Latest / philly has heART / The Hope Symbol feat. Rhonda Babb

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The Hope Symbol feat. Rhonda Babb · philly has heART

0:15
This is Robert Marsh, and you're listening to
0:16
Philly Has Heart Podcast. In this podcast, we
0:19
sit down with the artists, gallerists, educators,
0:22
curators, and other creatives who comprise the
0:25
Philadelphia art world to discuss upcoming performances,
0:28
exhibits, and other events and initiatives that
0:31
are not to be missed. The art scene in Philadelphia
0:34
is so rich that it can seem daunting. Consider
0:37
this your weekend cultural recommendation. With
0:41
me always is my producer, Lucinda Degerland.
0:43
Hello. And today we have Rhonda Batt of the Hope
0:46
Symbol. We're so happy to have you. It's wonderful
0:50
to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
0:52
Screen printer, graphic artist, photographer.
0:55
Between birth and matriculating at Moore College
0:58
of Art and Design, what were the moments that
1:01
directed you to art? I think I was probably born
1:07
with a crayon in my hand. I'm not sure. I was
1:09
in love with art making from my earliest memories.
1:14
just as a little kid, drawing all the time. Grandparents
1:18
would have the coloring books and activity books
1:20
waiting for me when I went to visit. And I would
1:24
just go off and the adults would do the visiting
1:27
and I would just be coloring and drawing and
1:29
doing everything away from them and using my
1:32
imagination and just filling up sketchbooks and
1:36
things like that as I was a kid. I knew from
1:39
the beginning that I wanted to be an artist.
1:42
I didn't know what that meant. But I just knew
1:44
that that was something that was me. And even
1:48
when I was in school in seventh grade, we had
1:51
a yearbook. And they said, well, what do you
1:54
want to do when you grow up kind of questions?
1:57
And I said, I want to be a fashion designer.
1:59
I had no idea what that meant or what that job
2:02
was. But I just knew that as a grown up, you
2:06
could be paid to do art stuff. So I was like,
2:10
OK, I'll do that. I'm not a very fashion -forward
2:13
person. I don't know why I said that. And it's
2:16
still in that yearbook. Yes. I mean, I think
2:20
you look chic right now. Thank you. So, yeah,
2:24
so art has just been part of my life and my sort
2:29
of safe place. You know, it's just a comfort.
2:33
for me to be able to do creative things. And
2:35
if I'm not doing that, I'm not a good person
2:37
to be around. Well, at least you know. Yeah,
2:41
I do. And people around me know, too. That's
2:45
great. Were you drawn to those classes in high
2:50
school? Or how did we get to the Moore College
2:53
Bar? And sidebar, was there a certain medium
2:57
that attracted you during those years? Good question.
3:00
I was usually doing drawing, 2D pencil. I was
3:03
doing paint -by -number stuff like that when
3:05
I was really little, but really it was more drawing
3:08
materials and just colored pencils and things
3:11
like that, nothing specific. But when I was in
3:14
high school, I actually went to an all -girls
3:17
private school in northeast Philly, and you could
3:21
declare yourself an art major. Whoa. If you were
3:24
serious about going into the arts after. I didn't
3:28
do it when I could have. Like, you could have
3:30
done that junior and senior year. I didn't do
3:33
it, and then I regretted it. And I coerced them
3:35
into letting me get into the program in senior
3:38
year, which was great because I was able to take
3:41
art classes because at that point I knew that
3:43
I was going somewhere art -related. So they let
3:46
me do that, and the classes were, you know. Very
3:50
small. It was a small school, so there were maybe
3:53
seven or eight of us. It was a Catholic school,
3:56
so there were nuns that were a little tough on
3:58
us. But I think that maybe set me up for a college
4:02
career, you know, and then a career in the arts.
4:04
You learned your discipline early. Yeah, exactly.
4:07
And we did a lot of drawing and 3D stuff, kind
4:09
of got our hands on different things. And that's
4:11
actually how I learned about Moore, is that a
4:14
recruiter came. to our art class. Because usually
4:17
the recruiters would set up down in the cafeteria
4:19
where everybody was, but they knew their audience.
4:21
Yes. So one class day they were there and they
4:25
set up and I was blown away. It was like magical.
4:30
I'm like, wait, there's a place I can go to college
4:33
and I can just do art all the time. Like this
4:36
was sort of revolutionary in my brain. And this
4:39
place more, it wasn't necessarily that it was
4:42
a woman's college that attracted me. But I guess
4:44
I was comfortable from being in a girls' high
4:47
school to moving into that environment. It was
4:50
small, and it was right here in Philadelphia,
4:52
and it was just all devoted to art. I just locked
4:55
in. Like, there was no other place for me that
4:58
I wanted to go to. This is it. Early decision.
5:00
This is it. My brain was like, yes, these are
5:03
your people. This is your place. This is where
5:05
you have to be. Much to my parents' chagrin,
5:09
I didn't apply to any other college. And my father
5:13
was not happy about that. And we had some rows
5:19
about he wanted me to at least apply to Temple
5:21
or Penn State just as a general liberal arts
5:25
school. And maybe if I could get into the art
5:28
program in those schools, that'd be great. But
5:31
I'm like, nope, this is it. I want to do more
5:33
and nothing else. And that was it. Has Moore
5:36
always been located at its current? They've been
5:42
on the parkway as long as I can remember, although
5:44
I think they started off somewhere else in the
5:47
city, in an old brick something that's probably
5:50
not there anymore. But as far as I know, through
5:54
the time that I'm familiar with in the 70s and
5:57
80s and stuff, they were on the parkway. And
6:00
then did you grow up in northeast Philadelphia
6:03
as well? Yes. Where did more kind of steer your
6:07
art? Did it kind of give you a larger breadth
6:11
of what art could be, or did you follow a specific
6:15
path there? It did. They start every freshman
6:18
off in sort of these foundation classes. They
6:21
don't let you declare your major, at least not
6:23
when I was there, until after freshman year.
6:25
And then you kind of take a track of either professional
6:28
arts or fine arts. So the first year is all,
6:32
you're taking sculpture classes and drawing classes,
6:35
and it's all foundational stuff. Then you kind
6:39
of get a sense for what you want to do and you
6:41
decide at the end of your freshman year where
6:43
you're going to go. My parents, still in this
6:47
story, are terrified that their daughter is not
6:49
going to earn a living because she's decided
6:52
to go into art. So I decided to go professional
6:55
arts. And that's where there were majors like
7:00
interior design and graphic design and a major
7:03
fashion illustration. Okay. was a thing. This
7:07
was like just at the dawn of the age of the computer
7:10
for graphic design. So there were still people
7:13
hand drawing things for advertising. And I looked
7:18
at the sort of offerings for fashion illustration
7:21
and I'm like, wait a minute, they're teaching
7:23
you typography, graphic design, you can take
7:26
computer classes, you're still taking drawing
7:29
classes. And I'm like, wait, these are all things
7:32
that I probably should. be still doing. Like
7:35
if you went into say graphic design, you went
7:38
in that track and you stopped doing the drawing
7:41
and the other sort of fine art related things,
7:44
unless you kind of took them as electives. But
7:47
in fashion illustration, you were kind of doing
7:49
all of it. And I don't know, again, this 18 year
7:52
old was like, wait, maybe I should go that way
7:56
because it gives me a broader skill set. Yeah.
7:59
Did you happen to tell your parents? That the
8:06
curriculum includes computers. Okay, I'm just
8:10
like placing this. Is this like 1990? This is
8:13
late 80s. I graduated in 92. Okay, so not too
8:17
far off. Right. I don't think a lot of students
8:22
at the... typical liberal arts or state schools
8:27
were typing up their papers on a word processor
8:31
back then. I'm just saying. No, you're right.
8:34
And it's because of my father, who worked in
8:38
the computer industry. He worked for the railroad,
8:41
actually. He worked for Conrail, which is not
8:43
a thing anymore. But he, in the 60s, went into
8:46
their computer like... program a training program
8:50
and he went into that and so my my family were
8:54
early computer adopters right we knew what computers
8:59
were a lot earlier than a lot of other people
9:02
did so when other people are not doing their
9:04
papers on word processor I was yeah so I kind
9:08
of already had I had sort of that background
9:11
And even when I was little, my dad would take
9:14
us to the data room, and that's when they were
9:16
still doing punch cards and stuff like that.
9:17
So he would give me the punch cards to play with
9:20
and draw on. Once they were done, they were scrapped.
9:24
So I was using them to make art. Oh, my gosh.
9:27
I hadn't really thought about that for a long
9:31
time. But, yeah, that's a great question because
9:33
I've been around computers, so I kind of could
9:36
see that that's where it was going. I made sure
9:41
that I was taking computer graphics classes in
9:43
college before a lot of other people were. And
9:46
that's actually how I got my first job. So out
9:49
of school. We're going to get to that in a second.
9:51
Oh my gosh. Okay. You studied at the now Thomas
9:56
Jefferson University and PAFA. Was it program
10:00
specific that drew you to those institutions?
10:03
Yes. Thomas Jefferson was Philadelphia University.
10:07
And Philadelphia University in the 2000s was
10:11
offering a sustainable design as a master's degree.
10:15
And that is around the same time that I had my
10:19
sort of environmental epiphany about climate
10:22
change and what's going on with the world as
10:26
far as the environment is concerned. And at that
10:29
time, I was like, all right, I'm a designer.
10:32
I feel like I could be doing something. And I
10:35
started looking around for just education programs.
10:39
And I found this master's program at Philly University
10:43
that was just starting up. And this was like
10:46
the late 2000s. And I was like, hmm, I'm kind
10:51
of interested in that. And Rob Fleming started
10:54
that program at Philadelphia University. I think
10:56
he was at Penn. I'm not sure where he is now.
11:01
He was really recruiting people that were not
11:03
just architects or interior designers, which
11:06
it's through the architecture school. He was
11:09
looking for people like me that were kind of
11:11
interested and wanting to bring the... environmental
11:15
messaging out to a larger audience. So he was
11:19
looking for people that would be able to kind
11:20
of go into their workplaces and go, yeah, we
11:23
should be doing things about environmental stuff
11:25
or doing better as a company or whatever. So
11:28
I met him and he said, come on board. And that's
11:32
how I wound up at what was then Philly University
11:35
in L. Jefferson and did a two -year program and
11:39
got my master's. And then PAFA, totally different.
11:43
Been doing professional arts for a long time
11:46
and I was very interested in printmaking and
11:48
screen screen printing specifically and they
11:51
were offering continuing ed classes there and
11:54
I was like oh I wanted to do that and I was going
11:57
to do it at like 2018 I had signed up for the
12:00
class and at the same time the company I was
12:03
working for got sold so I couldn't take the classes
12:07
because I couldn't with the new bosses it wasn't
12:09
as easy to get the time off to be able to do
12:11
that because it was like a weekday So I had to
12:15
drop it. And then the pandemic comes, and we're
12:20
all dealing with pandemic. We're locked down.
12:23
We can't do stuff. Well, PAFA decides to run
12:26
this class as a virtual class. And I'm like,
12:31
well, I have time now. Right? Right? Yeah. Everybody
12:33
does. Exactly. And we're all working from home,
12:36
and I could take the time to do it. So I took
12:39
that class online. and learned all the ways that
12:42
you could make a screen for screen printing without
12:44
using a darkroom. So all the sort of very manual
12:48
ways of making the stencil. The professor was
12:51
Lisa Hamilton, who's unfortunately left us, but
12:54
she was just a great teacher and sort of excited
12:59
me about printmaking and screen printing, so
13:02
much so that I decided I wanted to take the classes
13:06
again when the studio opens. Wow. Oh, it's a
13:09
good class then. It was great. And it still is.
13:12
They're still running these classes. Now it's
13:14
Tony Rosati that's teaching it. And then I was
13:17
able to go and learn the darkroom process about
13:20
how to use emulsion and make screens that way.
13:23
And I took it over and over again because it
13:26
not only is a great class and gives you access
13:28
to these fantastic teachers, it gives you the
13:31
access to the studio. So Tapafa's printmaking
13:34
studio for printmakers out there is just like
13:36
this temple. Printmaking is fantastic. So to
13:41
have access to that studio was really great.
13:44
So I took it probably three or four times beyond
13:46
the online course. Did you get a discount on
13:50
tuition? No. But the continuing ed classes were
13:57
reasonable enough. It was manageable to do because
14:00
it's just the one class. And then it gave me
14:04
access to that studio space. Right. You'd be
14:07
renting out studio space anyway. Exactly. Okay.
14:10
Exactly. Sidebar, you're a member of BYO Print,
14:14
living that print life on the third or fourth
14:18
floor? It's actually the fifth floor. Fifth floor?
14:20
I just remembered that you get there by a set
14:23
of stairs. Many, many, yes. Yes, those steps.
14:27
It's a workout. Of Paradigm Gallery Building.
14:31
Friends of the Pod, Kate and Lisa, joined us
14:34
last September for the podcast episode. So now
14:37
you have, I'm assuming, space. for your printing
14:41
as being a member of BYO Print. Yes. And we know
14:47
how many are in there, but how many members are
14:49
there of BYO Print? I think it's 23 now. And
14:55
I don't think it's exclusive to Moore College,
14:58
but most of the members are Moore graduates?
15:02
There are a lot of us who are Moore alum. are
15:06
part of it. In fact, we just did a thing at Moore's
15:09
reunion where we had a panel and it was more
15:11
BYO members that were talking. So there are a
15:16
lot of us. And I think that it's like, it's not
15:18
necessarily, I didn't know that when I started
15:20
at BYO, but it was like, Oh, that's cool. It's
15:23
kind of, it's open to anybody can be a member
15:25
of that. You just have to, you know, love printmaking
15:28
and know your way around the studio. BYO is not
15:31
a place where you're going to learn how to be
15:33
a printmaker. It's a place for members to continue
15:36
their studio practice. You were previously a
15:39
commercial artist. What made you pivot to something
15:43
more true to yourself? I started off after college.
15:47
I lucked my way into the trade show and convention
15:50
industry. So the people that make the exhibits
15:53
when you go to a convention or a trade show.
15:56
I worked for that, one of those companies that
15:58
did that. And that was really, there were yellow
16:02
pages, which probably listeners don't really
16:05
know what those things are anymore, but pre -Google,
16:07
there was this book that you would look phone
16:10
numbers up, and I was looking for a job. So I
16:13
found a company in there that was looking for
16:17
help. I was looking for companies in the industry
16:20
that would... do signage and stuff like that
16:23
because I had done some of that while I was in
16:24
college like working part -time job and when
16:27
I called them out of the blue I said you know
16:31
I have some computer skills and they said oh
16:33
as a matter of fact we're looking for somebody
16:35
to do computer production to set up signage in
16:39
the computer do you have the ability can you
16:42
use the adobe stuff I'm like absolutely I can
16:44
so that when I was just out of college got me
16:48
into that industry and then I spent almost 27
16:52
years in the convention and trade show industry,
16:55
working at different jobs. So I was doing either
16:58
graphic layouts for signs or designing exhibits,
17:02
3D. Eventually, I got into the sort of marketing
17:06
part of the companies that I was working for.
17:09
So I was actually branding the company to other
17:13
businesses. And then... The companies we were
17:17
working for, the company was based out of Virginia,
17:19
D .C. area. So there were a lot of petrochemical
17:23
companies and defense contractors. Not that there's
17:27
anything wrong with that. At the same time, I
17:32
start going through this environmental epiphany
17:34
where I'm recognizing climate change is an issue.
17:37
What can I be doing? And I'm like, these things
17:39
are not connecting. They're not melding. The
17:42
clients that we have. are not necessarily clients
17:46
that I feel personally align with my set of values
17:51
that are evolving at this point. So I decided
17:56
to look for something else. And I decided maybe
18:01
nonprofit was the place to go. Still taking the
18:05
skill set as a marketer and a branding person
18:07
into that world. And I think I mentioned before
18:10
that there had been a transition with my company.
18:13
So I was also having to drive to Princeton, North
18:15
of Philadelphia, every day. And they were not
18:19
letting me work from home. I had to go. And I'm
18:23
like, this is just crazy. Working in this industry,
18:25
I'm not really feeling it anymore. So I was lucky
18:28
to find an opportunity at a nonprofit, a little
18:31
nature center in Gladwin called Riverbend. And
18:35
they happened to be looking for a communications
18:37
manager at the time. So I had the skill set and
18:40
I met with the then executive director and we
18:42
had a great conversation. And so I wound up there
18:45
for five years. Wow. And it was great. I got
18:48
to go to a park every day to go to work. But
18:51
what I recognized was leaving corporate and going
18:55
to nonprofit, it's just a different set of things
18:58
that you're dealing with. Because now you're
19:01
dealing with finding money, right? So you're
19:04
either in a grant writing cycle, you're looking
19:06
for donations. There's always events that we're
19:09
doing and things that we're doing to try, you
19:11
know, so there's a churn with that. Well, this
19:13
still isn't doing it for me. But at least it
19:16
was in the environmental space, you know, and
19:18
at least it was helping kids. And I was feeling
19:22
good, but it was still not solving my own sort
19:25
of need to do my creative stuff. And so about
19:28
three years ago, I just went, you know what,
19:31
I'm just going to do art all the time. Nice.
19:34
So I... Still have a good relationship with Urban.
19:38
We're still friends. I still do some freelance
19:40
work with them. But I just was like printmaking,
19:43
screen printing, and my projects are very important
19:47
to me. And I am very fortunate to have a stable
19:51
basis of which I am able to say I can be a full
19:54
-time artist now and try to have a go at that.
19:57
Let's get into the Hope Symbol then. Lucinda
20:00
was introduced last summer when you set up Outside
20:05
Da Vinci Art Alliance. And can you share what
20:09
the hoop symbol is? Absolutely. So the hoop symbol
20:13
is actually my master's thesis project at Philly
20:16
U. Oh my gosh. Because, as I mentioned, they
20:20
were looking for people in all walks. I wasn't
20:22
going to design a green building as my thesis.
20:26
And I went to Rob and the other professors there,
20:29
and they said, well, just do what you know. And
20:31
I'm like, well, I'm a branding marketing person,
20:33
so I'm going to try to design. I wasn't sure
20:36
whether it was going to be a campaign or a symbol
20:39
or a logo or something around this idea of sustainability.
20:43
Because this is just after Inconvenient Truth
20:46
comes out, Al Gore is talking about stuff. People
20:49
are starting to become more conscious of environmental
20:52
and climate change issues. It still, I felt,
20:56
needed more broad conversation. And so I'm like,
21:01
all right, let me do some research and figure
21:03
out if I can come up with some kind of branding
21:05
around sustainability. And so I started doing
21:10
my homework and finding case studies. And one
21:12
of the case studies I found was about the peace
21:14
symbol and where that came from. And if people
21:18
are not familiar with that story, the peace symbol
21:20
is actually a logo for the Coalition for Nuclear
21:24
Disarmament. It was a symbol that was developed
21:27
in the late 1950s for marching. For basically
21:32
after World War II in the UK, they were developing
21:37
nuclear weapons in the UK along with the United
21:40
States. And people were aware of this and were
21:43
like, are you crazy? Like we just went through
21:45
World War II. Like this was really bad. We do
21:48
not want more war and we certainly do not want
21:51
these weapons that can destroy entire cities.
21:55
in a blink. So people were starting to organize
21:59
marches and this Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament,
22:03
they were like, okay, we know that black and
22:06
white TV is the media of the day. We want a visible
22:11
symbol that people can carry with them on these
22:14
marches. So they went to this guy named Gerald
22:17
Holtham and they said, okay, can you design something
22:20
that people can carry? So he starts noodling,
22:23
and he takes flag semaphores. If you think about
22:27
the guys on the aircraft carriers that are spelling
22:30
words out with flags, that's flag semaphore.
22:33
So there's a whole alphabet related to that.
22:36
And so he took the letters for N, the letter
22:39
N, and the letter D, standing for nuclear disarmament.
22:43
And one is the upright slash, and the other is
22:46
the chevron shape. And he took those lines and
22:51
he put them together and he put them in a circle.
22:53
And that still to this day, the Coalition for
22:58
Nuclear Disarmament, if you go on their website,
23:00
that's their logo that's on there. But he said,
23:03
all right, I'm going to put it on a black background
23:05
and make it white. And we're going to put them
23:08
on poles and make these big disks that people
23:10
can carry. And so when you see any imagery from
23:14
those events. you see these what they call lollipops
23:18
with the peace symbol on them, and that's what
23:20
they use to talk about peace and specifically
23:24
about nuclear disarmament. Well, they never sort
23:27
of did anything legally with that. There's no
23:29
copyright on that symbol. So other movements
23:33
looked at... that and said, oh, that symbol's
23:36
really interesting and it's standing for peace.
23:39
And they started sort of taking on, so civil
23:41
rights and women's liberation and the anti -Vietnam.
23:44
Everybody starts picking up this symbol and it's
23:47
now become this ubiquitous thing that we look
23:50
at and we go, oh, that's the peace symbol. So
23:52
as a designer, I'm like, wow, that's holy grail.
23:55
If you design something like that, a modern day
23:58
symbol. That's something that is amazing. And
24:01
I'm like, I don't know that I can do that, but
24:03
I can at least maybe develop something that can
24:06
sit next to that. And that's what inspired me
24:10
to do the Hope Symbol was I started thinking
24:14
about, OK, why are all of us in this master's
24:17
program? All these different people are taking
24:18
time out of their lives to do this, most of them
24:21
doing it part time. And I'm like, we're all hopeful.
24:27
Right? It's about hope. And hope is not magically
24:30
things are going to change. That's not what hope
24:32
really is. Hope is a motivator to get you to
24:36
move forward. Hope is a thing that says to you,
24:40
if I do this work, things are going to maybe
24:42
get better. And so I'm like, all right, there
24:45
it is, hope. And then I started just sketching
24:48
and noodling around with different ideas for
24:50
what that could be. And I wound up doing the
24:53
circle, and it has like a partial H in it. People
24:56
look at it and they see all the letters of hope
24:58
in that. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's one
25:01
way of interpreting it. But for me, the circle
25:04
is a window. And the hope, the word, is just
25:08
coming into view. So the idea of hope is an ongoing
25:14
thing and a process. And it's partially the journey
25:18
and not just the destination. And that's really
25:20
what the symbol kind of represents. And I was
25:24
working with an advisor, a small ad agency, and
25:27
they kind of helped me kind of massage it and
25:30
develop it. And I had it straight up and down.
25:32
And one of them said, why don't you tilt it?
25:35
Because the earth is on a 22 and a half degree
25:37
axis. So how about we tilt it? And then there's
25:41
the earth and the environment in the symbol too.
25:44
And I was like, there it is. That's really cool.
25:48
And then I did nothing with it. For a long time
25:51
because I graduated and I was still working and
25:55
I wasn't sure what the hope symbol was supposed
25:58
to be. Usually when you're branding something,
26:00
there's a thing and you make a logo for it and
26:03
it has a purpose. In this case, I kind of was
26:06
working backwards in a way. And I'm like, I don't
26:09
know what I'm going to do with this. So eventually
26:13
when I get to being a screen printer. And an
26:17
art practice, I'm like, well, I could just call
26:19
my art practice the Hope Symbol Project. And
26:22
I'm very inspired by street artists and other
26:26
artists that use typography and stuff in their
26:29
work and symbols. And I'm like, well, that could
26:31
be my sort of signature that I put into my work.
26:35
And then I can just call my practice this and
26:37
then I don't have to reinvent the wheel. I already
26:40
have all this. I was very lucky at the time when
26:44
I was doing the thesis project to find the URL
26:47
that the hopesymbol .com was available. So I
26:52
was, like, all over it. That's half the battle.
26:54
Yeah, exactly. And this was, you know, it was
26:56
about 20 years ago, so there was still stuff
27:00
out there. Now you have to, like, change the
27:02
letters to make it work. No, that's what Philly
27:04
has hard. Yeah, we found a winner. Yay! Yeah,
27:09
so I had the website and all that already. So
27:11
I'm like, all right, I'm just going to take the
27:12
art practice and the hope symbol, and they're
27:14
going to become a melded thing. I love it. Yeah.
27:18
Oh, that's great. So that's why I call my practice
27:20
what I do. How can our audience take action?
27:25
That's a great question. And, you know, what
27:27
I have found now, living with the hope symbol
27:30
for a long time, is it started off just narrowly
27:32
focused on environmental issues. And obviously
27:35
that is... a human life changing thing that we
27:39
need to deal with. But what I also have found
27:42
is there are so many other things that are intertwined,
27:45
right? These are economic things. These are systemic
27:49
things. These are global issues, right? So my
27:53
thing has always been just take a step forward,
27:58
whether it's an environmental thing that you
28:00
can do. in your life to make a change, to, you
28:04
know, be inspired, to take a train versus driving
28:09
or, you know, whatever. Do those little things
28:11
and they will start adding up. And now it's a
28:14
little even more complex than that, right? Because
28:17
what I'm hoping people are going to see is the
28:20
connection and start being critical when you're
28:23
looking at things. So that's what the art is
28:26
kind of evolving into too. I never want to tell
28:29
people what to do with the art. What I'm asking
28:32
people to do is just start thinking. If I would
28:35
have a thing that I want people to do, I think
28:38
that's it. Look at things critically. Don't just
28:42
take the one story you're being told as gospel
28:45
and understand the connections and also look
28:48
for humanity in all of us. And recognize that
28:52
this is not just an us and them problem. This
28:55
is an all of us problem that we need to solve.
28:57
And especially right now with everything that's
28:59
going on, we need to be there for each other.
29:02
So I want the Hove symbol to be a sort of symbol
29:04
for a community of people that are thinking critically
29:09
and trying to make good things happen in the
29:12
world. Ronda, can you tell us a little bit about
29:17
your upcoming project with... Mural Arts and
29:21
the 250th anniversary. I have been fortunate
29:26
to be selected to be a mural designer for Mural
29:29
Arts for a project called Printmaking by the
29:32
People. And I'm still pinching myself that that
29:35
actually is happening. One of the many wonderful
29:38
things that's happened since I've started this
29:40
printmaking practice is... that I've been sort
29:43
of part of the printmaking community. And what
29:46
I find is that the arts community in Philadelphia
29:48
generally is very, like, welcoming, right? And
29:51
there's, like, two degrees of separation of everybody.
29:53
And I was very fortunate to meet Todd Bressy,
29:58
who is a project manager at Mural Arts, and he
30:02
came to a couple meetings for a group called
30:04
the Philadelphia Print Consortium. We put on
30:07
the print fair, and it's all volunteers. And
30:09
he said, we have this project that we're doing
30:11
and we're looking for people to run workshops
30:13
for printmaking around this Declaration of Independence
30:16
anniversary. And I was like, all right, I can
30:20
run some workshops. That'd be cool. So I kind
30:23
of got into it that way very early in the process,
30:26
working with a printmaking partner whose name
30:29
is Bill Brookover. We ran a pilot workshop and
30:32
it was a... complete mess. It went fine, but
30:36
we, you know, Bill and I overprepared. We had
30:38
people trying to do too many things at once in
30:40
two hours. So we learned a lot from that, but
30:43
they were running the pilot programs. And then
30:45
they put out this request for people in the printmaking
30:48
community and other artists to take this. project
30:52
to the next state. So after running all of these
30:55
workshops, of which there were over 40 that were
30:58
run over, I think, a two -year period, and take
31:01
all the designs and posters and prints that people
31:03
made expressing how they feel about the Declaration
31:07
today, and then designing a mural around that.
31:11
And that's what they were asking for. So I applied.
31:13
And miraculously, I was selected to be that artist.
31:18
So we're kind of in the stage right now where
31:21
the design is complete. And we're wall hunting,
31:25
as they say. Nice. So hopefully very soon, we're
31:28
going to have good news on that. But also, the
31:30
prints that were made have made this amazing
31:33
archive. And that archive, a lot of those posters
31:36
are currently on view at Parkway Central Library.
31:39
It's just an amazing project, and I'm really
31:41
so excited and grateful to be part of it. And
31:45
what's really cool about it was I was given the
31:48
opportunity to sit down with the archive of all
31:51
these posters. I had them in my house. They were
31:53
in big bins. And just sort of lay them out and
31:57
look at all the different creative ways that
31:59
people answered this question about how do you
32:03
feel about what's missing out of the Declaration,
32:05
or what does life, liberty, and the pursuit of
32:07
happiness mean to you? And just the breadth of
32:10
answers and creativity that people made. Printmaking
32:16
is kind of magical, at least to me. Because when
32:19
you're making prints, you never quite know how
32:22
they're going to turn out. But it's a very accessible
32:25
way for people to make art. So these workshops,
32:28
people were just getting into it. But a lot of
32:31
times what they were doing was to really express
32:33
themselves beyond just an image. They were writing
32:36
a lot of words. And my work has a lot of type
32:40
in it anyway. So I was really drawn to that.
32:43
And I started listing out all of the words that
32:46
people were saying in these posters and the things
32:50
that they had to say. And I was starting to see
32:52
common themes. People just want to get up in
32:54
the morning and know that they're going to have
32:57
food on the table or they're going to have access
32:58
to health care that's not going to burden them
33:01
financially. Or you just want to get... you know,
33:04
to work on SEPTA that's reliable, you know, stuff
33:07
like that. Just day -to -day things, but still,
33:10
they were kind of bigger than that. It was like
33:14
Philadelphia was saying, this is the things that
33:16
we would like to see. These are what we feel
33:18
are rights that we should have as a society.
33:22
And making that list, it wound up being eight
33:26
pages long of all the things that people had
33:29
to say. I started to look, and I'm like, wait,
33:31
this person at this Cherry Street Pier event,
33:34
and this person at this school event, they're
33:36
both wanting the same thing. They're both asking
33:39
for whatever the particular issue was. So I started
33:42
making a categorization of those things, and
33:45
I started thinking about that, and I'm like...
33:47
I was color coding it just to keep it straight
33:49
in my mind. And I'm working with a partner because
33:52
I've never done a mural before. So they partnered
33:55
me with a muralist who's going to help me take
33:57
this design and put it on the wall. He and I
34:00
were sitting down and brainstorming. He's like,
34:02
oh, the color coding you're doing is kind of
34:03
cool. It'd be really interesting if you could
34:05
somehow incorporate that into the mural design.
34:09
I'm like, yeah, that's a really good idea. But
34:11
I'm like, I don't know quite how to do that.
34:12
And then I went back to my sustainable design
34:14
brain. And I started thinking about the United
34:18
Nations has what they call the Sustainable Development
34:21
Goals. And these are goals that are sort of universal
34:24
goals for everybody to work towards. And there's
34:29
a color system that these goals are assigned
34:33
to. So like an ending food shortages is a red,
34:37
for instance. And if you go on their website,
34:38
there's a whole color wheel that they've developed.
34:42
And I started looking at those categories and
34:44
the goals and what I was seeing from the people
34:47
of Philadelphia. I'm like, wow, they are exactly
34:50
connecting. So the people of Philadelphia are
34:54
asking for universal things that the UN is saying
34:58
everybody in the world should have access to.
35:01
So I started using the color palette from the
35:05
Sustainable Development Goals. And incorporating
35:07
that into the design. So the design now has a
35:10
lot of text on it because I pulled text from
35:14
the posters. So it's not my words. These are
35:17
the words of the people that took these workshops.
35:19
And I just put as many of them on there as I
35:23
could. And then the sort of central text on the
35:27
design, instead of we hold these truths, which
35:29
is one of the sentences in the declaration, I
35:33
said behold. these truths so i switched it around
35:36
and behold meaning see this like understand that
35:42
people want to be seen and heard yeah and so
35:45
behold these truths this is the central text
35:47
then there's all the texts of the people and
35:50
then i've used this image of these uplifting
35:53
hands as part of the mural and on the sides it's
35:57
bracketed by words from the declaration so that's
35:59
describing how the poster and now hopefully soon
36:05
will be a mural in Philadelphia. Wow. Wonderful.
36:08
Rhonda, thank you so much for sharing all of
36:10
that today with us and sharing this conversation.
36:13
Rhonda, where can our audience find you online?
36:16
So you can find me on socials at The Hope Symbol.
36:20
I'm primarily on Instagram. That's the one I
36:23
use the most. And then thehopesymbol .com is
36:26
my website. I'll link those in the show notes.
36:28
Excellent. And we'll be right back with rapid
36:31
fire questions. And we're back with rapid -fire
36:36
questions. Favorite place to score a cheesesteak?
36:42
Probably my local guy. That's good. Who's also
36:45
my neighbor, right? Yes. So, like, I live north
36:49
of the city, and my neighbor has a pizza place.
36:52
Nice. And it's five minutes from my house. Okay.
36:54
Let's call up and, you know, get our cheesesteaks.
36:57
Excellent. Excellent. You can drop his name.
37:00
It's Vinny's Pizzarama. Nice. Excellent. Excellent.
37:04
Shout out to Vinny. If you could work in any
37:07
other artistic medium, be it in a different visual
37:11
media or something in the performing arts, and
37:13
achieve the same success, what would it be? From
37:16
a visual arts perspective, I'd love to be a painter,
37:18
like an oil painter, but I'm terrible at it.
37:22
And then in any arts, I would love to sing. I
37:25
cannot sing. But I admire people. I just love
37:30
listening to vocalists really go there. And I'm
37:35
like, I wish I could do that. If you could collaborate
37:39
with any artist, dead or alive, who would it
37:42
be? I would have to say Corita Kent, which probably
37:46
nobody's heard of. Corita Kent is why I love
37:50
screen printing. She's an artist who was... Active
37:55
in the pop art period. She was a nun, actually.
37:58
All this nun stuff. Catholicism is so hot right
38:02
now. I've said it before, I'll say it again.
38:05
But she was teaching screen printing to students
38:08
in the 60s. And then her own art went from very
38:12
religious to very cultural and social conscious.
38:16
And I just got inspired by her work because there's
38:21
also a lot of... bold color and typography in
38:23
her work. So you can kind of, if you look at
38:25
her work and you look at my work, you're like,
38:27
okay, I see the line. If I could have known her,
38:31
it would have been amazing and to have any opportunity
38:34
to have collaborated on something or been her
38:37
student, I think would be awesome. And many of
38:39
her students have gone off to do really cool
38:41
things too. Favorite Philadelphia neighborhood.
38:45
I'm really enjoying where we moved to BYO, moved
38:51
to Old City. Yeah. So I've been kind of just
38:54
exploring Old City a little bit. Nice. And I
38:57
think I've always just liked it down there, and
38:59
I'm still enjoying it now that I get to be there
39:03
on a regular basis. Excellent. Excellent. Well,
39:06
everyone, check out Ronda Babb and the Hope Symbol,
39:10
as well as the Free Library and the Declaration
39:14
of Independence show. Thanks so much. Thank you.
39:18
Thank you. Thanks for tuning into Philly Has
39:48
Heart, where we get to know the people at the
39:51
heart of Philadelphia culture. Follow us, share
39:54
the love, and tune in on Thursdays for your weekly
39:57
cultural update.