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The Cooper Point Journal (January 24, 2018)
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24 January 2018
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the cooper point journal
The Evergreen State College Newspaper Since 1971| January 24, 2018
TARPEE AT THE CAPITOL
INDIGENOUS WOMEN CAMP
OUT ON LEGISLATOR’S LAWN
3
ANARCHIST IN CITY HALL
INTERVIEW WITH CITY COUNCIL
MEMBER RENATA ROLLINS
4
THE SURFACE: ON & BENEATH
VINTAGE EXHIBIT GRACES
EVERGREEN GALLERY WALLS
8
The Cooper Point Journal
STAFF
Editor-in-Chief
J a s m i n e K o z a k G i l roy
Business Manager
April Davidson
News Editor
Mason Soto
C o mm u n i t y E d i t o r
Georgie Hicks
A r t s & C u lt u r e E d i t o r
Sally Linn
Comics Editor
Morrissey Morrissey
Writers
S eb a s t ia n L o p e z
FROM THE ARCHIVES The Melvins at Capitol Theatre, 1993. Photographer Unknown, courtesy of
The Evergreen State College Archives.
CONTACT
O f f i ce
T h e E v e r g re e n S t a t e C o l l e g e
CA B 3 3 2
2 7 0 0 E v e r g re e n P k w y N W
O l y m p i a , WA
Email Us
cooperpointjournal@gmail.com
Call Us
(360) 328 1333
Visit Us
O u r We e k l y M e e t i n g
We d n e s d a y s a t 2 p. m .
C o ve r A r t B y
Jesse Dotson
02 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
HOW WE WORK
The Cooper Point Journal is produced by students at The Evergreen State College, with funding from student
fees and advertising from local businesses. The Journal is published for free every other Wednesday during the
school year and distributed throughout the Olympia area.
Our content is also available online at www.cooperpointjournal.com.
Our mission is to provide an outlet for student voices, and to inform and entertain the Evergreen community
and the Olympia-area more broadly, as well as to provide a platform for students to learn about operating a
news publication.
Our office is located on the third floor of the Campus Activities Building (CAB) at The Evergreen State
College in room 332 and we have open student meetings from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. every Wednesday. Come early
if you’d like to chat with the editor!
WORK FOR US
We accept submissions from any student at The Evergreen State College, and also from former students,
faculty, and staff. We also hire some students onto our staff, who write articles for each issue and receive a
learning stipend.
Have an exciting news topic? Know about some weird community happening? Enjoy that new hardcore
band? Come talk to us and write about it.
We will also consider submissions from non-Evergreen people, particularly if they have special knowledge on
the topic. We prioritize current student content first, followed by former students, faculty and staff, and then
general community submissions. Within that, we prioritize content related to Evergreen first, followed by
Olympia, the state of Washington, the Pacific Northwest, etc.
To submit an article, reach us at cooperpointjournal@gmail.com.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We want to hear from you! If you have an opinion on anything we’ve reported in the paper, or goings-on in
Olympia or at Evergreen, drop us a line with a paragraph or two (100 - 300 words) for us to publish in the
paper. Make sure to include your full name, and your relationship to the college—are you a student, staff,
graduate, community member, etc. We reserve the right to edit anything submitted to us before publishing,
but we’ll do our best to consult with you about any major changes.
News
The Tarpee sitting on the Capitol lawn, the first night of the action. J. KOZAKGILROY.
INDIGENOUS
WOMEN TAKE
THE CAPITOL
BY MASON SOTO
In the early hours of January 11, Janene Hampton and
her friends were sleeping on
the Olympia Capitol campus
when they were awoken by policemen in riot gear who demanded they leave, and most
activists did so. Janene refused.
As they arrested her, they asked
her address, and she looked
their representatives to action
on what they understand as disregard for treaty rights, indigenous life, and environmental destruction. They promised to stay
the entire sixty days that the
Washington State Legislation
is open, and since being released
from jail, Janene has worked to
make good on that promise. In
“When I stopped watching as a witness, when
I started acting, that is
when my journey began,”
down at the grass around the
flag circle and said, “The lawn.”
Four days earlier, Janene
and other indigenous activists
had gathered outside the Capitol Building at the start of the
new legislative season to call
an interview with The Cooper
Point Journal conducted on the
Capitol lawn, where she remains
camped as of the publication of
this issue, Janene explained the
importance of this work for her
and for indigenous communi-
ties everywhere. She sees her
action and desire for dialogue
as a long standing and important fight of indigenous resistance against government repression, and as she says, “It is
a fight that needs to be had.”
The indigenous activists have
goals that are diverse, yet unified. Respect for the treaty between the Coast Salish Tribes
is foremost, in particular regard
to the protection of the Salish
Sea. They demand the Kinder
Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline not be extended, which now
delivers crude oil to refineries
in northern Washington, and
that action be taken against
overfishing. There have already
been meetings between the governor and tribe representatives
in which nearly two hundred
years worth of treaty rights and
injustices are being discussed,
and other meetings are to come.
As a Colville Okanagan Tribe
member, Janene understands
her fight as one of her ancestors’,
and that her stand is not new to
history or to her own life. A couple years ago, she had her own
practice as a massage therapist,
but when the movement against
the Dakota Access Pipeline at
the Standing Rock reservation
took hold, activism became a
priority for her and she closed
shop. “When I stopped watching as a witness, when I started
acting, that is when my journey
began,” she says of protest and
collecting donations. She lost
another job because of her stay
at the Olympia capitol, and
she explained that as responsibilities to the tribe came along,
she had to ask herself where
her healing was needed most,
and the answer was obvious.
Before the arrest, what signified the demonstration were
teepee-like structures with
painted decorations on them
where activists stayed warm,
slept, and prayed together. These
“tarpees” are an invention of local Saanich First Nations native
and organizer Paul Cheyok’ten
Wagner, who thought up the
idea during his stay at Standing
Rock. Since then, tarpees have
become important to facing the
elements during community actions. Paul Cheyok’ten Wagner
is the founder of Protectors of
the Salish Sea, and he worked
with Janene and others to get
this demonstration started.
Janene and other indigenous
women, along with supporters, stayed on campus for days,
speaking with visitors, city workers, and media outlets until they
were interupted by the police
raid. The cops took the tarpees
when they cleared the space,
but Janene wants folks to know
that she is still there. During our
interview, folks were at work to
get a meeting going between
activist and legislators directly
that evening, and the mood was
hopeful. Still, Janene assured
folks that to open a dialogue
was not to cede, and she said,
“We are just trying to engage—
we are not standing down.”
JANUARY 24, 2018 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 03
News
THE ANARCHIST
IN CITY HALL
The Capitol Building in 1930. COURTESY OF THE WASHINGTON STATE ARCHIVES.
By Sebastian Lopez
Washington has recently gone
through a transition of Democratic control that was probably
incentivized by the questionable
election by Americans of one of
the most virulent administrations in modern U.S. history.
With the embracing of a more
left-leaning political party statewide, the City of Olympia was
able to celebrate a positive victory with the election of the virtually anti-establishment, The
Evergreen State College (TESC)
graduate, co-founder of the local
group Just Housing, and selfdescribed anarchist, Renata Rollins to the Olympia City Council.
As a candidate, Renata ran with
the slogan, “Where Can We
Go?” Her campaign leaned into
social and economic justice issues including those revolving
around homelessness in the city
like harm reduction, prevention,
as well as focusing on efforts for
continued community building
that she sees could create a safer,
more caring Olympia community.
Truly interconnected with the
Olympia community and having graduated from TESC over
10 years ago, Renata has a unique
voice that could bring change
to the institutions of this city.
Renata was sworn in on January 9,
and I was given the opportunity to
talk with her about her vision for
the future of Olympia before she
finally sat in her councilor’s chair.
Before getting into anything,
could you tell me a little about
your campaign? What was
running for city council like?
Campaigning was, for the most
part a lot of fun! I started in May
and then went through November, so a 6 month campaign. It was
lots of doorbelling, lots of hearing
from people about what matters
to them in Olympia, several forums to prepare for, and then fundraising. I came to the decision to
run because of some of my more
recent work around the challenge
of homelessness and recognizing
that it’s a big picture problem.
I know a lot of people that are
homeless from both my professional work and social service, but
also my community organizing
which was off the clock. [I] came
to really see that we’re all interrelated on that issue of homelessness and just housing affordability. Rent’s going up, we all know
that, and I feel like the council
should have someone with a lot of
background with those challenges. I’m also a renter myself [and]
there hasn’t been a renter on the
council before so having a direct
connection to those issue and direct experience is good [as well as]
just bringing a lot of the relationships I’ve built over the years in
the city… The campaign was good
but it’s also good that it’s over.
In what ways was your campaign affected by your relationships with the community at a
grassroots level and how do you
think these relationships could help
you as a sitting council member?
It was a lot of volunteers. We had a
campaign manager as well, which
was a paid position. People were
volunteering and every weekend
and a lot of the evenings doing the
doorbellings with me and on of
their own. A lot of the progressive
campaigns had a lot of the same
volunteers. We weren’t running as
a slate exactly but certainly share
a lot of values and so we had some
coordinated alliance building.
I always thought during the campaign was that having movement,
which means having the people
focus in a certain direction, is kind
of what’s been missing on a lot of
issues. There’s a lot of studies, a
lot of good ideas, a lot of different
solutions that not everyone agrees
on; there’s a lot being done but
there’s also an oomf that’s missing. That’s what I hoped to channel into. I also think it’s an opportunity for folks who have been
involved in various social justice
movements in Olympia, including me, to have a direct line into
city hall to find out what we need
to know. Continued on page 10.
04 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
By Morrissey Morrissey
As we welcome the new year,
we also welcome two new labor
laws here in Washington. As
of January 1 new parts of initiative 1433, which was voted
into law in 2016, went into affect, altering current minimum
wage and sick-leave regulations.
The initiative, which called for
a gradual raising of the minimum
wage from $9.47 to $13.50 by
2020, is responsible for this year’s
minimum wage hike from $11.00
per hour to $11.50. These raises
will continue in $0.50-$1.00
intervals annually. It will continue to rise, reaching $12.00 in
2019 and finally $13.50 in 2020.
After 2020, the initiative calls
for the Department of Labor and
Industries to recalculate the necessary minimum wage annually,
adjusting for inflation using the
Consumer Index for Urban Wage
Earners and Clerical Workers
(CPI-W). The CPI-W takes into
account the cost of food, shelter,
medical care, and other necessities. Let’s hope for big money!
Along with changes in minimum wage, this initiative also
brings into effect mandatory paid
sick-leave for much of Washington’s workforce. This sick leave
will be accrued at a rate of 1
hour earned for each 40 hours
worked to full-time and part time
workers alike. The leave can be
used for care toward yourself or
your family members, when your
workplace (or your child’s school
or place of care) is shut down
due to health reasons, or for absences covered under the state’s
Domestic Violence Leave act. An
employer can expand the ways
you can use this paid sick leave,
too, if they want, but they must
cover at least these circumstances.
As of a final rule on November 7 of 2017 pertaining
to Initiative 1433, all employees covered by the Washington
Minimum Wage laws are also
covered by the Paid Sick Leave
laws. This includes agricultural
jobs, seasonal positions, and part
time and full time workers alike.
That being said, the new minimum wage and paid sick leave
regulations do leave out some
workers. Exempt employees are
not affected– these exempt employees are those who are salaried
and make over $23,660 each year.
This final rule also allows employers to require their employees
to put in prior notice of their use
of paid sick leave, although the
maximum amount of time this
prior notice needs to be is 10
days in advance. If an employer
is to require prior notice, the
employer must inform their employees of this policy in writing.
An employer can also require proof of necessity for sick
leave, but only if more than
three days of sick leave are used
at once. That means if you only
use one or two days, you do not
need proof of why you have
used it. Not even a doctors note!
Along with the new changes, this voter petitioned initiative also has a few elements that
have already gone into effect.
As it was put into law in fall of
2016, this initiative is compiled
of four parts: the two mentioned
prior in this article which affect
minimum wage and paid sick
leave which started or changed
at the beginning of the year, as
well two that have been in effect
for some time now. These two
parts have to do with ensuring
tips go to their rightful earners
and a section protecting workers
from retaliation from employers.
The initiative also dictates that
all tips and service charges, such
as gratuities or delivery charges,
must be paid to the employees.
These tips and service charges
also must not be used to offset the state minimum wage.
The final section of the initiative bars employers from retaliating against workers for
using their paid time off or for
upholding their rights as employees to be paid a minimum
wage, meaning that sick leave
use cannot result in punishment
of any kind, good news for us all.
Villalpando at a recent event organized by the NWDC Resistance. COURTESY OF THE NWDC RESISTANCE.
Community
Speedy sure is excited about getting paid. SHAUNA BITTLE.
New Oppertunities for
Students to Get
Involved, Get Paid.
LOCAL ACTIVIST TARGETED
FOR DEPORTATION
By Georgie Hicks
Maru Mora Villalpando, a locally based and nationally recognized political and immigrations
rights activist best known for her
support of high profile hunger
strikes at the Northwest Detention center (NWDC), received a
notice to appear in immigration
court from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), signaling that they
have begun proceedings to deport
her from the country. Villalpando,
who has lived in the United States
since 1996, received the letter,
dated December 14, shortly before
Christmas, at her home address.
Villalpando, who has been
working for immigrant rights for
almost 20 years, noted that several things seemed off about the
notice to appear. She suspects that
ICE obtained her address through
the Washington state department
of registrations which was recently revealed by the Seattle Times
to be releasing information about
undocumented people, who in
Washington state have the ability to obtain drivers licenses. The
letter did not contain an actual
date of which she is supposed to
“check in” both of these aspects
Villalpando asserted where “unusual” and, as of Jan. 17 there is
still no official information on a
hearing date. Villalpando has not
been informed of specifics as to
why she is now facing deportation, and a letter from her lawyer
to immigration requesting a copy
of a form that ICE submits to
the court, stating specifics about
deportation proceedings was denied. In an interview with Crosscut, Villalpando said “I believe
that ICE sent me this letter and
started deportation proceedings
against me because they are not
so much against my immigration
status, but against my political
work”. Since then, her lawyer
has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for this form.
Villalpando came out as undocumented in 2014, prompted
by her belief in the importance
of undocumented people speaking for themselves saying, “I was
sick and tired of people thinking
I was a U.S. citizen and treating
me different. They would treat
me as the advocate. And I was
like, ‘No, I’m not speaking on
behalf of anybody. I’m speaking
on my behalf. This is my life.”
Villalpando believes that the
letter indicating intent to deport her is direct retaliation for
her years of outspoken activism around immigration and the
rights of those detained. She also
asserts that her deportation is a
part of what she considers ICE
acting in retaliation against outspoken immigration activists. In
her own words, “We believe that
ICE was created with a specific
intention. It’s not only to deport
people. It’s to destroy people.
They are destroying our families.
And now they’re becoming into a
full circle to be part of the police
regime. We think ICE is nothing
but a political oppression apparatus. They’re Trump’s police now.”
Villalpando is co-director of
North West Detention center Resistance (NWDCR) “a grassroots
undocumented led movement
that works to end the detention
of immigrants and stop all deportations.” NWDC is a “private
immigration prison” located in
Tacoma, Washington the site of
numerous hunger strikes and under scrutiny for the poor treatment of the people detained such
as the dollar a day . “I believe
that ICE sent me this letter and
started deportation proceedings
against me because they are not
so much against my immigration
status, but against my political
work,” Villalpando said in her
first interview since receiving notice from ICE. “This is political
oppression. That’s what they’re
doing. ICE is finalizing the transition from law enforcement into a
political-oppression apparatus.”
By Sebastian Lopez
In an effort to advance student
involvement after the events of
last spring, the Geoduck Student
Union (GSU) is introducing the
Student Committee Engagement
and Compensation Pilot Program (SCECPP), where students
can both be directly engaged in
Union decision-making and get
paid above the minimum wage
for their work. “The main thing
we’re focusing on is repairing the
relationship between the GSU
and the student body. Historically,
the GSU hasn’t really been there
for all students and that’s been a
problem that the current body is
consciously aware of,” says Alex
Markley, current GSU treasurer.
The SCECPP plans on creating six new committees which
students can apply and get hired
for including the Police Services
Community Review Board, the
Space and Land Use Group,
the ADA Compliance Advisory
Committee, Drug and Alcohol
Abuse Prevention Committee,
the Standing Committee on the
Curriculum, and the First Year
Experience Workgroup. Each
student gets paid 50 cents above
the minimum wage and can get
paid for up to 20 hours of work
a quarter. “What we’re hoping to
do is really rebuild [the] relationship between the student government and the student body
and break down the line between
those two things because they’re
not separate... That big barrier is
not getting paid.” Students can
apply by submitting a short letter of interest detailing why they
find themselves suitable for the
role and responsibilities of becoming a student representative
within whichever workgroup or
committee they choose, as well as
what background or interests they
have that are relevant to the work.
The introduction of the
SCECPP comes during a time
of sweeping changes for the Geoduck Student Union that focus
on direct student involvement in
policy creation at school. These
changes come as natural student
reaction to the seemingly unresponsive school administration
following the events of last spring
and calls for institutional reform.
Alex went on to say, “the way I
see it is, college isn’t just a way to
educate yourself in an academic
way. A college environment is
a microcosm of society. It has
the same kind of political structures, the same kind of bureaucratic structures, the same kind
of populations that interact with
each other in different ways... I
think it’s a really awesome opportunity for people to get involved in this neat little enclosed
society and learn how to change
society in a small, safer environment. And then, when they’re
done with school they can leave
and go to their own communities or go to a new community
and learn how to do that there.”
Students interested in getting
involved in reforming the Evergreen institution are encouraged to
apply by emailing gsurep@gmail.
com.
JANUARY 24, 2018 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 05
Arts & Culture
JESSE
DOTSON
Jesse is a recent Evergreen graduate, currently
working on his MES also at Evergreen. His work
could loosely be called multimedia art that focuses on the themes of sustainability, recovery,
and various lines of socio-anonymous communication. What follows is primarily a transcription of Jesse’s rumination on his path as an artist and the political concerns he operates in.;
“I think I’m most interested in ideas. Sometimes
that translates into making objects. There are two
parts of my art making. The mental part of coming
up with theoretical models of ideas, and the actual
making of those objects. Most of my work in an
academic context is about ideas. I’ll make a ‘map of
06 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
artist interview
by sally linn
meaning’ which will sometimes mean making an
object. But once I’m done with the object making,
I’m much happier with the map of meaning itself…
But then I make a lot of stuff out of compulsion and
that feels self-medicinal. I like doing a lot of repetitive tasks, zoning out, making things in a meditative way. My two main projects at Evergreen looked
like taking a single book and spending an entire year
in ILCs with that one book. I think I just said 14
different things to answer that question [about my
genre medium]. Socio-medicinal memes, that’s
my medium of choice—ideas that can heal culture.
I was a skateboarder first. That was the first dream.
But then I started going to school [in California] for
visual arts. Then the Occupy Movement happened.
I dropped out of school to be a part of that. I ended
up at the first organizing meeting for Occupy Los
Angeles and ended up on the print media committee. We lived there for two months on the lawn of
city hall in LA and ran The People’s Print Lab which
was a DIY screen printing shop. We would take images (anyone there could submit them to us,) burn
them into screens, and would be upcycling clothing,
making bandanas on things and giving them away
on site. This experience freaked me out in a lot of
ways. I realized a lot about the state of the world and
I got a lot more details about the Trouble, the level
of dysfunction and abuse of what’s going on. I found
the experience really disturbing. Over the course of
the camp, we as an organization created the same
structures and fucked-up social dynamics that we were fighting against.
There were secret meetings and plotting. It gave me a lot empathy towards
Congress because if the 400 of us can’t
come to a coherent consensus and discussion about this, how are the 100 of
them that come from so many different places supposed to achieve that?
We [the camp] created private
property, isolated the media, and created our own security force that was
ostensibly to protect us from the police but also ended up intimidating a
faction of the camp. I really met some
crazy people there too. Until then, I
really thought that the problems with
the world were just because the Left
wasn’t in power and also that I was
about as far to the left as one could be.
Before Occupy, I didn’t really care
about the theory behind making art.
It was all just about making something, just doing it. After, I wanted to
have much more intentionality about
what I was making and why. Ultimately what people do with my work
is out of my control but I needed
to know what I was trying to do.
When I came to Evergreen, I realized that we really need artists communicating something [that can’t be communicated on its own,] like climate
change. It’s really clear that our lack of
action on climate change isn’t a result
of not enough scientific data or not
enough potential solutions. There’s a
fundamental miscommunication that’s
happening where people aren’t getting
it. The vehicles of cultural translation
have failed. I think those are the arts.
I’m really interested in making art
around the ideas of environmental
studies, sustainability, and how we live
and how we heal—what recovery feels
like. One of the things I’ve come across
[since starting the MES program] is the
idea of decomposition. I think we tend
Arts & Culture
not to see the decomposers—bacteria
and fungi, things that breakdown organic matter into bioavailable nutrients
for the soil. We don’t see how crucial of
a role it plays in the functioning of ecosystems. Without them there wouldn’t
be hardly enough energy for us and for
plants to grow. Humans are very particular about taking everything that
might rot and hiding it away. Instead of
composting, we put it in landfills, shut
it away, which on a fundamental level
is withdrawing nutrients that could go
back to becoming a bioavailable form.
Decomposing is only useful if we
killed the thing ourselves. On a fundamental level, the decomposers are like
God in that they make the afterlife
possible. Because of what happened at
Occupy with the print media becoming a kind of internal status symbol,
at this point [in my career] I pretty
much only print stuff for me and give
stuff to friends. The aesthetic of the
revolution will become the aesthetic
of the state. I don’t know the answer
for how do you not make art and aesthetics exclusive. It’s really hard when
ideas become tied to aesthetics and
cultural groups. I think that we use
the aesthetics to identify separateness.
There’s an implicit non-agreement in
the way that we look. I hold a series of
identities that vary depending on the
context I’m engaging in. Most of my
work has always been unsigned. I’ve always found anonymity as an artist to
be flattering. I used to make street art
stickers and I realized, why would I put
things on a place where people don’t
want them there? I’m contributing to
the visual pollution and forcing that
visual interaction on whoever might
be walking down the street there that
day. Why do that when you could tag
bodies? Anyway, my message for the
adults is to play. I am aware and I do
not approve and I am not resigned.”
“Socio-medicinal memes, that’s my medium of
choice—ideas that can heal culture.”
JANUARY 24, 2018 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 07
Arts & Culture
Visitor admires Polaroids at The Surface exhibit. SHAUNA BITTLE.
&
UP
COMING
We get drunk so you don’t have
to– submit your questions anonymously to wastedadvice.sarahah.
com
WED. JAN 24
Evergreen State College
3:30 p.m., SEM II B1105
Harm Reduction Week
with the Black Cottonwood
Collective; “Harm Reduction
in Cyberspace and Beyond”
Cryptatropa
9 p.m., $7, 21+.
Cold Showers, Second Still,
Clayface
THU. JAN 25
Evergreen State College
4:30 p.m., SEM II D1107
Harm Reduction Week
with the Black Cottonwood
Collective; “Preventing
Overdoses with EGYHOP”
Le Voyuer
6 p.m., $5, All Ages.
Star Club, Wave Action,
Hardly Boys, Emma Lee
Toyoda
THE SURFACE:
FRI. JAN 26
Le Voyuer
6:30 p.m., $5, All Ages.
Jessica Dennison + Jones,
100 Watt Horse, Crowey,
Linda (ATCS)
Evergreen State College
7 p.m., CRC 117
Harm Reduction Week
with the Black Cottonwood
Collective; “Self Defense
Class”
SUN. JAN 28
Le Voyuer
7 p.m., $5, All Ages.
CYBERPLASM Tape
Release Party feat. (Women
of the) Divine Orgasm,
Physique, .Net, and Bonney
Lake
SAT. FEB 3
Cryptatropa
9 p.m., $6, 21+.
UK Gold, Ritual Veil, Harsh
Capitol Theatre
6:30 p.m., $10
Janus Essentials: Throne of
Blood (1957) on 35mm
Le Voyuer
7 p.m., $7, All Ages.
Sewage (NYC), Not A
Part Of It, Deceptives,
Meatbeaters
WASTED
ADVICE
NEW EXHIBIT GRACES GALLERY WALLS
By April Davidson
Currently showing at the
Evergreen Gallery is an exhibition of the school’s collection
of well-known photographers
from the 20th century. Some
of the names from the show
might be familiar but others
are more obscure. Profiled here
are the artists in the show you
may not be aware of and who
we think are worth getting to
know. Full Disclosure: out of the
nineteen artists who have work
in the show, only five of them
are women and all of them are
white. The show opened January
15th and will be up until March
16th, located on the second
floor of the Library building.
DIANE ARBUS
Her photography career began as part of a husband/wife
duo shooting for fashion magazines such as Harpers Bazaar
and Vogue. But she is known
now for her work photographing outcasts and freaks, for making images about the grotesque
and surreal. Escaping from the
world of commercial photogra-
08 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
phy, which she found demeaning, she roamed the streets of
New York with a 35mm Nikon
becoming enthralled with following strangers down rabbit holes. Arbus’ subjects open
themselves to her, an agreement
made between them and the
artist. Evident in her work is her
courage and admiration for experiences that money can’t touch.
JO ANN CALLIS
Callis is known for her surrealism and use of themes such
as femininity and domesticity.
So often the topic of home life,
viewed as inherently feminine,
is spoken about derogatorily.
Callis asserts the intellectual
value of private spaces through
her work, in which there is
present a tense dichotomy of
comfort and discomfort. While
many photographers in the
show are adventuring beyond
the studio, Callis fabricates her
images by creating settings and
directing her models. Current
Faculty at California Institute
for the Arts, she has received
grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as well
as a Guggenheim Fellowship.
PAUL CAPONIGRO
Known for his images of
nature that evoke a sense of
mysticism, Caponigro has a
reputation as America’s premier landscape photographers.
Originally going to school for
music, he made the switch to
photography but believes his
musical training contributed to
his approach to image making.
He is quoted as saying, “At the
root of creativity is an impulse
to understand, to make sense
of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection
of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be
still enough, observant enough,
and aware enough to recognize
the life of the materials, to be
able to ‘hear through the eyes’.”
what are your top 5 celebrity
crushes? okay so i don’t know if i
have five whole celebrity crushes
but uuhhh can we talk about zac
efron for a second? zac efron is so
hot. i saw that movie with him
and hugh grant (hugh jackman?
hugh lawry?) about circuses and
it was actually the worst movie
i had ever seen in my entire life
but uhhhhh??!!! zac efron is so
dreamy and cute and cool and
hot???!!! AND? theres this scene
where hugh whatever and him
are singing to each other (gay)
and like getting rly close to each
other (gay) and hugh is buying
zac a lot of drinks (gay) and trying to convince him to spend his
life as his partner(GAY)??!! and it
is all incredibly homoer*tic (am i
allowed to say homoerotic?) and i
was HOPING it could be a cool
movie about Gays In The Circus
but unfortunately it was about the
worst man ever doing the worst
things ever with horrible 4 chord
quasi showtunes and a forced
het romance which i really could
have done without (but at least
it had zendaya… that was cool).
moulin rouge was better, but also
not nearly as gay as i needed it
to be. when will the gays get a
stupid horrible circus musical?
if every job in the entire world
paid the same what job would you
do? ok dam sometimes i think
about like what if robots were
a thing but instead of replacing my job, they just did my job
and i still got paid? i don’t really
fully know how that would work
but wouldnt that be sort of cool?
if i had to choose a job i would
choose no job at all… or maybe
book binding. i have been practicing binding books lately and
thats been pretty cool. its sort of
fun and neat to make something
with your hands, like it’s sort of
like actual magic like making
something appear, you know?
i often times wish that i didn’t
have to work or go to school and
i could just live on a plot of land
and eat potatoes all day but then i
remember that i don’t know how
to make ice cream and if i did
that i wouldnt be able to eat ice
cream and that would suck a lot :(
COMIX
Expression Liuxing Jay
Stephan Curry Is A Basketball Player Morrissey Morrissey
Letters & Opinion
ANDY WARHOL
by April Davidson
Currently on display the Evergreen
Gallery is a selection of photographs
by celebrated American artists of the
20th century from the school’s collection. There are a total of nineteen artists in the show, titled “The Surface:
On and Beneath”. Placed at the forefront of the show are images by the
original hipster capitalist, Andy Warhol. Warhol is easily one of the most
famous Western artists of the 20th
century, but what does that mean about
his work and why should I care? Being
well known doesn’t necessarily mean
that you contributed something useful
or enriching to society. Andy Warhol
is a brand and admiring him is about
the same as thinking McDonalds does
really interesting work, or being inspired by Google. Warhol is a household name not on the basis of skill or
radical thinking, but because he managed a successful business based off
his cult of personality. The art world is
driven by money just like every other
industry. Artists are required, just like
all of us, to participate in capitalism in
order to survive. There are some artists
who are not reluctant participators in a
system of oppression but actually enthusiastic about exploitation. Warhol’s
work is like a love letter to capitalism, his studio was called The Factory
for fuck’s sake. Warhol rarely did any
of his own labor, he had his followers
in assembly lines silk screening his celebrity portraits and filming his screen
tests. Before Warhol, the use of screen
printing was primarily an industrial
tool, and the use of the medium speaks
to his desire to eliminate any reference
to the handmade from his art. Don’t
fool yourself into thinking his choice
in materials was meant as a critique,
the dude was un-ironically exploiting labor to his advantage. One of his
main stars, Edie Sedgwick, worked on
several of his films for a year and was
never paid. She requested that Warhol
not use footage of her but the films she
appeared in are still in circulation, just
one example of how he generated prof-
its off people he blatantly and unapologetically used. People in the art world
like to say Warhol’s art paved the way
for many “revolutionary” contemporary
artists of today, such as Jeff Koons and
Damien Hirst. Koons exalts in consumerism; his work “Balloon Flower
(Red)” lives in the plaza of one of the
new World Trade Center buildings in
New York. You can now buy a small
replica of a Koons sculpture off Amazon for $32.99, daddy Warhol would
be so proud. Hirst’s most recent exhibition was privately funded by French
billionaire François Pinault (major-
“Andy Warhol is a
brand– admiring
him is about the
same as thinking
McDonalds does
really interesting
work, or being
inspired by
Google.”
ity shareholder of Kering which owns
Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Puma
to name just a few) and recently a single work of his sold at auction for $200
million. It’s interesting that the school
currently has on exhibit works by Warhol that he actually made but still present is the same affection for capitalism
in proximity to power that his other
works contain. All the photos are of
people who are rich, famous or powerful and often all of the above. So for
me, a broke Evergreen student whose
entire being has been transformed into
a helpless, silent scream into the void
by living under the boot of the global
banking system, why should I care about
the bourgeois entrepreneur known
as Andy Warhol? Oh wait, I don’t.
JANUARY 24, 2018 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 09
Letters and Opinion
Continued from page 4. We don’t have to
rely on someone else telling us, “Sorry, that’s
not possible.” We can really find that out
ourselves. There’s a potential for the council and the city to build more trust within
the social justice segments in Olympia.
How do you plan on tackling homelessness here
in Olympia now that you have a platform with
which to tackle the problem as directly as ever?
I think there’s ideas for long term and
short term as well as prevention. So long
term, I’m excited for the Home Fund
which is going to go out to voters in February. It’s a .1% sales tax which will create
at least a couple hundred units of affordable subsidised housing. That’s something
that council member Bateman [has been
working on for two years]. That’s long
term. That’s housing that’s gonna be
built over years, assuming voters pass it.
In the immediate, I go to harm reduction principles of what can we do that may
not be perfect but better than we have right
now. I think of what our community has to
consider is safe and legal camping. I think
it makes sense to do it on public land because frankly, we have a constitutional right
to safe sleep. So, how do we make that safe?
A common value I think everyone
holds today is we want safety, then the
big question is what does that mean,
what does it look like? Safety for who?
Right now, I think we give a lot of folks
a feeling of comfort at the expense of other
people’s real safety. I think when people say
they don’t want to come Downtown because they don’t want to see homeless people. As someone in my role of social service,
knowing what happens to people that are
homeless that are pushed away. The violence that happens because they aren’t seen.
We’ve got hundred of folks that, because
of this economy, a tent is affordable housing. That’s it. How do we make that legal?
How do we make it a place where people
can live with dignity, though it’s living
simply. And prevention, I believe we need
a package of tenant’s rights, especially
with the way rent is going [in Olympia].
What kind of initiatives geared towards
working people do you see Olympia need-
10 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
ing, including the issue of tenant’s rights ?
One really simple one would just be requiring, if somebody signs a lease, that
they get a copy of what their rights are
in this city and in this state. That’s just
something that came from a member of
this community who told me that in every workplace you’re supposed to have your
worker’s rights posted but why is there no
easy distribution of tenant rights. It’s so
simple. I know in Bellingham for example
there’s a law where landlords can’t raise
the rent if their properties are not meeting code. Something like that is worth
exploring. Certainly I think getting away
from discrimination based on passed felony, passed incarceration, that’s important.
How about labor? Do you think
there’s a possibility for the raising of
the minimum wage here in Olympia?
I think there’s a lot of energy for [a higher
minimum wage] on the council. What I’ve
been doing is I’ve reached out to a lot of
friends who run small businesses downtown and I know it’s hard. What I’ve been
hearing so far that it could be a little tough
at first but doable. And that’s just speaking to a small business, the little person
downtown. I think most minimum wage
workers are working for larger companies.
I think there’s a lot of energy behind decreasing the gap between the cost of living
that’s rising so rapidly here and wages. To
me that actually comes back to the wage
and affordability issue because I think the
main thing keeping people from patronizing and coming places downtown is that
people don’t have the excess income. To
contrast how I see a lot of economic development is focused on what do businesses
need, and that’s certainly a piece of the
puzzle, but also what do potential customers need. To me, I think we need less of our
money going to housing. So that’s where I
think the wage increase comes to play and
having a little more money. I think that
could go to places like [Burial Grounds].
On your website, you focus a lot on the Downtown community and improving it. What do
Letters and Opinion
RUBY THOMPSON.
you think is the current state of Downtown
and how do you see yourself improving it?
I think there’s a lot of people that don’t
come Downtown because they drive by
and they’re turned off or they have one bad
experience and they’re turned off. I have
to accept that as legitimate and I think
part of what my role can be is to encourage people to come back anyway. I’ve had
my own experience where I wasn’t always
comfortable coming downtown and a
few years ago I decided I don’t want my
world to be that small. Part of it is having made the decision and I had a supportive community to make that happen.
That’s the way I’d like to help businesses
Downtown. I haven’t spoken with anybody
who would be able to make a decision on
it but what if there was, say, the first Friday
of every month where participating businesses would give union workers 10% off ?
Something like that to kind of give people
a reason to come back. It’s just one idea, it’s
up to the community at the end of the day.
What do you see as the ideal Olympia, what do
you want your work to do for us as a community?
The phrase that I use for my vision is ‘the
beloved community’ which was popularized by Martin Luther King [ Jr]. To me, it’s
where people are seen, people are valued.
That that’s the fundamental thing. That
we don’t take action at the expense of one
group to benefit another That we recognize
or interconnectedness, that people have
a lot less fear. I think a lot of that means
we’re a community that is supporting the
healing work that a lot of us, I would say,
that all of us have to do because of the
traumas of not only individual or violence
and abuse that many people have experienced in this system, but the trauma of
living under oppression, the trauma of living under empire, under capitalism. There’s
a lot of healing work that we have to do.
When I use the word radical, I think
that healing work is the key to getting at the root of many problems.
It’s a community where we’re taken care of,
where we recognize our interdependence.
We can’t, as just one community, change
state law, change federal law, change the
inequality in the national and global level,
but we can take of ourselves. We can do the
best in spite of it. We can fortify ourselves
to weather it, to be prepared. It’s not even
that utopic of a vision. What does it mean
today to be the best Olympia we can be
even given how much inequality there is?
We look at what are the most unsafe situations are out there for vulnerable community members and how do we make those
situations safer? Let’s look at living in a
tent, that’s pretty damn vulnerable, how
do we make that as safe as possible? It’s so
healing to look at fears and anxieties and
work through them and acknowledge them.
by April Davidson
ARIES 3/21 - 4/19
Your most important task right now is to play,
joke and risk it all. From this position you will
be able to express your authentic self, there is
a network of friends that are ready and waiting to recognize your creative gifts. You did not
get to this point without enduring betrayal and
heartbreak but you are at a moment where the
gamble will pay off. Show love to your friends
and accept love from them in return.
TAURUS 4/20 - 5/20
How many of the responsibilities that you are
burdened with are necessary? You have a lot
of external obligations to the point of overextending yourself and forgetting about your own
needs. I recommend letting go and spending
some time in introspection, reconnecting to
your private self and home life, so that when
you return to the outside world you can take on
a role in society that is more meaningful to you.
GEMINI 5/21 - 6/20
Fairly confident that you know everything you
need to know about how to communicate? A
master of perception and delivery, it’s hard to
imagine that there’s more that you could learn
on this subject but be prepared to be surprised.
Your community needs you in ways that will
initially seem mundane but will unfold into fascinating experiences that could teach you new
ways of adapting.
CANCER 6/21 - 7/22
Nothing is permanent in the world and the inherent insecurity of this goads you into deeper
questions about what it means to feel safe. Issues around resource sharing, power and intimacy have exhausted you but the most important matter to resolve is what do you need to
feel comfortable. Addressing your needs in no
way eclipses the needs of others. In fact, prioritizing your well-being will be the ultimate winwin solution.
LEO 7/23 - 8/22
There is enough room for you; your flame is
so dazzling that you may have felt you had to
shield your light for the comfort of others but
it’s time to let loose your golden rays. Avoid petty outbursts by having the courage to state your
feelings directly. The glory in the strong conviction of your selfhood will set your relationships
into balance. Those who truly love you will bask
in the radiance of your bravery of spirit.
VIRGO 8/23 - 9/22
Adapting to new circumstances, even if you’ve
known the change would be coming for a long
time, can be difficult. The demands of your work
call you so strongly that you easily forget that
it is enough to simply be. There’s no point in
pushing yourself towards a goal that doesn’t excite you. The restoration of your body and soul
require your surrender.
LIBRA 9/23 - 10/22
You are gifted with a talent of surrounding
yourself with amazing people and you need to
be telling them how much they mean to you at
least 3x more than you do now. If a friend comes
to you with their problems, make room in your
life to support them by any means necessary.
Share the love in your heart, don’t fool yourself
into thinking that they already know.
SCORPIO 10/23 - 11/21
An intense period of isolation will end soon as
you gain recognition on a public level, but only
if you allow it to happen. Answer the call, you
will be asked to perform and how you respond
will determine your reputation. Link up with
people you respect, people who share your values and understand where you’re coming from.
Be purposeful about where you are going, and
make sure it matches with your innermost truth.
SAGITTARIUS
11/22
-
12/21
The logic you’ve been using is not getting you
where you want to be. There are some feelings
that get labeled as inherently bad but that’s simply not true. Allowing yourself experience your
feelings fully, without judgement, is a consciousness expanding journey you won’t regret taking.
Follow any urges towards faith, belief, and spirituality to enhance your continued learning.
CAPRICORN
12/22 -
1/19
On matters of power and intimacy, you will
soon find out more about your boundaries and
where you stand. You may have some outstanding debt or loans that you need to settle, financially or otherwise. There is something from the
past that you haven’t fully processed, whether its
nostalgia or trauma, that you change your attitude towards. As a healing activity you might
try spontaneous acts of kindness, expecting
nothing in return.
AQUARIUS 1/20 - 2/18
Consider the partner you have, or the partners
you have had in the past, and if you have ever
truly known them and understood their needs.
You will be especially powerful in your ability to
pay attention to your significant other without
the shadows of your own projections. Examine
what your willingness to compromise and revel
in your ability to be bound to another, in oneon-one relationships of all kinds.
PISCES 2/19 - 3/20
You’ve got more than a few noxious feelings
bubbling up. Avoid blaming your discontent on
anything external, you alone are in control of
your mental and physical health. If you were to
decide to make changes to your personal habits or your workplace, this would be a powerful
time to take action. By addressing the needs of
your body you will improve your ability to navigate your emotional landscape.
DAILY HAPPY HOUR 3-7
119 CAPITOL WAY
www.thebrotherhoodlounge.com
JANUARY 24, 2018 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 11
12 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
cpj_20180124.pdf