I painted this originally 5 or 6 years ago as a sticker on a sheet. The sheet was popular and so was this message. People responded to it well in person at events so I finally made a larger version of the original.
Why this message? Whether you’re in an office, a classroom, library, gym, or home sometimes we all need a reminder to put down devices and be in the moment. Maybe that’s a moment to exercise, connect, or clear your mind. Whatever the case may be, sometimes you gotta put your phone down.
Hey fam, I was really excited to do this t-shirt illustration for a historic organization. The “Teachers for Social Justice” San Francisco chapter is a dope community based organization that held an annual conference for teachers to share information about social justice pedagogy, books, songs, practices, teaching methods, and more in San Francisco California. I first went in the 2010’s but had been to conferences like it where we would give workshops to young people about murals, graffiti, and a way to combine social justice with art. Here’s some process art.
As a student of ethnic studies I was always really excited to learn at this conference and even more excited to illustrate and design the official tshirt for this years conference which was returning after a break during the pandemic. I started by trying to illustrate some kids I would actually see in middle or high school in the Bay Area now. Profiles with a simple color palette.
Instead of the name of the conference they changed it to have that on the back of the tshirt and the phrase “Ethnic Studies Everywhere” on the front.
And this is what it ended up looking like with the line work, and two ways to apply the color for a black or white tshirt. I did the lettering as well:)
Here’s the shirt done! I love rocking my joint to let folks know, Its not a buzz word like “woke” which means to be aware or “DEI” which meand diversity, equity, and inclusion and gets to the fact that Black and Brown people were excluded, erased, and kept out of so many industries for over a hundred years in the US. Nope, this goes back to my work around “ethnic studies” or learning about US and world history through the histories, stories, and lived experiences of Black folks and people of color in the US.
But more importantly, if you know an educator who is already incorporating social justice in their classrooms, or you know folks who want to learn please send them to TEACHERS For Social Justice and get them plugged in for the next conference.
Here’s a bit about what the Teachers for Social Justice do:
Who We Are. Teachers 4 Social Justice is a grassroots non-profit teacher support and development organization in San Francisco. T4SJ is project of the Community Initiative Fund.
Our Mission. Our mission is to provide opportunities for self-transformation, leadership, and community building to educators in order to affect meaningful change in the classroom, school, community and society. See more about our goals, principles, and vision in the next pages.
What We Do. T4SJ organizes teachers and community-based educators and implements programs and projects that develop empowering learning environments, more equitable access to resources and power, and realizing a just and caring culture.
Finally after many years I have finished this batch of four prints. They are prints to celebrate reading and to highlight a diverse group of kids relating to Science fiction, skating or sports, making or welding, and listening to music or audiobooks. Check them out individually below.
If you’d like to purchase this pack of four prints here is the…
Here’s a new print featuring a young hijabi (hijabi wearing woman) listening to an audiobook. I started the READ series in 2020 an have completed 8 now. For this series my aim is always to depict more kids of color with an encouraging word or quote about reading. In this one I thought of a young Arab American woman listening to a book. You can get one of these prints for yourself, classroom, library, or office…
This is a character of my OG Maya who is now an ancestor. I was thinking about them and wanted to draw or paint something. For those unaware, Maya Gonzalez (they/she) was a prominent figure in kid lit here in the Bay Area. She was one of the first artists I spoke to in the mid to late 2000’s when learning about how to be an illustrator/author. And I watched their career as an author, parent, business person, publisher, etc. They were fierce in their art, their advocacy for Queer, Trans, and Nonbinary folks, and their love for the community. They cofounded “Reflection Press” a radical Queer Kid Lit publisher in the Bay with their partner Matthew Smith. And they were one of the co-founders of the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair. They just passed away and I just wanna show them some love. Maya presente!
If you were influenced by them and want to help their partner Matthew and their kids you can contribute to their GoFundme HERE.
Dig this? Check out all the incredible stories and art they have in Maya and Reflection Press’ store.
I am one of several artists who got to create a new piece for this “Rooted in Joy” campaign for the Center for Cultural Power formerly CultureStrike. The name of the campaign was Rooted in Joy, a 2025 climate justice campaign focused on uplifting BIPOC-led narratives around climate displacement, community resilience, and collective care. And I totally forgot to share it.
Some of the artists who did work around this campaign are Orion Camero, Ashluka Lukashevsky, Coz Con, Mayanthi Jayawardena, Loisse Ledres, Kah Yangi, Gabriela Aleman, Jazz Diaz, and many more AND we were partnered with a community based organization who does work around the issues in bold above. Mine was Movement Generations and there were others Like Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Food Access los Angeles, Push Buffalo, California Environmental Justice Alliance, and more.
Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture.
So as happens many times when working on artwork for a campaign, goal, movement, or strategy ; the work develops and shifts. Not for the hell of it, but to communicate the message clearly. Often we only have a few seconds to communicate something to people and then they’re off to the next thing. Some may get a poster, song, film, oetc and llive with it for awhile. But usually its quick! This sketch process started with a bunch of ideas that turned into a sketch about the credo of Movement Generation which is a “just transition” or a transition from extraction, capitalism, destruction, gree, etc to a plan where the planet, people, and justice are considered.
So I depicted moving between something with manufacturing, solitary, less light to something more collective, outdoors, and nourishment. One favors the community, one favors the pockets of multi millionaires and billionaires. But, it changed to feature just the different types of folks sharing with each other.
Last Spring I visited Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Oakland to visit my homie and principal there Heidi! I met Heidi 16 or 15 years ago through her partner; the Rad Dad author himself Tomas Moniz!
Heidi has been a teacher forever and she’s an awesome principal. High energy, positive vibes. Even though she’s new in this district, she knew everybodys damn name. She was announcing the program and sweeping up before it. She was on it.
This presentation was all about Black history month (my busiest time of the year) and a young student got up to introduce me. I’m blanking on his name but he did a great job. The students were exposed to people from the Black community who has achieved great things and or made positive contributions to their community.
I went through Fresh Juice/ Jugo Fresco and I spoke a bit about my work as an artist. Normal day and always fun to do since I dont recall ever meeting a visual artist or author of color in school.
Had a great time there and hope to visit them again, as well as more schools in the San Leandro area.
Dig this? Check out some of some of the other schools I’ve visited!
I’m on stuck a little bit so redoing old work helps me to get unstick and to stay in the process of making, trying, playing, testing. Here’s a redraw of an old character I made for my website, branding, all the things back in 2013. The original was based on a childhood photo and this was fun to redo.
The hand signal says I come in peace, but the spear says “dont start no shit”.
Here’s an old image of what my website used to look like (designed by my wife) w/ this same image.
