Metro Train - Art Basel 2011

As Art Basel 2011 was fast approaching, I wanted to create a STRONG, LIFE SIZE, ATTENTION GRABBING piece that would blend in with my Greed Kills project. So it seemed like a no brainer to do this project. The concept was to wheatpaste life-size men (CEO's) from some of the biggest corporations around that have committed suicide as a direct result of their GREED all around the city to grab people's attention. As I started digging in and gathering facts and deciding on who & what companies to use, the process was just absolutely overwhelming and fascinating and took on a life of it's own.

The 1st person I decided to use is Phil Pagano. Pagano had been the executive director of Metra, the Chicago suburban rail service, for 20 years. It was reported that Pagano was accused of committing fraud to the tune of nearly $500,000. The morbid thing about this is that he stood in front of & was hit by a train from his own company! In his wallet was a copy of Metra's procedures on how to handle a service disruption after a suicide.

Next I found, The former Interim CEO of Life Link III Richard McComb. He was arrested in and charged with six felony tax charges for failure to pay his taxes has allegedly committed suicide in Florida. The sheriff’s office got a call at 6:15 that morning from a man who said he was going to kill himself and where they could find his body.

The 3rd man in the piece is ReiJane Huai. Huai was the 52 year old founder of the Long Island-based storage company FalconStor. He was found dead of a gunshot wound to the chest. He was accused of a potential insider trading allegation in which “he and other top execs dealt 125,000 shares of stock at a artificially inflated price of $545,000.

Lastly, I decided to focus on David Kellermann, CEO of Freddie Mac. Mr. Kellermann and other executives at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae became the focus of intense scrutiny when lawmakers learned they would receive bonuses totaling $210 million dollars! Mr. Kellermann was set to receive $850,000 over 16 months. Mr Kellerman was found of an apparent suicide, when his wife discovered him hanging from a piece of exercise equipment in the basement.

My intention for this piece is not to cause farther grief for the families they left behind, although, it's interesting that none of these men seemed to worry about that themselves, but to show that greed in any form is an epidemic! And I feel compelled to bring these issues into the light. My hope is to spread awareness through public art, through social media, through conversations. Awareness leads to accountability. Awareness inspires action, and isn't that the point?

The finished piece the I put on a wall (with E's help of course) on the southwest corner of NE Miami Ave & 25th St in the Wynwood District was 19 feet long by 6 foot tall.

Occupy Art Basel / Take Back The Land - Part 2

Ok, so I called up my buddy Chris to go with me (she is a promoter, and I knew we would have a good time) so my plan was to go down to the Event with my picket signs and give them out... Simple enough, right? So when we got there, the 1st woman we met gave us a tour of the shanty house that was a replica of the real shanty houses that these people used for housing, Her name is Miss Ophelia, and had just an amazingly kind vibe and it was easy to see what a big heart she has... The next woman we talked to was Olga. She and her partner Andrea are the artists who built the replica shanty house as part of their project, 'Feel the Power". Olga was the one who ask me if I wanted to speak about my Greed Kills project. At first, I said no, I didn't want to speak in front of the crowd, but after going back & forth with Chris, She helped me realize that I was letting my fear overshadow my intention & purpose for being there, so I decided to speak. I am not a fan of public speaking, and was very nervous as I'm quite sure that was apparent, however more importantly, I believe in my work. I believe in my project, and I believe that people want to know that there are other people in the community just as outraged as they are & are willing to take risks for their vision. So I spent a few minutes speaking about how it was no coincidence that I was there, and to discuss my Greed Kill Project & my vision. I Gave out all of the "No Evil" guys I made, and afterward, spoke with a few people about there street art adventures & a few artist asked me to collaborate with them. So it ended up being amazing night that I knew would happen... After all, I am a Creative, Passionate, Powerful woman on a mission!

Big ups to Chris for coming along with me, I knew the minute you said you'd hang out, that Miami was defiantly in for it...

Occupy Art Basel / Take Back The Land - Part 1

So yesterday (Thursday, Dec 1st) I was looking thru my twitter feed when I came across this event that Occupy Miami was teaming up with the folks at Art Basel, dubbing it "Occupy Art Basel". The event was located at 21st St & Collins Ave, and they together were teaming up with a local chapter of the National Movement called "Take Back The Land". I immediately got a surge of energy and knew I had to be apart of this! I was so flooded with ideas on how to contribute artwork to them while also merging my "Greed Kills" project with them, that I was literally vibrating in my chair and could not focus on work...
So I came up with the idea of making picket signs using my "Hear No Evil" See No Evil" Speak No Evil" characters as the actual signs. The event was from 6-10pm but there was no way that I was going to sit on this til I got off work at 5...that would be straight up torture.... So I used my charm to enroll my boss into letting me leave work a few hours early to get started on the project :)


So I headed to the art supply store, to staples to make prints and home to get started... Here are a few photo's showing the steps... And will blog about the actual event with photos of the night....stay tuned