTO

Some things we love about May Day 2013

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:07:49 -0400

May Day 2013! 3 new designs, two parks, and at least 200 prints later, our squeegees smelled like burned rubber and there were sea of black cats in the crowd. May Day is like a birthday for the OWS Screenprinters. And we get to celebrate with all of our favorite friends!

^Designed by Kat Eng

^Designed by Julie Denise

^Famous design from May ‘68 demonstrations in Paris. “Beauty is in the street.” True then, true now

^Custom order for our friends Occu Evolve

Radical chess anyone?

[VIDEO] Workers’ Coops Seek Sustainability after Occupy

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:46:02 -0400

[VIDEO] Workers’ Coops Seek Sustainability after Occupy:

Two workers’ cooperatives are occupying their time with their businesses, while still helping to promote the Occupy Wall Street movement and its message.

Playing Ball with the Tax Dodgers

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:17:17 -0400

It’s tax season again. Let’s put off doing those returns for a brief game of baseball between the 99% and the Tax Dodgers, that nefarious baseball team that goes to bat for the 1%. They’ve proclaimed themselves the best team in the world because, in their words, “we own the league, pay off the referees, rig the game, and edit the scoreboard. In short, we are number 1. And by that we mean we are the 1%.”

These big timers were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, where their uniform is on display with a plaque that reads: “The Tax Dodgers, a street theater project of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, do not actually play baseball games. Instead, they use humor and baseball metaphors to entertain their audiences and promote discussion about the American economy. In mock support of certain large corporations, all of the Tax Dodgers wear caps and jerseys with the same number, “1%.”

The real story of the 1% and their tax dodging escapades is vastly under reported and beyond disgusting. It is appalling that as some American families stretch themselves to pay taxes, many will have paid more in federal income taxes than some of the most profitable and ubiquitous corporations. When news media refer to “leeches” in society who pay little or no taxes, they’ll be referring to the poor in this country who can barely earn a living wage, not the 1% who have more money than anyone could possibly need. That’s why the awareness that the Tax Dodgers raise is so important.

Last year we printed the Tax Dodgers’ uniforms, as well as the uniforms of the Corporate Loopholes cheerleaders. This month, in honor of the Tax Dodgers we’re printing baseball tees and making them available on www.owsscreenprinters.com.

Wearing one of these jerseys is a guaranteed conversation starter, a perfect opportunity to educate on how corporations escape paying their fair share and highlighting the worst offenders.

Available...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:07:00 -0500

Available at http://www.owsscreenprinters.com/product/occupy-sandy-wayfinder-shirt

Many of us impacted by Hurricane Sandy last fall found an amazing opportunity to turn tragedy into triumph. The grassroots formation of Occupy Sandy has been a beautiful success story — I, for one, was astounded by the speed and diligence with which OS took flight.

Family whom we know and love from Zuccotti/Liberty Plaza found new cause to rally together — as supplies and support poured in from across the country, and FEMA & the Red Cross predictably dropped the government charity ball, we found renewed purpose in taking matters into our own hands.

However, the fact remains that there is much work left to be done. Months later, there are still neighborhoods devastated by power outages, debris, flooding, mold and structural damage. Our work here is only beginning.

I am not one to advocate the purchase of material goods in support of charity organizations. I don’t think we should need a prize or reward for the good work we’ve done. However, the Occupy Sandy Wayfinder tees represent something more than just a prize trinket: They represent the work of independent activists, designers, and printmakers who were able to come together and give their skills in exchange for a message of hope and solidarity — and it just so happens that all the proceeds of each sale go DIRECTLY, EXCLUSIVELY, 100% to on-the-ground relief efforts happening now.

It is my sincerest hope that we can continue to reap the positives of such a devastating event — new opportunities for outreach, community building and skill sharing — and carry on finding our own paths to “being the change we wish to see.”

<3 > $

(J)

ajammc: We found this book in the bookstore of a mosque in...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:13:58 -0500

ajammc:

We found this book in the bookstore of a mosque in northern Tehran, alongside memoirs of Iranian Revolutionary intellectuals, religiously themed pins and scarves, and postcards adorned with photographs of Iranian women Basiji training with AK-47s during the Iran-Iraq War.

Unsurprisingly, the translation of “Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action that Changed America,” pictured above, is a major hit in Iran’s religious bookstores.

The fact is, official Iranian media absolutely LOVED OWS.

Occupy Wall Street: many of us participated, some of us got arrested, and all of us loved it. The dream of a better society and the struggle for social justice motivates protest movements around the world, and America is no different.

The official Iranian coverage, however, often gave the impression that the US government was on the verge of collapse, and at times the viewer half-expected conservative Iranian commentators to announce that the 99% General Assembly had proclaimed an Islamic Republic in the heart of Zuccotti Park.

<3 <3 <3 From the Knitting Needles of Occupy Wall...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 14:40:16 -0400

<3 <3 <3 From the Knitting Needles of Occupy Wall Street! (Taken with Instagram)

From #s16 (Taken with Instagram)

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 12:16:18 -0400

From #s16 (Taken with Instagram)

Blends we did for the Occupied Wall Street Journal’s...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 12:16:05 -0400

Blends we did for the Occupied Wall Street Journal’s Kickstarter campaign (Taken with Instagram)

Taken with Instagram

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 12:10:42 -0400

Taken with Instagram

Check it! Archive footage from Occupy Town Square #3. Tompkins...

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 14:57:31 -0400

Check it! Archive footage from Occupy Town Square #3. Tompkins Square Park. (by shammiches)

This week, we did one of our most rewarding projects to date:...

Wed, 30 May 2012 09:53:00 -0400

Le Hoai Trung, Ambassador to the UN from

This week, we did one of our most rewarding projects to date: beautiful gauzy scarves for the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign. This group — a coalition of veterans, community leaders, and Vietnamese-Americans — seeks to support the ongoing legal battle for reparations due to the victims of Agent Orange.

When we met with Susan S., the coordinator for this project, she explained to us that the scarves would be going to Vietnam as gifts. She described her work with the families who have been suffering since the war, and the struggle to hold our government accountable for reparations due. We saw haunting photographs of the ravages inflicted on innocent civilians, and for me, it felt reaffirming that the battle we wage every day in the name of social justice must carry on — it is so much bigger than all of us here Occupying. It is so much more than having low gas prices, access to education, or erasing our personal debts. The same machine that perpetuates societal problems in this country is creating unchecked devastation on a global scale, and that’s something we Occupiers still don’t talk much about.

While we bang casseroles and shout “Fuck Monsanto,” are we really keeping the whole truth of this struggle in our hearts and minds? (How many of us even know that Monsanto, along with Dow Chemical, was the corporation responsible for developing Agent Orange?) I think yes, we understand… but sometimes I think a re-focus is in order. The effects of the war in Vietnam are still unfolding, and there are no mass media spotlights on this story. Meanwhile, the unnamed battles in Syria and Iran are blooming into full scale crises, which will also have generational effects, and will also continue to go undocumented.

This project was a challenge to our technique — two colors! And that silky, crinkled material! — but it was also a challenge to our hearts and minds. It was a check-in with the ever-evolving question of Why We Occupy, and a testament to our belief in a more equitable life for everyone.

It’s amazing what a little screenprinting can do.

Note: For more information on this campaign, visit http://www.vn-agentorange.org. We hope to have updates on how the scarves were received once they cross hemispheres… we’ll be sure to post them as soon as we can!

-J

We recently had the opportunity to print for the CUNY Law school...

Wed, 30 May 2012 09:49:00 -0400

We recently had the opportunity to print for the CUNY Law school graduates! This super cool group of legal beagles requested graduation stoles imprinted with “CUNY LAW 2012: Law in the service of the 99%.” It was certainly a challenge printing on these narrow satin bands… but I think we did them justice.

-Jules

UPDATE: Check out more photos of CUNY Law grads sporting 99% stoles.

Another stroke of genius from our friends at Occuprint. see more...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 12:02:43 -0400

Another stroke of genius from our friends at Occuprint.

see more & submit your designs at occuprint.org

"Occupy Wall Street is so yesterday" - overheard at the NYC Green Festival

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:07:54 -0400

A young, 20-something woman walked by our booth at the Green Festival last weekend and dismissed us: “Occupy Wall Street…that’s so yesterday”. Boy, do we have our work set out for us. So much modern cultural zeitgeist has an expiration date of yesterday. Perhaps a result of all of last fall’s Occupy trending moments on twitter and other social networking platforms resulted in a perception of OWS as just that – nothing more than a trend. The persistence and, more importantly, growth of this movement requires us to always be there. And “there” isn’t just a space, a meme, and it’s most certainly not a demand. In our twitterverse, this conflicts with the expectation of Kony2012-like lifespans, resulting in remarks such as the one overheard at the Green Festival.

I recently caught up with a very dear friend. I informed her that I had abandoned my job search and instead embarked on a completely new and adventurous undertaking. I had created a worker owned and run cooperative with other Occupy screen printers. She congratulated me and then asked me earnestly “Is Occupy still a thing?” Anyone close to the movement knows that Occupy is still around, but she had a point. The novelty and trendiness has faded. And even though Occupy will be coming back to the forefront on May in a big big way, it won’t be the way it was in the fall. It won’t be a hot trend, of the moment, “a thing”. It will, I pray, mature into an enduring movement that many of us expect will last years and decades. The Civil Rights Movement endured for years and still we’re constantly reminded by things like the death of Trayvon Martin that there’s still a long way to go.

This realization has changed the way I explain Occupy Wall Street to my friends, family, and strangers I meet while live-printing. The screen printers have a great opportunity to do outreach for the movement. With that comes the responsibility to talk to people who are surprised we’re still here and had judged the movement to be over by asking “What has Occupy accomplished?” That question is a bit like asking only a month after Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus “well, what good did that do?” Everyone today understands the significance of Park’s and other countless acts of contemporaneous civil disobedience, but we have the advantage of history books to know how the story progressed. I believe the same will be true of Occupy years from now.

Fighting for freedom, justice, and democracy is no small act. It cannot be accomplished in the lifespan of a twitter trend or news cycle. It cannot be successful if only a few people engage in the movement while everyone else “likes” it on Facebook. I’m glad this movement is no longer “a thing”. Occupy is not Kony2012 (no judgment) and since this is the first time my generation has lived during such a movement, it’s completely understandable it gets judged with reddit-like alacrity.

By the way, please tweet, pin, like, and re-tumble this post.

-David

Photos from the Green Festival

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:58:00 -0400

Our booth

Our #1 fan

OWS <3 hoodies

He knows a better world is possible

Fierce

Photos from the Green Festival

Adventures in Anti-Retail: Occupying the NYC GreenFestival

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:14:00 -0400

It was our first big, big event. We partnered with Occuprint and OWS Sustainability for thee convention of the eco friendly green party crowd. All the household name ecoproducts, all the celebrity speakers, the big shiny monstrosity that is Javits Center… we were certainly moving up from our days of sidewalk screenprinting.

Our co-op prepared for weeks. We had hours of meetings, and put in long workdays at the print shop. We sourced our materials, planned our designs, merchandised our merchandise, and strategized our strategies. As guests of the sustainable lifestyle blog Seismologik, we (as “the OWS booth” .. unofficially) were not on any pamphlets, maps, or signage. I got the distinct impression that we weren’t, technically, even supposed to be there. And as the event progressed, we found the need to continually modify our approach to fit a new demographic: folks who are well educated and working, eating healthy, progressive thinking, politically informed, living within the mindset of a new environmental paradigm… yet they don’t know the whole story behind Occupy and how relevant it could truly be to them. It was weird. They know who Monsanto is, but still say things like, “So I met a leader of Occupy Wall Street.. you guys should really make demands.”

I watched while guest speakers and presenters lauded the movement and sang the praises of occupiers. Revolution and compassion and inspiring musings on history meant to inspire us all to Rise Up! while the rest of the event had the eerie fluorescent glow of a Walmart that had been taken over by PlanetGreen infomercials.

But then again, maybe I’m biased…

I don’t mean to make generalizations or sound in any way judgmental. Most everyone was friendly, warm, and supportive. I only mean to address an interesting dichotomy between the talking points and the practices — the main sponsor of the event was none other than Ford Motor Company.

Our challenge thus evolved into reaching these people who were right on the brink of the Big Wake Up. I mean, they’re thisclose! So, how do we address the cautious distaste, the not-wanting-to-get-involved, the notion that Occupy is just a bunch of jobless whining hippies — and talk to these people about the things that really matter to all of us, regardless of demographic?

All this, as we silkscreened live and distributed tee shirts by donation. And so the dialog became, “We know the 99% doesn’t have much to spend, that’s why we’re all here. Donate whatever you’re comfortable with.” … “We want our designs to be INclusive, not EXclusive.” and, most importantly, “Hey, do you know about May Day? It’s going to be really fun!” It became apparent that our real task in attending this three-ring retail circus was to represent Occupy Wall Street and tell the people what many of their hip indie media blogs were afraid or unwilling to broach: We ARE here, we ARE working, and we ARE NOT going away. Most importantly, we want you to feel welcome to join us, because we want to make all of our lives better, together. Mainstream media programming is strong, even among the freethinking set. So we set out to prove that, while the OWS front lines are messy, there is a ton of behind-the-scenes productivity that is catalyzing real, positive change across the entire spectrum — the whole 100%.

In the end, we came home with a lot more leftover shirts than we had hoped to. But we certainly created a buzz.

(julie <3 > $)

From OWS to CAIRO.. In solidarity with Tahrir Square. Our...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:39:00 -0400

From OWS to CAIRO.. In solidarity with Tahrir Square.

Our wonderful friend, fellow Occupier, and radical street performer Kim Fraczek had this wonderful idea. She is going to Egypt and decided to bring along some kites, as presents, to fly in Tahrir Square representing OWS in a symbol of solidarity with our fellow brothers and sisters in Cairo.

She made this design to print on the kites she will make. So we quickly made a screen and joined in with our inks!

We wish Kim the most wonderful trip and are really happy to be a part of this project.

Fly them high!!!

F MONSANTO! AND MIXING COLORS My eyes grew big as I walked...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:32:00 -0400

F MONSANTO! AND MIXING COLORS

My eyes grew big as I walked into our work space on Wall St. when I saw those pink screens.. F Monsanto! and May Day images.. yes! I quickly snatched Julie’s “F Monsanto” design as I looked at her knowing she had made it but… “You can print that one if you want” She shrugged…Alright!! Julie didn’t know how much she had made my day.

Inspired by the apple I quickly start mixing greens and reds, yellow, some white, and just a bit of black will always do you good. Mixing colors is somewhat like turning the volume up or down on a song, like adding instruments and beats to a tune. Or like mixing ingredients and adding spices while cooking. It takes a little bit of eye and a feeling to know just how much to mix in. It is FUN.

We hope you enjoy our works! We love doing it, and when you wear our prints, people engage in good conversation…