Trust Your Struggle: July 2008

Monday, July 28, 2008

ATL Updater

Peace my people. So we got a lot of things to share with everybody so far with all that has happen on our tour.

Where do we start?? Okay, so in nutshell: we donated a camera to the universe, we lost one member, our van's transmission kicked the bucket, tried to get it fixed but was out of luck with the wrong transmission, we're stinky, hungry, late on getting to New Orleans, and waiting to see this storm pass.

But lets not dwell on the negative cause there is a good amount of good things going on around us. We were blessed by a family that gave us some good, home cooked meals and a shower. No doubt there are some real people in the world that are down to give just to give. Our thanks are eternal to them.

We're done with the mural after a long week and the people here in the community are hyped. We were honored to have donated our skills and time. Thank yous go out to Baba Sola, Baba Sekou, Mr. Williams, and Dr. Narvie and Richard Puls.

As for Young Mona.....

mannnnnn for anyone that has had car troubles, you know all the BS you gotta go through. So our lovable van, Young Mona was riding all good until the other day when her transmission gave out. So what we going do? Well, pray for one thing, and just wait for the transmission shop to fix Mona up. Until then we still have a place to stay and a hose to wash up with :). New Orleans is definitely on the radar, a little later than planned, but we will get there and paint.

But for reals, this area of Atlanta is a trip. From what the people here have told us, this area (West End part of SW Atlanta)was hit by crack a while back and the people here moved out or lost many of their houses. So it is a kind of ghost town here, with hella abandoned houses but at the same time you will still find homeless people here.

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To me this makes no sense in this country. It is always a learning experience when we travel, but especially in your "own backyard". There are always people speaking about "there are kids starving in China/Africa/etc" when all we got to do is look a little harder within our own lands. But I am sure we will have more time to write about this as we cross the states.

As for now we're sitting tight, hoping to see Young Mona running again and itching to paint something else here in ATL.

Paz y Lucha

..TYS Collective

Thursday, July 24, 2008

ATLANTA Part 1

Peace yawl, it’s been a whole lot of planning, meetings, phone conferences, fundraising, stress, and high hopes that got us here. Were tired, hungry, stinky, sweet smelling, and ravenous for exchange of ideas and plans. We hope you feel us or support our choice to carry out a nationwide tour of artistic magnificence consisting of large-scale murals, impromptu workshops, and gallery earthquakes.

We hope to do something great, not for recognition or fame but because ART + Culture is in necessary. There have always been people in our families who struggled against isms and the ever-changing steel toe boots against the necks of progressive and revolutionary change. There have always been artists and activists working together to forward our collective thinking so we could move the notch on the turntable of life a lil’ bit further towards freedom.

Obviously, were not the first to gather a group of artists of hella different racial, class, cultural, and political backgrounds together to put down some dope art. We were passed down art, skills, technique, love, anger, awareness, and the ganas (desire) to make some type of sense out if it. And with this tour across the United States of Apathy we are doing our best to inspire future generations so we wont be the last.

Why? Shit, I don’t know? I mean we want to party, cook delicious food, talk, hang out, and raise our children just like anybody else would, but we recognize that a whole lot is wrong. Hella fat cap sprays, brush strokes, and debates need to happened before we can say we truly tried to do something about what’s wrong instead of just talking and meeting, and talking and meeting about it. We not through with that, were just tired of philosophizing about the struggle and romanticizing about change. We want to pay our dues and DO SOMETHING. Its small yes, but aligned with all the other people doing small things with school bus yellow, training for trainers readers, mega phones, and asr 10 beats we can make a big ass impact on our people.

Lets face it; the state of education where we all grew up is a joke. We don’t learn about the roots or the foundations of what we are all facing now. We are fed just enough brainwashing to make us semi-functional workers in society. We begin learning when we want to pick “Open veins of Latin America”, the “Autobiography of Philip Vera Cruz”, Sanyika Shakur’s “Monster”, “Drown”, the speeches of “El Hajj Malik Shabazz”, or “Lies my teacher told me”. There’ a lot of good teachers, parents, organizers, grocery store cashiers, domestica’s, and bloggers out there, They’re like shining stars in a cloudy universe of pollution. They are brave souls attempting to plug a million and one holes in a damn that’s about to spill over with ten fingers and toes. We love all of y’all; you give us inspiration to accurately and fantastically describe the world we’ve seen, the world we see now and the world that we know is possible.

Keep up with the blog as we slow ride across the intersections and dirt roads of NYC, MA, ATL, NOLA, TX, AZ, the BAY, and LA with only a few dollars in our pocket. Look out for our blog, check the links to our previous paid dues, and donate any amount of scrilla (money) you can because um, were not getting sponsored by any businesses. We need that. But more, tell us what you think, honestly. We’d like to know. You’re feedback and comments give us ammunition and motivation to reach beyond the communities in which these walls are located. Come on, we like a good conversation just as much as anyone and were prepared to lay down our lives and put up our tags for this thang called “trust your struggle”.

Someone once said “you can either live on you’re feet or die on your knees”. There’s away to do that even if you got child care payments to make or if you want to save up for some new rims.

-TYS Collective

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Here we go....

To our lovely family....

It has been a long road to this moment, and we gotta thank all of you that have gave us super support to make our mural tour happen. But for reals, we're really just starting with the journey.

This Saturday, the 19th will mark the beginning of our national road tour across the states, painting murals where ever we can. There is no doubt in our minds that we will make it, but we need your help along the way.

So be sure, if you have an extra $20 or $100 or $1000 you could spare hit us up on any of the following links and you could donate online thru PayPal that will directly go to our group fund.

Donate at:

trustyourstruggle.com

myspace.com/trustyourstruggle

myspace.com/trustyourhustle

The Trust Your Hustle Mural Tour will visit the following places on these dates:

July 19th - 25th Atlanta, GA

July 26th - Aug. 2nd New Orleans, LA

Aug 3rd - 8th Austin, TX

Aug 9th - 16th Flagstaff/Phoenix, AZ

Aug 17th - 20th Los Angeles, CA

Aug 21st - 28th San Francisco, CA

Aug 29th - Sept 13th Los Angeles, CA