I wanted to do a series of stickers (or have students do a series of stickers) dedicated to underrecognized historical figures, and Emma Tenayuca immediately came to my mind. I have long been captivated by the original black and white photo of Tenayuca outside the jail cell: she appears so young and powerful here. I used a filter to add color to capture the vibrancy of her activism and commitment. This was the first sticker where I had a student research aide help me dig around for potential sources. The QR code points to an article the NY Historical Society Museum and Library wbsite that is geared toward broadening New Yorkers’ understanding of history broadly and attempts to reach a public-facing audience and maybe middle school or high school readers. Note the inclusion of keywords at the end to help guide readers. The article details Tenayuca’s childhood, her labor activism and marriage to Homer, her involvement in the Communist Party and the targeting by the FBI and local police. The article concludes by discussing her blacklisting, moving away from Texas during the 1940s, and then her return to Texas and continued political involvement.
One day my research aide asked how I came up with the idea of SubStick, and I tried to describe the project as akin to those seeds of wildflower packets that are often given out. The idea is that you pick up a packet and toss the seeds and hopefully they grow somewhere. Of course, this immediately got me to thinking of the Parable of the Sower from the Bible and then Octavia Butler's dystopian and sadly prescient The Parable of the Sower and the connection between seeds and planting ideas in that novel. If you have not read Butler's Parable yet, click on the QR code for access to a sample. The words on the perimeter of the sticker come from the epigraph the opening of the first chapter. The full quotation is "All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes You. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change." These words form a central tenet of the new religion imagined in the novel, a religion that emerges out of and meant to counter catastrophic times.
Likely my first SubStick, this Baldwin decal has my one of my favorite quotations of his on it, and the QR code link's to his letter to his nephew, "My Dungeon Shook" in The Progressive. This essay would become the opening section of his The Fire Next Time. Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between The World and Me would echo elements of Baldwin's letter years later. What strikes me about Baldwin's quote here is how he is telling his nephew that Black freedom is linked to the freedom of whites, but Baldwin recognizes that whites are not unfree in the same way. People who believe they are white (as Baldwin might call them) are unfree in part because of that very delusion and because that delusion is predicated on the notion not just of difference but of supremacy. As a white guy, I find wrestling with that line is exceptionally powerful for me.
For sticker craft, note the small vertical lines on the right and horizontal lines on the left. I realized after the first print batch that I could save time by making small hash marks to guide my cuts. I don't want to go through the expense and hassle of buying a fancy machine to precision cut stickers. Where is the fun in that? But that doesn't mean that I don't want to make my life a bit easier.
For sticker craft, note the small vertical lines on the right and horizontal lines on the left. I realized after the first print batch that I could save time by making small hash marks to guide my cuts. I don't want to go through the expense and hassle of buying a fancy machine to precision cut stickers. Where is the fun in that? But that doesn't mean that I don't want to make my life a bit easier.
Created in late December 2024, this Utah Phillips SubStick links to an audio archive hosted by Phillips' son. This was one of my first two substicks. The barbed-wire was a bit of an afterthought, but I wanted to have a graphic element to each SubStick. Phillips has long been one of my favorite folk singers, and his injunction here is a powerful thing for anyone to consider. Indeed, a deep consideration of such a phrase might be at the heart of the SubStick project.
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This SubStick combines title of the classic folksong with image of a vinyl record and a QR code that links to a Spotify playlist of songs about revolution and social transformation. Revolutions promise change, but often like the turning of a record, the world ends up in the same place. Sekou Sundiata asks if we would "use that word" (revolution) "if we knew what it meant?" He cautions "it's bloody. It overturns things." Yet, at the same time, revolution and change are essential in our world and their are times when we must ask ourselves, which side are you on?
Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/68VYuDaKahqyFotebcOtSE?si=vmsDOSIrTYC9z3KF1gfPmA I cut these as 2.5 inch circular stickers with a 2.6 inch diameter circle around them just to make sure I protect white space around the lettering. A challenge: While I knew right away I wanted a playlist, I wrestled with using Spotify. Spotify allows a wide user access, but only premium subscribers will have access to the playlist of songs in order and without advertisements. I learned this through the wisdom of my younger and thus much more tech-competent research aide. |
This SubStick plays with the absurdity of life by pairing lyrics from Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" with a gently modified cartoon image of Sisyphus and a QR code taking sticker-users to an explainer video about Camus' essay "The Myth of Sisyphus." For me, the "Don't Stop" lyrics will always be charged with the forward-looking promise of the Clinton/Gore 1992 campaign. Here, of course, there is a bitter irony because tomorrow will be the same as today and yesterday. There is an absurdity in this pairing as there is an absurdity in finding meaning in life for Camus. But Camus sees Sisyphus as the hero of an era faced with existentialist questions. When faced with the never-ending struggle, the knowledge that the hope for tomorrow will only bring the pain we experience today, we must also "imagine Sisyphus happy", as Camus would say. We must hold onto the small things where we find joy. Tomorrow may soon be here, and it may look very much like today, but as we build toward a better world that we will never in our lifetimes see, let us simultaneously hold onto the fleeting moments of now where we find happiness and community.