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What Is Art?

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 17, 2019) by Wes Modes

What Is Art? was a tiny, 50-person-capacity venue run by a collective of people from the Santa Cruz art and music scene. …

Performance

Demystifying Anarchy

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 17, 2019) by Wes Modes

Demystifying Anarchy featured a panel of self-identified anarchists who spoke about what anarchy means to them and how they see the world. …

Community Organizing

Anarchist Convergence

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 17, 2019) by Wes Modes

Collective Event: Santa Cruz is a hub of anarchist culture and resistance, with a long history of radical struggle and active anarchist projects spanning decades. A four-day anarchist convergence in May 2009 for community building and sharing radical ideas….

Community Education

North American Free Skool Conference

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 17, 2019) by Wes Modes

The first ever North American Free Skool Conference, an amazing opportunity for free skools from all over to get together, exchange ideas, and make ambitious plans….

Community Organizing

Free Carpentry

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 17, 2019) by Wes Modes

A coalition of experienced builders and artists to work on interesting projects that required a combination of building ingenuity and artistic inspiration….

Community Organizing

Million Clown March

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 17, 2019) by Wes Modes

Some 80 normally jolly clowns, supported by the buzz of a dozen kazoos, sought to make their plight public and turn the fortunes of clowndom toward a brighter future….

Performance

Free Coffee Bar

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 16, 2019) by Wes Modes

We set up at the corner of Pacific and Cooper, our would be town square. We had a handsome coffee bar, a bright green market umbrella, stools, and fancy cafe aprons. People were cautious, confused, incredulous, inquisitive, excited, and grateful in pretty much that order….

Social Practice

Insurgent Photographers

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 16, 2019) by Wes Modes

Collective Project: A regular gathering of radical photographers in 2008 and 2009 to come together to share, discuss, and critique photographs…

Community Organizing

Megalophone

Posted on November 19, 2023 (November 24, 2023) by Wes Modes

With lead artist Lauren Benz, I helped create a light-enabled Mbira Installation that responded to the sound of user-created music…

Comics and Illustrations

Posted on November 9, 2019 (October 10, 2020) by Wes Modes

I discovered the comic book writing of Alan Moore when he was penning for Swamp Thing in the late 80s.  I had no idea that comics could be an intelligent,…

Visual Art

Freight Train Riding

Posted on November 9, 2019 (October 3, 2024) by Wes Modes
Bryn rides the now defunct Santa Cruz local.

I’ve hopped freight trains for transportation and adventure since 1992 all over the West Coast and Midwest, attending annual hobo gatherings in various places….

Adventure

Ragdolls and Monsters

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 18, 2019) by Wes Modes

I’ve always had a fascination with homemade ragdolls and creatures.  It started with building monsters by hand out of the scraps from my sewing room. At one point, I invited friends…

Visual Art

Urban Adventuring

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 12, 2019) by Wes Modes
Even an ordinary urban landscape can provide opportunities to exercise your physical creativity. A stair rail becomes a slide. A brick facade becomes a climbing wall. A storm drain becomes a labyrinthian cavern.

A city skyline says different things to different people. To an urban adventurer, it is the siren on the rocks beckoning “Climb me.”…

Adventure

Comic Artists’ Collective

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 16, 2019) by Wes Modes

Collective Project: A regular informal gathering of comic artists, in which artists illustrated their own personal stories, radical history, imagined futures, or experimental expressions….

Community Organizing

Land of Lost Socks

Posted on December 8, 2019 (November 20, 2023) by Wes Modes

Where do all those lost socks go? Sock-eating driers? Alien abduction? Runaway socks hitting the road and living on the streets?…

New Media

Blackmail

Posted on December 8, 2019 (November 20, 2023) by Wes Modes

You lookin for something? A special something? Maybe you lookin to send somebody a message? Just tell me, what you need done. But, if anyone asks, I don’t know you….

New Media

Message in a Bottle

Posted on December 8, 2019 (November 20, 2023) by Wes Modes

Toss a message in a bottle into the surf of the Internet sea. Eventually, it may wash up in the form of E-mail on someone’s personal beach….

New Media

Dumpster Diver

Posted on December 8, 2019 (November 20, 2023) by Wes Modes

You’re going diving! Dumpster diving! It’s like give-away day at the Thrift Center. It’s like Sunday evening curb-side after the yard sales give it up. It’s like, well… it’s just like rummaging around in the trash behind the junk store. …

New Media

Spy Soiree

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 19, 2023) by Wes Modes

Come in formal wear, with a cover name. Enjoy yourself. Complete your mission. Try not to get killed….

Performance

Gamelan Anak Swarasanti

Posted on November 9, 2019 (November 19, 2023) by Wes Modes

Gamelan Anak Swarasanti, an award-winning Balinese gamelan orchestra performing professionally throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond in a wide variety of settings….

Performance

Brazen Squaredance

Posted on November 9, 2019 (December 4, 2019) by Wes Modes

A sporadic Santa Cruz event, in which scores of squaredancers take over public space, moving to increasingly brazen locations…

Community Organizing

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