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  How to Have a Wartime Pin-up Party
 

Having a Wartime Pin-ups party is an easy and fun way to combat the isolation engendered by the present political climate and to make a political statement that reaches a lot of people. The idea originated as a contradiction to the traditional wartime pin-ups which are displayed in barracks. Our "Pin-ups" are photo-copied 8 1/2" X II" collages of pictures and print from the popular press that have been subverted to express our thoughts. Below we list an outline of what we did.

A. Preparation
(1) Invite 4-10 friends for a 3-4 hour party and ask them to bring over magazines, newspapers, scissors, white glue, glue sticks and perhaps some snacks.
(2) Have approximately 100 sheets of 8 1/2" X II" white paper on hand.
(3) A paper drop cloth made the final clean up of the paper clippings much easier.

B. Party
(1) To help get started, look through the publications cutting out ANY phrase or picture that catches your eye. You do not need to be developing an idea of the finished Pin-up yet.
(2) Pool everyone's clippings and see which ones work well with each other. Once you get an idea, you can work individually or communally to produce the final Pin-up. Since the collages will be photo-copied, be aware that high contrast pictures work best and that light blue copies as white and red copies as black.
(3) Layout the clippings on an 8 1/2" X 11" sheet of paper and glue them down lightly.
(4) Within an hour or two, you should have many striking comments on our transgression in the gulf and other related issues.

C. Papering
(1) Photo-copy several sets of the finished Pin-ups from the originals for each of the participants. If you wish, you can put a Wartime Pin-ups logo on each which consists of a peace sign followed by "War Time Pin-ups." Affixing an identifying logo helps us notice our proliferation of exposure.
(2) Each participant can then affix them in prominent public places, such as, airports, train and bus stations, shopping malls, corporations, defense contractors, government buildings, museums, etc. We found that it was easy and fun to put them up inside bathroom stalls for people to ponder in private. This kind of installation was in keeping with the traditional war time pin-ups that were enjoyed in private lockers. Send them to friends to copy and be put up across the nation and the world. Trade them like baseball cards. Please use tape and no wheat paste or glue; we want to educate not to anger workers who would have to clean.

Have a great time and if you get the chance, send a few of your Wartime Pin-ups to us.
Email me to let me know how it went. I would love to see copies of your posters.

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