July 07, 2015
Handout Art/Next Stop: Democracy!
Darla Jackson, from Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, makes one of the wooden signs for the voter-turnout engagement project.
The "Next Stop: Democracy!" voter engagement project, awarded funding by the Knight Foundation in March, launched a Kickstarter campaign today to fund costs of its wooden signs.
The concept of the community-driven engagement project is to place 60 signs created by 60 local artists near voting precincts this fall to both spruce up the voting experience and make it more accessible. A challenge that comes along with that effort, however, is using signs that can withstand weather conditions and general wear-and-tear -- which, by extension, means an extra expense. They're seeking a total of $15,000.
The team behind the project has hired Darla Jackson from Philadelphia Sculpture Gym in Fishtown to build blank-canvas, wooden signs. The result is a sturdier product that they'd like to move forward with.
From Kickstarter
"... we don't want to use cheap, plastic signs that we order off the Internet. This is why we need YOU. To do this right, we want to honor our artists and offer them locally made, reliable, and durable canvases. That's where Darla comes in! Darla runs the Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, and she’s ready to build us sign frames that will be functional and beautiful. But these high-quality wooden signs are more expensive than the mass-produced plastic ones."
Local artists on board with the project so far include mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar, muralist Gaia, street artist Ishknits and Nosego. To fund the project and find more information, head over to its Kickstarter page here.
