Sarah Billingsley, an advertising executive whose experience at several alternative weeklies brought her to AWN two years ago as Ad Coordinator, has been named Communications Director for the Alternative Weekly Network. In addition to becoming an AWN Director where she now coordinates the 95-member advertising cooperative’s national sales efforts, Sarah assumes additional responsibilities associated with the long-time position held by John Morrison who left the company in March.
Taking a cue from friends at the Sacramento News & Review, last month the Express launched "Urban Express-ions," a project that hopes to "pre-graffiti" distribution boxes by inviting local artists to adorn them with spray paint. The paper put out a call for artists, held a "painting day" in it's parking lot, and then displayed the results in a prominent Oakland gallery before putting the news boxes back on the street. "Instead of being blighted, we want these to be community art," says publisher Jody Colley, who spoke to AAN News with account manager Mary Younkin about the project. "We have new ownership at the Express and we really want to connect to the artist community more than we have in the past. This is kind of our first project doing that."
BONUS: Check out a video of the painting day below.
