Morty Comix # 2495

Morty Comix # 2495 was fed to a couch in the lobby of the Library building at The Evergreen State College.

This room used to have a grand staircase that cascaded down from the west wall when I was student at TESC. You can see where the stairs landed on the floor by the discolored bricks.

This room was where I watched the dedication ceremony for Evergreen over 40 years ago.

It was the room where we as an Evergreen community in 1979 collectively bid farewell to our beloved friend and teacher, Willi Unsoeld.

This is the place I heard Gov. Booth Gardner reveal how much he admired rich pioneers and ignored the common folk. I know Booth is in a bad way these days, and I like him a lot as a person, but he was no Democrat. He always governed against the working man. In the Lockheed lockout he sided with Big Money instead of the workers. Gov. Gardner's record with labor was horrible.

Jane Fonda gave an "art presentation" here in 1975.

I recall coming out here and watching this building being constructed. 

And there are many more memories associated at this place.

Being out here today reminds me, before I made Morty Comix my art bombs in Century 21, I actually started this practice at TESC in the 1970s. I drew a whole bunch of comix on sticky address labels and stuck them around campus, plus I drew odd posters and taped or tacked them around this place, and I also left several comix hidden in my apartment near school as I vacated the premises. So this genre of art distribution has a history here.

Buttons - Events - 1989

42, CENTENNIAL INAUGURAL CELEBRATION

Distributed at the festivities celebrating the 2nd inauguration of Gov. Booth Gardner, January 1989. This was also a year where Washington celebrated the centennial of becoming the 42nd of the United States of America- November 11, 1889.

Buttons - Union - 1989

 

 PAY State Employees FAIRLY, WPEA

Curl has: Grays Harbor Stamp Works, 800.894.3830

I suspect this dates back to the 1989 Washington State surplus budget issue and Governor Gardner not honoring his political promises to the Washington Public Employees Association.

Buttons - Union - 1989

Booth Buster, 3%

Washington State Governor Booth Gardner, a Democrat, angered his political base when he failed to make good on his promise to raise state worker salaries even though the public coffers has an unexpected windfall. This button suddenly surfaced and was handed to me by member of a labor union.

This button was playing off the popularity of both of the Ghostbusters movies. The original was released in 1984 (the year Gardner was elected), and Ghostbusters II was currently out when this anti-Gardner image was made.