Fam, it’s that time of year. The 9th annual Social Justice Children’s Book Fair is upon us. This fair celebrates Bipoc, Queer, Immigrant, and Social Justice minded kid lit creators, literacy organizations, and the Bay kid lit community. We got over 50 creators, panels, performances, story time, and activities!!
Wanna help us get press? Send them the press release. Wanna see some photos from past fairs? Check out these albums of photos taken by Janine Macbeth, Mark Rea, Alejandra Domenzain, and more. Follow us onInstagram. Wanna see some press? Peep this from Ronnie’s List and Oaklandside.
This summer I got to do two presentations at the 81st Ave branch of the Oakland Public Library. One was about art books and one was about character design. These photos are from a huge room of students and families doing an exercise in character design.
I have done this workshop several times but never to a room this large. It was organized by Aspire Education in Oakland who provide tutoring, mentoring, and support to public school students in the Bay Area.
When I start the workshop I talk to them about “line of action” and how to make characters seem calm, or dynamic. I demonstrate figure drawing to get them to warm up, then I have them model for each other. Librarian Isaiah Hurtado brought a bunch of cool books for them to see examples of what they were learning in practice!
Here you can see kids drawing. While they’re doing that I typically talk about how character design and how its used in the media they use like films, video games, animation, and more. These kids are freaking awesome!
The topics I talked about:
Figure drawing
Fan Art
Group work
Remixing existing characters
Film, Gaming, Animation, Theater, etc
Art career
Aspire hit them with a double whamy of food, snacks, and lots of books so families went home with bellies full and lots of books. Hopefully some inspiration too.
I ran out of time on this one, but we still got some fan art, drawing, and group work in during the workshop before folks had to leave.
Early in the afternoon I spoke to some teen students about the power of art books. Its always hard to tell if they’re feeling the topic, but there were a few students who came forward to ask questions about careers in the arts and I definitely had fun talking about ART!!!
Dig this? Check out some photos from other visits:
This is an incredible organization that formed recently to combat the barrage of bullshit, empty, hollow, and down right dangerous book bans that have been happening and exploding across the US. Those who are challenging and removing kids books from shelves (w/o reading them) are not worried about children being too young to learn about race, gender, sexuality, or political protest. They don’t want their kids and others in their state to develop critical thinking, empathy, and/or understanding. And even more sinister, this is a way to target, disrupt, shut down, and defund public libraries and public schools. Why? To privatize them and make sure there is LESS access to information. But don’t take my word for it, read about it. The situation is URGENT!!!!
Articles/videos about what is happening:
Fast Company: A revolution happening in kids publishing
Huff post: Author Laurin Mayeno talking about OUR BOOK being banned
After digesting that information that is where “Authors Against Book Bans” comes in because they mobilize parents, teachers, librarians, authors, illustrators, and activists to fight back. This is coalition of folks across the US. But, unlike the very well funded right wing organizations they have been doing this work with little to no funding. But they got a fiscal sponsor now and can take donations. If you can, please consider making a donation to their efforts.
OG muralist and teacher Juana Alicia hit me and some other painters/muralists to come help her install her piece in support of Palestinians in Gaza on a church in Oakland/Berkeley. We had lots of help from David Solnit, Yazmin Madriz, Keena Romano, Nadya V, my crew mate and sister Cece Carpio of Trust Your Struggle Collective, and myself. Here we are with some of the folks who work at the church! Diego Mendoza snapped this photo. Shout out to David Solnit who helped lead the installation w/ Tirso (Juana’s husband).
Here are some words from Juana herself:
Thank you so much to the crew that helped us install our mural, Not in Our Name, on St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland yesterday! San Francisco Poet Laureate Genny Lim’s poem and my illustration are proudly displayed on the exterior wall of the church, facing San Pablo Avenue at Adeline.
This work, which expresses our profound solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine, seeks to touch the hearts of those who see it, and move them to action to support those who are suffering from an ongoing genocide.
Our mural fam came through to work with Tirso Araiza, David Solnit and I on mounting the 7′ x 15′ canvas on the church wall. Deep bows to Father Aidan McAleenan and the staff at the church (Harriet, Margaret and Joyce) for their kindness, cooperation and solidarity! Thanks so much to Keena Romano, Cece Carpio, YazmÃn Madriz, Diego Mendoza, Robert Trujillo Liu and Nadya Voynoskyva for their great energy and elbow grease!
This church is super progressive and as a result has been fucked with. But, from what they told me its very inclusive and they stand ten toes down. If you’re in the East Bay go see it.
Blade is one of those pioneers of Graf that you cannot forget. His style of letters, his work ethic, and his personality featured in this short video by Montana.
Lil history for you. Before Montana and Belton writers would use paint made for cars, everyday house items, automotive repair, houses , etc for painting the master pieces you see. there was red devil, Rustoleum, hard ware stores like ACE had their own brands, and Krylon; the best of the best. When the Montana and Belton came along there were more colors, thicker paint, larger cans, better caps, and more opportunities for style created.
Dig this? Check out this panel discussion w/ my crew TYS Collective
These are some photos from a recent visit to the University of San Francisco (USF). Artist and professor Liat Berdugo invited me to come speak to her class through a referral from another designer and professor Sabiha Basrai! Check it out!
I’ve been an art teacher for elementary, jr high, and high school students. In fact it was one of the biggest and most consistent jobs I’ve ever had. I started speaking to children in 2012 as an author and have been doing so ever since. But its only within the past 3 years that I’ve been invited to speak to college students.
When I speak to them it has been to assist the professor in driving home a few points of experience, or to give insight into a particular part of my career. But what I really want to do is provide a regular everyday person’s experience of being an artist. Not a famous or wealthy one, a working class artist.
This means no bullshit. I try to be as honest as possible about making a living, debt from college, and how to scrape by because thats what I know. I also want to get them thinking less about working for a big company and more about running their career like a business, and working together with others like them because when we build unions, cooperatives, collectives I think our skill, wages, and power grows. This might be contrary to some schools instruction though.
I also like to bring my sketchbook because its something tangible they can touch and feel. But also, its behind the scenes. Its the making of. Its not finished or perfect, its messy, and its a reminder to me that its important to practice and generate ideas. I show finished work too of course, but I like bringing in physical media.
Me talking about my “why” regarding my career in kid lit.
All in all, I had a really great time talking to these students who had really astute questions about being a working artist. I think adults who are currently working in the biz of dance, music, design, whatever are experts who can really help prepare students to survive as beginners in an artistic career. You don’t need a big name, what you have is experience and that is valuable!
In this talk I spoke about:
Best practices as a working professional
Solidarity w/ social justice issues, working class people, and international struggle
Community building with other artists rather than an individual focus
Art education about different forms of art
Art practice and being multidisciplinary
Career: Kid lit, Mural Making, Merchandise making, and Public speaking
On another note: If you dig these photos, these were taken by my brother Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi who is not only a talented photographer but an organizer of the Fist Up Film Festival and a talented filmmaker! Watch the trailer for his most recent film “We Still here”!
Every month I’m blessed that people support my shop. Some are friends or fam, but most are people I’ve never met in my life. I hella appreciate you all! You can get art prints, books, stickers, etc.
This is a bit late but heres a picture book review for October featuring a lovely one that I used to read to my son called “Perfect Harmony” about the Boys Choir of Harlem. Its not often that picture book authors are also photographers but that is the case with this book and I wish more picture book would make use of it :). Watch my review.
This is a short comic about a young child seeing a trumpet , falling in love with it, and learning to play so well that she inspired a new generation. I drew this super fast without any words.
Whats this? I’ve had fits and starts with comics over the years. In 2016 I started working on an epic graphic novel and it was too much, I couldn’t finish. So I took a break and began doing mini comics (shorter more manageable stories) so I could do the most important part; finish them. This is a continuation of that.
This was a dope event I participated in down in Long Beach, California. I hadn’t been to the museum before and after participating in this I plan to come back! For this “Dia de Muertos” event I set up with 30-40 other local vendors who were selling jewelry, pottery, comics, clothing, candles, and more.
During the pandemic I participated on a panel discussion for MOLAAA with some good friends Cathy Camper and Isabel Quintero alongside moderator Professor Frederick Aldama which was awesome. Watch it here.
I drove down with my family, hit the Lightbox Expo on my second day out there and then hit Molaa on day 3. I brought my whole set up.
I didn’t get a chance to go inside or see all the performances but I caught a glimpse of a the Mariachi Cumbia and one of the alters outside. it was beautiful and somber being that ICE has been terrorizing Black and Brown folks in LA, Chicago, Portland, NYC, here in the Bay and many other places.
This is a short video showing some more photos from the event.
Dig this? Check out this video of me talking to Gabriela Martinez about Furqan’s First Flat Top
Or check out these photos of my set up at SJ Made in San Jose, Ca.
