I’m really happy that he conceived of this project, then executed it with no intent to hurt Wal-Mart. It was all about the experience, relationships, and experimentation. Great work.
New Genres Artists Are Everywhere
Published by Pete Ippel
Pete Ippel, the son of a dancer and a musician, was born in Oak Park, Illinois and has been surrounded by the arts since birth. He moved to Morris, Illinois in 1989 and started to participate in athletics rather than dance. After high school, Pete attended Cornell University where he received a BA in psychology and a BFA in photo / digital art making. He continued to follow his sporting dreams in the high jump, which culminated in a school record leap of 7 feet 1/2 inch in 2001. In May 2004 he attained an MFA degree in the New Genres department of the San Francisco Art Institute. Presently Pete is a practicing artist whose work is in numerous private collections and has been exhibited in New York, California, and internationally. Mr. Ippel resides in Working Artists Ventura, a sustainable artist community in southern California. In addition, he teaches art, is a web developer, an active blogger, and still high jumps from time to time. As a passionate problem solver and a pragmatic optimist, Pete’s art and his life are full of exciting challenges. View more posts
Cool project…
But I wouldn’t object to someone trying to “hurt” Wal-mart. This is a store that promotes itself as a mom- and-pop that made it, a realization of the American dream, when in reality, it is in many ways a government supported organization, the exact opposite of what it and its defenders claim it to be. Many of its workers are on welfare, food-stamps, medicaid, etc because it does not provide them with adequate benefits and salaries. (There are actually reports that they encourage their workers to seek government assistance.) Thus, we pay for those “every day low prices” with taxes that go toward supporting their workforce. Wal-mart is absolutely not a product of capitalism.
Furthermore, this is also an anti-female store. Although Wal-marts sell condoms, their pharmacies will not distribute birth-control pills, patches, etc, nor will they sell the morning-after-pill, even to survivors of rape. In rural, or even certain suburban areas where Wal-marts are the only pharmacies (because their “every day low prices” have forced smaller, local pharmacies out of business), women have NO WAY of obtaining birth control for which they have legal prescriptions. Inexcusable.