This is how it was billed on Kickstarter:
“A public spectacle essay. Multi-city letterpress poster installation—curated by project supporters.”
Well, that sounded interesting: a street art concept proposed by “a girl in salt lake city.”
Here’s her pix:
She describes herself as:
“Writer+printer+lives in a white house with a small desert.”
Sounded intriguing. And when I read the pitch, I was hooked. Here’s an edited version of what a girl in salt lake city wrote:
So! We’re printing our essay over four 11 x 17 broadside posters and posting the edition of 350 (that’s 1400 posters!) You’ll choose 3 posters to display somewhere in public (on a top-secret designated day in November) and keep the fourth as a thank you prize.
You can see each poster required three runs, one for the header, one for the QR code and one for the essay at the bottom. More updates, and we caught a glimpse of a girl in SLC.
Each poster quartet would be placed in a “gigantic
envelope” and mailed out to the supporter/curators.
And soon, each of us would be posting her broadsides and offering random passersby the opportunity to reflect on acceptable reasons to cry in public. I liked it.
And soon my envelope arrived, with instructions announcing that the top-secret day to put up the posters was at hand. After thinking about possible locations and a little trial and error, here’s what I did:
That’s the side of the Supreme Court on the left and the Capitol dome peaking out above the poster. Honestly, I kind of chickened out on this one, so I went back at night and moved it.
There was a Capitol police car about 20 feet away from me when I posted this. But I figured, what with free speech and all, it would be cool. And, if busted I could always claim, “art project!”
The final installation site was Peter’s Tree.
The morning after I took this photo of Peter’s tree, there was a single yellow rose affixed to the poster. Just another reminder of how many of life’s events and experiences we all share. And I’d like to thank a girl in salt lake city for reminding us about the random ways we connect with each other.
If you want to see the efforts of my fellow curators, you can follow them on her site here. If you do, make sure to check out the twitter feed on her site.