"we are not frightened of ruins"

(this is the fall 2007 status — here is the finished poster — there are also some available in the store!)

this print has been in progress since the winter of 2001/2. The drawing is of the 'long building' in Eagle Square, one end of which bridged over the Woonasquatucket River.

this image is a photo I took of a printout on acetate of a pieced-together scan of the initial drawing, which was made with pencil on the inside cover of a large notebook, sitting outside on milkcrate on top of a pile of rubble, on a very cold day in January or February.

it will hopefully be finished and printed very soon in two different versions, one with two colors and one with three or four...

I'm making it for nobody but myself, no commission, no purpose except to memorialize destroyed buildings, and to express hope for the future. These words, spoken by anarchist Buenaventura Durruti the night before a battle in the Spanish Civil war, have been linked with this drawing since before it was made.

a reporter asks Durruti
".... y en caso de ganarla, ¿sabes ya que vais a heredar montones de ruinas?"

"Siempre hemos vivido en la miseria, y nos acomodaremos a ella por algún tiempo. Pero no olvide que los obreros son los únicos productores de riqueza. Somos nosotros, los obreros, los que hacemos marchar las máquinas en las industrias, los que extraemos el carbón y los minerales de las minas, los que costruimos las ciudades... ¿Por qué no vamos a costruirlas de nuevo y en mejores condiciones, para reemplazar lo destruido? Las ruinas no nos asustan. Sabemos que ésa es nuestra herencia, porque la burguesía tratará de arruinar el mundo en la última fase de su historia. Pero a nosotros no nos dan miedo las ruinas, porque estamos destinados a heredar la tierra y llevamos un mundo nuevo en nuestros corazones... un mundo que está creciendo en este instante."

(my amateur english translation is underneath the large image below)

The reporter asks Durruti
"....and even if you do win, you do know, don't you, that you're going to inherit piles of ruins?"

"We have always lived in misery, and we will accomodate ourselves to it for some time. But don't forget that the workers are the only producers of wealth. It is we, the workers, who make the machines run in the industries, who extract the coal and the minerals from the mines, who constructed the cities... Why shouldn't we build them again, and in better conditions, to replace that which is destroyed? Ruins do not scare us. We know that that is our inheritance, because the bourgeousie will try to ruin the world in the last phase of their history. But we are not frightened by ruins, because we are destined to inherit the earth, and we carry a new world in our hearts... a world which is growing this very instant."

— B. Durruti