In October, I did a series of workshops for folks in San Marcos CA about economic inequality, on behalf of the 1500 Stories project. 1500 Stories is a collaborative art, digital storytelling and civic engagement project about rising economic inequality in the U.S. Storygatherers in California have already conducted over 150 in-depth interviews with people from all walks of life, about their struggles and their work and their hopes at different economic positions. Storygathering has also begun in Wisconsin and Ohio. Here, you see a socially engaged art piece called the Stacked Deck, which asks participants to think about and reflect on economic inequality as it is expressed through a deck of thirteen cards featuring documentary photography. The project now has piles of unedited audio and video and is raising funds to edit those stories and make them publicly available on the website and for use at public discussions and forums about economic inequality. Consider making a donation to the project here, and be sure to choose "Other" in the program box and type in 1500 Stories. Everyone has a story to share. Help the project get these stories out.

Come see the first artwork to result from the 1500 Stories project on exhibit in the Justice for All? show this winter at the Euphrat Museum of Art from February 1-March 23rd. For more information about the show, visit http://www.deanza.edu/euphrat/inthemuseum.html. This piece is a collaborative work designed by me using photographs contributed to 1500 Stories by De Anza students as part of a documentary photography project called Visualizing Economic Inequality. Each pair of images documents an aspect of contemporary economic inequality while the overall design mimics the distribution of population and wealth in the U.S. Feel free to join us at the reception on February 16 from 5:30-7:30pm. Learn more about 1500 Stories, or make a donation, at https://1500stories.org/