OUR REVERE: A Homage to Vending
(sorry photographer, I dont have your name.) 2018?
[originally written 12/26/25]
tales of summer warm me during winters:
Going through my studio.
Old papers and such.
Decade old experiments. Drawings complete yet mostly incomplete. Thoughts that transitioned into other forms now more aligned with those visions I kept chasing.
One box with cover papers and stencils lodged into smaller boxes carried in backpacks. Coming across zines unbound and the prints that I would often trade or gift. Flashbacks of biking to Fedex for my own sort of printmaking.
I still wear what I remember as my first trade on my left hand. A silver cowrie ring from when I was 15 (circa 07?). I applied to and received a grant through the youth program I was in. My goal was to sell shirts, buy an airbrush machine and more shirts, then keep flipping and expanding to make more art. To reach this, I decided to design and silkscreen t-shirts. Partly from believing in the strength of them and partly because I could never find any in my size or preferred style – gendered shenanigans.
The first 3 designs were printed at Native Graphix in the city. Every time the box of overstock revealed itself in my late 20’s I both smiled at the memories and cringed at the designs. The second batch followed a couple of years later I have more fondness towards.
Well, I lost interest in the shirts and hats business. But the greatest thing I gained from the experience was vending.
I believe the first spot I tabled at was Galeria de la Raza for an event (it’s on a flyer in one of these boxes). Music, spoken word, other artists etc.
What moved me was that there was space for artists. I was shown people who committed themselves to a calling. Art of various styles and mediums. Converging in a space that shared ideas, visions, creations, etc for Black and Indigenous peoples in the Bay and beyond. This is during the drawback before this current tsunami of gentrification fully reached ashore. Before masquerading social media and the investment in Black art became social currency and (seemingly) economically viable.
To lay sight on something outside of the familiar or what you initially believe to be impossible.
I saw a piece of infinite possibilities. Of audacity. And while it’s been repeated at every event's remarks speech, the space makers – the people who open up the spaces for the congregation to happen, are a gifted class of visionaries. Without them, folks would have...altered destinies.
This movement continued its sojourn throughout multiple spaces and times for the next 10 plus years for me. Here and there. Never totally consistent. But, there were others - older and commonly aged peers who again offered a piece of themselves in exchange for something.
I would say that something was at times carried through the material of a dollar (most of this was before our accustom to digital transactions) but most always carried through seeing. Seeing with heart, with conversation. Connections they were. I see you. I feel you. I got you.
So even when the function in downtown Oakland or the fountain at union square station was slow, the exchanges between peer travelers always usually had me leaving with some sort of uplift.
I miss those times, and, I know that they are never out of reach for me to engage with. And, I’ve said so many times I would re-print Cosmograms (2013) but it may just be something that was just for that era.
These offerings - cards or prints or small things to strangers in the world or at openings, it’s been in that spirit. Understanding value and exchange. Giving gratitude because everything requires some sacrifice and there have been plenty made for our being here. Much respect to Ras Terms for sharing the lessons and power in what offering our art can do.
I have a story to write about that too.
So, what is the return on investments from the pure of heart…?