Send us Fan Mail Cold open: Clinton & Art teaser, intro, Chip and Rikki's Skateboard House and Chip's early years in the Beauclerc and Mandarin neighborhoods of Jacksonville. 4:45 - Keith Haring's Ghost (KHG) and the 2015 "art on unoccupied structures" bill to legalize and encourage streetscape public art. In 2014, public art was essentially illegal. Chip worked with the Cultural Council to draft a bill legalizing public art. Chip talks about the KHG street art campaign from here to Miami during the Nomo show during Art Basel. This body of work got him arrested and when he got out of jail, he was invited to deliver a TEDx talk, which prompted a public conversation about the value of street art. Chip helped the city and the Cultural Council draft the new bill and lobbied to get it through city government with the support of then Cultural Council chair Tony Allegretti and Director of Art in Public Places, Christie Holechek. 17:00 - Chip the Edge Lord. His over-the-top arrest by the local police state was absurd and traumatic, but in the end the law was changed, which provided new opportunities for artists and the city, but had the opposite impact on Chip's professional career for chip because of the arrest. 26:18 - Chips illegal art made art like it legal. After the whole hullabaloo, the new bill was adopted unanimously. Chip's bill changed 18 laws and expanded the public art economy. 29:50 - WTF is "dazzle camo"? When Chip worked on Clinton’s security detail in DC, he discovered "dazzle campo patterns" used by Western Navies. During WWi and II, modern artists were involved in creating visual patterns on vessels that confused the enemy's ability to track, predict and target ships. During this period of his career after the arrest and with changing political landscapes, he experienced pushback against his political art, which addressed Black lives and LGBTQ+ communities. This work got him kicked out of shows in 2024, especially during Desantis-driven cuts and culture war headwinds. He went deep into research and delved into work by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Hans Klein to decide how to create work from the dazzle camouflage concept. 40:00 - The Hank Willis Thomas chapter. Going to Savannah to see artist Marcus Kenney when Aaron Garvey from SCAD introduces Chip to Hank Willis Thomas. Subsequently, Thomas invites Chip to be part of the Into Action! pop-up civic art festival in Los Angeles and the For Freedoms artist collective, non-profit political and civic arts organization founded by Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman that produces large-scale, culturally driven art events and civic engagement activations that encourage public dialogue about major socio-political issues with a high-profile social justice arts festival and exhibition in Los Angeles featuring prominent activist-artists, including Chip, Shepard Fairey Michelle Wu, Awol Erizku, Barbara Kruger, Carrie Mae Weems and many others. 45:25 - Instruments of war. Pablo Picasso said that painting is not made to decorate apartments, "It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy.” Chip’s fight cost him, benefited the city, and created an economy for public art, but were local artists benefiting from it? 52:00 - No bridge over troubled waters. Chip’s old pal Bill Clinton invited Art Garfunkel to perform at Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island and Bill sent Chip to pick Art up from the airport and get him high up on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton to hang out with the snipers. That's all they were doing up there. Season 2 of Floridation discusses art and culture in Northeast Florida with a different artist or culture maker each episode. Young Buck Coffee locally roasts coffee fresh every week and delivers it to your door. Order today at youngbuckcoffee.com For more check out The Floridation Papers at Floridation.substack.com. Thanks for putting a little a Florida in you. Y'all come back now, hear?
