IN THIS TIME of instant social media posts and speedy news updates, photos and video from a rally or protest require bold, eye-catching, immediately understandable signage that inspires, motivates and invites all to join.

Below: Scenes from the weekend art build, with multiple people participating to make banners, pickets and more.

Union educators understand this: Visual messaging amplifies our voices. Art is central to building power, unity and history.

The 2019 #RedForEd actions by United Teachers Los Angeles and Oakland Education Association demonstrated the power of art to help mobilize entire cities and communities against injustice. Along with student, family and local artist support, educators and allies created posters, banners and huge parachute artwork that conveyed passion, outrage, hope and demand for change.

“Teachers stood up to Trump during his first administration,” says artist and organizer David Solnit, explaining why he is drawn to working with educators. “With their position so closely connected to their communities, they are a significant force to fight back against authoritarianism. Teachers really do save the world.”

Solnit is a key figure in our union members’ full embrace of visual communication and messaging. He has led multiple art builds with CTA locals, most recently in Richmond, where in October United Teachers of Richmond members, seeking fair pay, affordable health care and fully staffed schools, voted 98% in support of a strike. He is helping locals create vivid artwork for the “We Can’t Wait” campaign. (WCW involves 32 union locals and 77,000 educators across California; the campaign demands fully funded, fully staffed schools and fair wages for educators, with UTR and other large locals having aligned their contract expiration dates for maximum collective impact.)

But art builds, says UTR President Francisco Ortiz, are not just for members. “They are a way of building community from the ground up, to build our muscle with our students, parents, community and allies to fight for our schools.” He notes that at the UTR art build, members’ children and friends, representatives from partners Richmond Progressive Alliance and Reimagining Richmond and students from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center were busy painting and helping with tools and gear.

“We are in the fight of our lives for public education, [so] the love and support from everyone are very meaningful,” says Ortiz of the community connections. “The art we make allows us to go to major events, such as town halls, school board meetings and other actions, and represent both educators and community — showing we are one! ”

Participants at the UTR art build included members of locals from up and down the state, including Whittier Elementary and West Sacramento teachers associations and a big contingent from Bay Area locals. They came to learn how to make impactful visuals as well as to assist.

“As part of the East Bay Coalition for Student Success [comprised of 18 CTA locals, including UTR], we support each other,” said Celia Medina-Owens, Pittsburg Education Association president.

United Educators San Francisco President Cassondra Curiel said simply, “Solidarity is a verb.”

Art Build Essentials

MORE ART BUILDS led by David Solnit and his team are scheduled at CTA locals in Natomas and San Diego in January 2026. In many respects these are “train the trainer” events that allow locals to gain the skills to create stunning visuals and messages that can be used in multiple settings.

Specifically, members learn how to trace designs that are projected on a wall onto fabric used for banners and other signage, which they then paint. They help with screen-printing in multiple languages, and with mounting finished signs onto sticks. They learn how to assemble and reassemble the banners.

San Diego Education Association has held several art builds with great results. “In April and May we had pickets at 125 sites — our signs got a lot of honks, energized our membership and fostered solidarity,” said SDEA Secretary and campaign organizer Sarah Darr. Darr was a presenter on the recent Solnit webinar “Arts Organizing to Win” (bit.ly/CTA_ArtsOrganizing).

Of course, the messages communicated on the signage are critical. Other webinar presenters spoke of how their locals came up with powerful, effective messages.

• Berkeley Federation of Teachers’ Julie Searle suggests forming an organizing team and choosing a strong, easy-to-understand message based on a framework that includes “the battle of your story”— including the conflict, characters and imagery. BFT’s clear, meaningful message for one campaign: “Love our jobs but can’t afford them.”
• Oakland Education Association’s Bethany Meyer says members worked together to create slogans such as “Public Schools Are Not for Sale” and “Fight for the Schools Students Deserve.” “When they saw ‘Public Schools Are the Heart of the Community,’ the community understood what we were fighting for,” she says. The messages endure: “These signs are hanging up in classrooms across town.”

Based on your story and message, create simple, appealing designs and offer easy prep to paint and build, says Searle — everyone can participate in the fun, uplifting art build and can take home patches and posters to help spread the word. Meyer urges locals to “make the art special to where you are — the local flavor and culture.”

“An art build is an organizing strategy, unifying action and amazing communication tool,” Meyer says. “We tracked member and community participation by site like any other action. We used it in our escalation plan to gauge participation and readiness to strike.”