The father of the No Work On Leap Day Revolution is also the movement’s first martyr. Karl died suddenly and inexplicably nearly two years ago, and while I can’t say anything funny about that, I know he’d join me in asking this question:

If you were The Man, and you wanted to nip this troublesome and potentially massive movement in the proverbial bud, would you wait until Leap Year and risk the obvious and unsettling questions that might arise? No. You’d muster your vast conspiratorial forces and silence this Voice of Reason and Rebellion… this Latter-Day Leap-Day Evangelist of Leisure… when the links to the real reason would be the most obscure. Say, two years after a leap year and two years before the next.

Coincidence? I don’t think so. Karl was obviously silenced by The Man.

So it’s up to each of us to carry on. The students in my studio and IB art classes are doing their part. OK, I made it a class assignment. But several have gone above and beyond the call of mere grades to heed the call of … a day spent sleeping in! Here’s the start of our Ministry of Information.

Four years ago our friend Karl started the No Work On Leap Day Revolution, arguing that the extra day every four years should be yours to enjoy, not squandered working for The Man. You can catch his revolutionary fervor in this interview in the Washington Post.

This month ¡La lucha continua! The struggle continues by skipping the struggle altogether. Make your plans now to take the day off. Let the kids stay home from school. Fan the flames of Revolution on Facebook, or whatever it is you kids do nowadays. Heck, tell The Man to take the day off, too—he’s looking a little peaky.

(You can download a high res copy of the poster above, perfect for the office, classroom, or bus shelter, here.)

(Actual size if Rembrandt was in AP Studio Art)

An evaluator for the portfolios of my Advanced Placement students once told me that the two things were composition and contrast.

This is because the 20 works of art that students submit are viewed as thumbnail images on a computer screen, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep it in mind, no matter what size your project is.

I was going to say that these particular two things are less applicable if your art consists of moving rocks back and forth, or hanging up tire swings. Or peeling oranges. Or taking a walk. But now I’m not so sure.

Economist Glen Whitman tells of a stranger in a bar who told him

“For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”

Whitman has collected a lot of Two Things. As an artist, I’m thinking about what the Two Things could be for art. As an art teacher, I could be thinking myself right into obsolescence.