 | Showing an edition of 35 unique archival prints with found colored sands, 30” H X 23” W, Funk & Shuster Fine Art Printing, 2020. NOTE from Debbie: Hi everyone! AMP Gallery is so pleased and excited to finally open & feature new works by Jay Critchley, DEMOCRACY OF THE LAND - THE MOO MOO WORLD 1620. The Group Show features Karen Cappotto, Barbara Hadden, Jackie Lipton, Zammy Migdal, Lori Swartz, Forrest Williams, Rick Wrigley. Please feel free to come by Friday the 26th. We will be taking safety precautions, so no more than 4-6 masked people may enter at a time. Thanks so much, and take good care! _________ JAY CRITCHLEY | DEMOCRACY OF THE LAND - THE MOO MOO WORLD 1620* Cows are as ubiquitous to the New England landscape as rolling forests, pastures and fall foliage, languishing on their bucolic fields, holding the land, owning the land. This iconic tableau has affirmed itself over the four centuries since the Puritan Separatists first implanted themselves on North American soil in 1620. They had hoped to land in Virginia, where one year earlier some twenty slaves arrived at Point Comfort aboard the White Lion, a link to the long established African slave trade. At the time Europeons called this the “New World,” a mythological reverie of an undiscovered, pristine Garden of Eden of valuable un-extracted commodities such as beaver, sassafras, timber and white pine (Biblical Trees of Life), but we now know that it was misnamed. Revisionist historians now more accurately call the “New World” the “Moo Moo World”. Barnyard animals, cows, pigs and horses – our familiar Beasts of Burden – have gotten too little credit for the ecological catastrophe they and their masters propagated on the Americas – all invasive species. It’s common knowledge that these disease-ridden creatures did not exist in the Western Hemisphere until Columbus and the Spanish Conquistadors, themselves immune, paraded their horses and pigs off the boats with arrogant fanfare, a caravan of aliens Moo Mooing and Oinking. These imperial soldiers, not far removed in time from the Black Plague and the rise of white nationalism in Europe, marauding Crusaders and ecological disorder on the Continent were on a clear Christian mission of “discovery,” recruitment and enslavement. In fact, thousands of indigenous people were captured and shipped off to the Caribbean and Europe. What about all that pristine, “unproductive virgin land” waiting to be civilized, commodified and cowsplained? After all, there were no fences or rigid enclosures so familiar to the English landscape. By the 1530s Europeans were reading about the Noble Savage, “gentle as cows,” with no history, living in a limitless nature and prelapsarian innocence, these creatures were merely waiting for Christianity to save and civilize them. *Except from Provincetown Arts 2020 issue |
Old Glory Condoms - still worn with pride country-wide; Thirty years ago CEO Jay Critchley founded the Old Glory Condom Corporation - worn with pride country-wide, which redefined the definition of patriotism: to protect and save lives. It was launched at an exhibition at MIT in 1989. At the time the US Congress was debating a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw desecration of the flag following a Supreme Court ruling declaring it free speech while the government was doing little to confront the HIV/AIDS crisis. When the company applied for a US Trademark, the government deemed the name and logo - the American flag imprinted on a condom, “as immoral and scandalous to associate the flag with sex”. This led to a three-year legal battle that forced the government to issue the Trademark. Old Glory Condoms is reviving its potent message and relaunching its brand with trademarked t-shirts, mugs and even flip flops. At this time condoms are not available, although they may be in the future. Attorney David Cole, presently National Legal Director at the American Civil Liberties Union, took on the case while at the Center for Constitutional Rights and recently commented on the results:
“Your legal battle was important both culturally and legally. It arose in the heart of the culture wars over both the proper uses of the flag, and over safe sex and HIV-AIDS. As a legal matter, the Old Glory Condom case became a textbook case (literally) in the application of the disparagement and scandalous provisions of the Trademark Act. In the past few years, the Supreme Court has held unconstitutional the legal provisions applied to deny you a trademark, in cases involving an Asian rock group that sought to trademark their name, The Slants, and a clothing manufacturer who wanted to trademark its brandname, FUCT. So you were ahead of your time!” “The challenge to freedom, democracy and sex and gender could not be more relevant today”, especially as we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims on indigenous peoples land in 2020”, states Critchley. “For years people have asked us for these irreverent creations so we dug into our archives – a patriotic Christmas!” he added. The controversy generated worldwide media coverage including the front page of the Washington Post and a feature in People Magazine. But its most successful prize was from conservative Senator Jessie Helms, an architect of the culture wars, who inadvertently created the first global safer sex commercial by holding up the Old Glory logo in the US Senate and denounced its Trademark, which was broadcast on CNN. CEO Critchley is a respected corporate leader and influencer whose projects and actions have tackled global environmental issues like plastics, fossil fuels and the automobile, including legislative filings and governmental interventions. His offices and home are on Cape Cod in Provincetown, Massachusetts USA. For more information: reroot@comcast.net Contact: Jay Critchley, CEO Old Glory Condom Corporation - condoms with a conscience reroot@comcast.net www.jaycritchley.com
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