Button Brigade

The streets of Denver are filled with people handing things out. Pamphlets decrying everything from torture to bird porn (apparently when bird enthusiasts watch birds mate, they scare the birds and hurt procreation…) flutter through the street. Two young guys walked down the street carrying “clean coal” fans saying, “I don’t even know what this means, I haven’t even read the damn things.” Counterfeit dollars with the McCain’s mug shot and the denomination “Oil Dollar” abound, as do any number of items with the words “Hope” and “Change.” 

Two girls, Rebecca and Liz, both 20, drove all the way from Pensacola, Florida, just to hand some of these items out. Unlike many of the standard buttons (you know them, the black and red portrait of Obama looking like Che for example), these girls made their own buttons on a machine given to Liz as a birthday present years ago.

“It’s super easy to make a button,” Rebecca said, pantomiming a stamping motion with her hand. “You just draw whatever you want, and stamp it in the machine. It’s easy art for everyone to wear.”

Self proclaimed “terrible artists” the two girls drew what they claimed to make “ugly, but tasteful illustrations of Obama,” and made over 200 buttons to hand out at a “slow and deliberate speed.” All pictures of Obama, the buttons together look like the refrigerator of a family with a fourth grader. There are drawings of Obama holding hands with his family smiling under the sun, and a recently done work of the presidential hopeful body-surfing in Hawaii.

“It’s one thing for people to wear buttons that were made in a factory,” Rebecca said. “It’s great to show support, but it’s easy for that support to get lost in the mix. These buttons show a unique kind of support, one that indicates at least a little effort from someone.”

As for the experience: “This has been a great trip,” Liz said. “It was fun coming up with the silly designs, and the reactions of people have been great. People might think that we are a little slow, but it’s for a good cause.”