observable erosion

Most erosion is not observable except from a "god's eye" view, that is, over great spans of time. through hindsight and theorizing and carbon dating and tree rings and layers of sediment. 

maybe we can think of chalking as adding a "layer" to the landscape, something three-dimensional to the topography. and though it is temporary, all landscape is temporarily formed when looked at through the lens of a hundred thousand years (give or take). 

I was surprised, when we chalked Spaights Plaza last Sunday, how quickly our chalkings eroded. They eroded, from what I can tell, in two distinct ways. One being physical, the other figurative.

Physical erosion: it rained a little on Monday, but the chalk still looked vivid when classes started, footsteps probably being the greatest cause of erosion on that day. By Tuesday, all chalking was pretty much gone, most likely due to rain and melting snow draining across the small plaza like small rivers. (Insert Images here)

    

Figurative erosion: in some ways, this is not erosion at all, but instead "revision." Early on Monday, before 8am, we found that students had added to, crossed out, and revised almost all of our chalked messages using anti-feminist, pro-patriarchal rhetoric. This could be read as erosion, because not even 24 hours after we'd written our chalked texts, the messages had been altered, distorted, and revised to promote antithetical politics. Evidence of our original messages lay beneath like layers of chalky sediment, but our original feminist intention had been eroded into one of argumentation and polarized debate. Only a quote from Keith Gilyard on dominant discourse was left unaltered by the sweeping change that had come in mysteriously. Sadly, much of campus was only able to see these altered messages. (insert images here)

  

  

On one hand, isn't this what we wanted? To spark some sort of "dialogue," "conversation," or "interaction" with the readers of our chalked messages? I'm sure we'd all imagined something more complicated that these polarizing words. Something, then, in the student "body" seems to be lurking just below the surface, eager for an opportunity for expression. All students seem to feel silenced politically - or someone was just drunk off of scripture after bible study Sunday night. It's hard to tell. There were no feminist supporters writing as a third voice to our messages or to the messages scrawled on top of ours, and this is perhaps the most disappointing aspect to the whole thing. 

Milwaukee "Public Art" Ordinance

http://blog.radiomilwaukee.org/2009/01/09/graffiti-art-or-crime/#comments
(scroll down after clicking that link to read the "talkback" section at the bottom of that radiomilwaukee page)


"There is currently an ordinance being proposed by Alderman Zilenski (District 14) and Alderman Witkowiak (District 12) that if passed, would make it very difficult to paint a mural in Milwaukee.

This ordinance calls for the City of Milwaukee to regulate the size, location, amount of, and content of a painted mural in public view. These Alderman want to create a permit process and regulations for painted murals which would include a $100 permit fee and approval process and an annual $75 inspection fee."

Facebook Group

Chalk Full of Thick Description

Tuesday February 10th
2:15pm

I'm sitting in Spaights Plaza on the steps of the elevated "stage" area and looking across the white and gray concrete. All noticeable traces of our Sunday chalking are erased from the memory of the landscape and I wonder what effects it had, and what effects it will continue to have. There is some light chalk visible to the one side but it isn't legible. But that means it is still there in ways we might not know.... The landscape, its conditions, are still altered in a sense. In an e-mail to Mike and Shereen earlier I wondered if the rain washed the chalk away completely or if the physical plant crews were instructed to clean it?

Its already difficult to ignore the wind. The pages of my notebook are blowing back as I write and I keep adjusting my hat so it doesn't blow away from me. Despite the wind the sun is out and particularly bright and warm for a Wisconsin February. The warmth has drawn students out of the surrounding buildings and into the plaza.

I count about 16 students, all "traditional"-aged (whatever that means) and about 5-10 walking through at any given time. I see another woman sitting across the plaza writing in a notebook. Others around me smoke cigarettes and chat.

What I notice about this plaza is the ways in which it is surrounded like some sort of strange fortress. Bricks and administrative buildings. The Union. Peck School of the Arts. Is the plaza surrounded to keep people in or out or both?

I see a sign/banner in the union window that reads: "Christians on Campus." It's mocking me...and I laugh as I write that. I do wonder if they watched us chalk from up there in that window. The giant blue cross.

I smell smoke and want a cigarette. In September it will be 2 years since I quit but I remember the strange community of smokers around the union. Most of my time in Spaights plaza as a graduate student was either spent smoking or moving through quickly. The guy next to me asks the guy next to him for a cigarette.

Pools of water are scattered around a couple of drains, small piles of snow are still collected around the edges of the walkways and sides of the union.

Another man sits on the bench across from me writing in a notebook. I wonder if he wonders what I'm writing as I wonder what he's writing.

The concrete is overwhelming. It gives the plaza a very inorganic feeling, like nothing new will grow there. Sterile. Cleanliness. Easy-cleaning. sweep it up quickly, move along. no mess in this plaza. The administration likes their plaza neat and clean. These thoughts linger as I consider (what I perceive to be) the organic nature of writing. This contradiction pleases me in a way because complication and struggle seem to be important to this project.

What do the different shapes of these buildings tell me about this space?

The wind is still strong and because my thoughts are now on architecture I wonder if it is designed to funnel the wind through this space, like flushing people out and through, pushing students through, making them uncomfortable. Move along. I'm cold and I'm finished for today.

What Would Jesus Chalk?

This is fascinating.

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
D.C. cops ban pro-life messages
'Is this the future of free speech and political dissent under President Obama?'
Posted: January 16, 2009
12:10 am Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
White House

The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department has forbidden a pro-life gathering and chalk display during Inauguration Week – and now the group is fighting back with a lawsuit against the District of Columbia.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said the department is banning the event because of its message.

"For over 16 years, law enforcement officials have given permission to the Christian Defense Coalition to use public 'sidewalk chalking' as a part of their demonstrations and vigils in the nation's capitol. The City of Washington, D.C., has also allowed numerous public 'chalk art displays' throughout the city," he said in a statement. "It is therefore most troubling that for the first time the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department is banning this practice when it involves a pro-life display in front of the White House."

Thursday, Jan. 22, marks the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Since 1974, pro-life activists have gathered in Washington, D.C., each year to protest the decision and call attention to millions of lives lost.

The Christian Defense Coalition and Generation Life and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust asked for permission to meet and draw sidewalk chalk messages on the sidewalk near the White House, as many groups have often done during public assemblies.

However, Commander James Crane denied their request in a Jan. 7 letter. He also said applying chalk to Pennsylvania Avenue and adjacent sidewalks "would constitute defacing public property in violation of D.C. Official Code 22-3312.01."

James Matthew Henderson Sr., senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, immediately responded to Crane's letter, claiming the commander applied laws intended to prevent graffiti to the group's chalk display.

He cited other cases where sidewalk chalking was permitted – including a youth chalk art contest the city hosted for three years, and a D.C. event in 2005 where children were invited to "chalk for peace." He included pictures of the incidents.

Ryan said permission was denied to Rev. Mahoney based on the groups' viewpoint and content of speech.

Now the Christian Defense Coalition is filing a lawsuit in U. S. District Court on Friday, accusing the police department of infringing on First Amendment free speech rights. The pro-life activists are seeking a temporary restraining order against police.

"Is this the future of free speech and political dissent under President Obama?" Mahoney asked in his statement. "The streets in front of the White House should be open to all views, opinions and thoughts. It should not be a place of censorship and intimidation. I hope this was not the kind of change President Obama was talking about."

Let's give them something to chalk about.

Girl Chalk
Chalk of the Nation
Watchu Chalkin' About?
Chalk Radio
Coffee Chalk
Pillow Chalk
Chalk It to Me
An Australian Chalk About
Let's Chalk About Sex, Baby
Chalk Full of Good Ideas
Electric Chalk Therapy
If It Chalks Like a Duck...
One Night in Bangchalk
You Can Chalk the Chalk but You Can't Walk the Walk
Sittin' By the Chalk of the Bay
Chalk Three Times on the Ceiling If You Want Me
Chalk Dirty to Me
We could chalk or not chalk for hours and still find things to not chalk about.

I had to get that out of my system.

Paradise City

I walked through Spaights Plaza at 7:35am--not even 24-hours after we initially chalked--and there are several responses and "edits" to our text. I'm surprised at how quickly people wrote back. And while I have to say there's nothing terribly surprising about WHAT people wrote (we did, after all, leave pieces of chalk behind to invite responses) I'm feeling disheartened that I attend and work at a campus on which feminist, pro-choice messages couldn't last for even 24 hours without direct opposition. And I feel most affected and alarmed by the large drawing of a penis with text that reads: "Do you have AIDS?" I can't help but feel a sense of antagonism beyond resistance...something smacks of hate...

Text Map:

I walk through Spaights Plaza with two friends (Molly and Dathan) around 7:35am. We read responses to the chalking. We joke about how this is depressing but great for the project. I take some photographs with my phone.

I go to our office and tell Mike about the responses. We head back out to the plaza with his camera.

I text message John and Amy on our way to the plaza at 7:47am.

I write: Some fundy wrote back to all of our chalk! 7:47am

John writes: On campus on clinic or both? 7:47am

I write: Campus! And it's bad 7:49am

John writes: We just had to go and leave chalk now didn't we? 7:50am

Amy writes: Oh wow! Email me bout it. Phone going off. 7:51am

John writes: They were mad about the gilyard quote im sure 7:54am

I have a lot mixed feelings about all of this. On one hand I feel somehow invigorated. But I also feel a sense of dread, disappointment, and frustration. At its simplest, I'm very glad that our invitation to chalk back was taken seriously. Even if one of the responses reads: "I don't have an opinion but I love chalk."

Not exactly sure what to make of the GNR quote. What would Axel say about this? Mike says he has no idea.

On a side note: I felt somewhat more conspicuous taking pictures in Spaights Plaza today--there were more people around and I was, generally speaking, more brightly "colored" in loud blue tights and an olive green coat. Yesterday, Mike said I looked militant--I was wearing sneakers, jeans, a black zippery jacket, and my Dykes in the City Hat. If I want to pay closer attention to my body as I engage in this public art project it seems only fair and appropriate to talk about clothing choices. This isn't just my sneaky attempt to tie this all to the politics of fashion. Or is it?

At 9:47am Molly sends me a text message.

She writes: How's it going? Any news to report from spaights?

I write: I'm blogging about that right now! I mentioned you and Dathan. It's the chalk blog not my regular blog btw. 9:48am

Molly: Will you send me the link? I'll check it out this afternoon. 9:50am

Chalking Points

"Rhetorical Space—that is, public space with the potential to operate as a persuasive public sphere—is created not through good-intentioned civic planning or through the application of a few sounds and reasonable rhetorical rules of conduct. Ordinary people make rhetorical space through a concerted, often protracted struggle for visibility, voice, and impact against powerful interests that seek to render them invisible. People take and make space in acts that are simultaneously verbal and physical."
---Nancy Welch, Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Privatized World

While chalking I could not stop thinking about the politics of a white male, like myself, writing "I am female. Secondary. Ancillary. Subsidiary. I am voiceless" (Chaffee 27). Countless questions emerge. Am I perpetuating the "voicelessness" by virtue of my identity and my privilege, by "giving" voice to voicelessness? (all these terms trouble me a bit, but keep with me). Or might that critique, in fact, work to render that "voicelessness" somehow more visible? Both (and more), right? If so, then I imagine context is important--context is always important--and passersby should maybe know a dude transcribed that quotation.

Isn't the context of who is chalking these quotations (and why) important? If so, how do we identify ourselves? Have we already identified ourselves? How many people saw us chalking? How many teachers and administrators know about this project? In what ways were we performing a version of activism? I felt different when tours were walking through campus and they could see me on the ground, hands and knees, chalking Adrienne Rich. I enjoyed seeing mothers and fathers paying less attention to the tour guide and more attention to our writing. In my imagination they were sneering at our politics while we composed.

Two dudes threw a football back and forth to each other, stepping on the chalk.

A "middle-aged" woman stood over my shoulder asking, "What are you writing?" "Virginia Woolf?" "What are you writing?" As much as I hoped and imagined the purposes of this project as engaging with public voices, as much as I wanted to open dialogue and discuss politics with people normally unconcerned strolling by in Spaights Plaza, I did not respond to this woman. Here it was, a "public sphere" created, in a sense. And I ignored it. Why? Partly engaged and concentrating on my writing, looking from book to chalk and making sure the writing was neat and legible...but mostly I think I was afraid of getting yelled at for my politics. I kept working and she eventually shuffled away to talk with Mike and Shereen. Ugh. What assumptions was I making about this woman and her politics? Was my fear of "getting yelled at" perpetuating the stereotype of the "irrational" or "hysterical" woman? How did I not see the tragic irony of writing about voicelessness and not responding to this woman's questions? Engaged in public activism I am a conflicted, contradictory, actor and I'm pissed off about it.

Given Shereen's post about the physicality of chalking and how material conditions shape what is written and how....is it possible to contextualize our experiences in ways that help shape the readings of those quotations? In what ways have we already contextualized our experiences?
Should students and faculty walking by know this project is for a conference presentation? How do our professional "obligations" change/shape what we say and how we say it?
What are the consequences of claiming authorship of chalking in a public space?

Am I exploiting the very real and written pain of others for my own personal political and professional (conference/dissertation) gain?

Is Spaights Plaza a public space? If so, how is that determined? Who or what counts as public? According to whom? In what situations? By what criteria? And, finally, whose interests are served in naming and claiming particular publics?

I find it interesting that the first quotation I chalked ("I am female. Secondary. Ancillary. Subsidiary. I am voiceless") was not chosen to be reproduced in front of the family planning clinic because it could be read as the "voicelessness" of a, um, fetus. Did we want our chalkings to be read in multipe ways? Isn't part of our project to see how messages are read differenlty in different public spaces? Chalking at the family planning clinic was an unusual experience and I'm very interested to hear what Mike thinks about it after a night of reflection.

At the end of the day, after writing interesting and provacative quotations from important feminist thinkers and writers, I write "The Christian Right Hates Women" in bright pink chalk. This is what I've wanted to say the entire day. It is an extremely uncomplicated message, an overt and unambiguous overgeneralization that I would question in any one of my student's papers...but there it sits as I type this. It is the sort of rhetoric I abhor, that I reject, an uninvestigated claim. But I wanted response. We did leave chalk, inviting others to write back. And from reading Shereen's text messages this morning it sounds like some responsed.

Chalking Back

I have never chalked in Spaights Plaza during my four and a half years at UW-Milwaukee, though I have often stopped to read the messages chalked by others in that space. There have been only two times I can remember being intrigued and glad to read what was written: the first was an announcement about the screening of an LGBTQ film on campus, and the second was a series of messages dealing with calls for anti-sweatshop bookstore merchandise and accountability toward ethical labor practices.

Chalking today was an interesting physical experience. It was an exceptionally warm day for Wisconsin in February, but I could feel the coldness of the concrete under my knees. My fingers quickly turned icy as I wrote. The sun brightening the pavement made it challenging to capture the chalked text on our small phone cameras. John commented that he hadn't expect to use almost an entire piece of chalk on one message (chalk went faster than we'd expected and we found ourselves discussing and making choices about the size of the text as we wrote). Mike and I decided to co-write the longer Steinem quote, which stretched well beyond arms-length.

I felt like there was a real physicality to this chalking experience and this was something I hadn't anticipated. As teachers who are familiar with using our classroom space as a research site and chalk in the context of a chalkboard, our bodies were being used differently today. Hands were on the ground, the knees of my jeans felt pebbly... in one sense it felt like working at or on a canvas so huge it was tricky to know how or where to begin. We strategized and planned a bit. But the experience also called for whim and imagination.

In the next few days, I think the three of us should talk, reflect, and blog more about the connections we were making between chalking about women's bodies and OUR (gendered) bodies chalking in this public space... the guys peering over Mike as he chalked, the woman trying to engage John while he was writing... all stuff to think about as we continue this process and document it as we go.