Dadara has been bugging me for a contribution to this blog for months now. I always mean to sit down and write one, but I have so little time. My adventure from the past couple of weeks, however, makes a good story.
I am an artist who has been specializing in moneyart for the past twelve years. A few weeks ago, I had just started a new work, entitled Liberty Bondage which portrays a fat, rich politician with a pig’s head, leaning over a kneeling Lady Liberty pleading for mercy. It is a comment on the nation’s current frustration with corporate influence in Washington, partly inspired by the Occupy movement. Then, out of the blue, I got an email from an former client of mine, Mark Herpel. He commissioned a set of Community Currency notes from me a couple years ago. He tipped me off to a design contest being held by Matthew Slater, editor of Community Currency Magazine and an influencer in the alt currency world. The competition was looking for an official protest currency for the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
At first I thought that I couldn’t possibly create something worthwhile in the short time period I had. The deadline for the design contest was in only six days! My work usually takes from several weeks to a couple of months per piece. So I thanked Mark, but said I couldn’t do it. Then the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. What if the image becomes a viral hit? Besides, I have spent years creating political satire, and now I have the chance to be a part of a global political phenomenon. Having just started a piece with the same theme only days before, I thought that the timing was more than a coincidence.
The next day, I plunged into it.
