Volunteer artists needed for War Resisters League 2011 Peace Calendar

Hello artists and activists.

The War Resisters League is working on our 2011 Peace Calendar. The calendar will focus on national organizing and activism in the area of "counter-recruitment." For those who don't know the term, it means people who are organizing in their communities and on their campuses to get military recruiters out of schools and certain public spaces. With multiple wars raging on for nearly a decade, military recruitment has gotten more aggressive and uses things like video games and flight simulation to try to entice young people. While there's no formal draft, there is a "poverty draft." In this terrible recession, young people, working class people and people of color are being heavily targeted by military recruiters. With high unemployment rates, recruiters are preying on people's anxieties about their finances and their futures. They make a lot of false or only partially true claims about career training and tuition for school. In their quota driven work, they only glamorize the military. Counter-recruitment activists of all ages and colors, work to tell the truth about the devastation of war. They often provide information about other career alternatives and literature to refute many of the lies and distortions told by military recruiters. There is a varied and exciting range of work being done, but the main goal of this work is to reduce the flow of recruits into the military, and provide the best information to young people so that they are less susceptible to the slick and dishonest tactics of recruiters.

Our 2011 Peace Calendar (a spiral-bound datebook) will highlight the exciting work being done challenging military recruitment. We are calling for submissions of donated artwork to accompany these inspiring stories. Would you be interested in submitting one or more pieces for this book? There will be full color art work on the front and back cover, and a number of color pieces inside (we're working with the printer to figure out how many.) There will also be a number of black and white images.  We're interested in a wide range of images--collage, drawings, paintings etc. These images can incorporate relevant language as well.

We can send you some materials to help stimulate ideas. But here are some basic concepts that might help begin the process:

a young person walking away from recruiters
a young person shedding a uniform
someone sharing literature, with a recruiter off to the side
an 'alternative jobs' table or fair
a recruitment van parked in front of a school or somewhere else, with an activist engaging a group of youth
people meeting around a table with anti-war posters on wall
a 'counter recruitment' table people holding signs that demand recruiters get out of schools, and/or that peace groups get equal access to students
some way of showing a young person walking away from a deathscape and into life
a depiction of recruiters pressuring, coercing
a young person, mentally weighing a picture of war versus a vital, healthy life

Images will need to be 300 dpi. In many cases the image can be about  5 1/2 " wide x 4 1/4"  high, but some times more, some times less. (The front and back cover are 5 1/2 wide x 8 1/2 high).

Thanks so much for your consideration. And if you know any other artists that might be interested in donating art work please share this with them. While we can't afford to pay for art work you can happily have four free calendars and we will gladly print your website and/or email address alongside your piece(s). Please let me know, as soon as you can, if you're interested.

Liz Roberts
(212) 228-0450 x17
liz@warresisters.org