Friday May 20, 2005
4:30 - 6:30pm
“Hey, what are those about?”
By now, I’ve gotten pretty good at giving a quick but informative explanation of the project, the CliffNotes version. It goes something like this: “This is my art project. My Grandparents lived on Franklin Street when I was a kid and these posters are from the diary my Grandmother wrote in 1986. You can visit my website to find out more about the whole project.” I’ve found that some people only want to know that much and will walk away satisfied after that much information. Other people, however, want to ask more questions.
“Interesting.” This was the boy who was riding a skateboard. He was heading to the park with his friend, who was on his bike. His brow was furrowed in concentration, “So, what will this be when it’s all done?”
“Well, when I’m done postering, I guess what will be left is the website.”
Skateboard: “But what will you turn it into?”
“It might be exhibited it in a gallery someday...I suppose that would turn the project into something else.”
Skateboard (still looking quite thoughtful): “I see…but what will it become?”
“If you go to the website, you can read all the journal entries and look at photographs I’ve taken of the posters…I’ve written about what happens to me when I put them up…there’s also a place where people can post their comments. There’s a lot to the project besides the posters.”
Bike: “Can I have one of those things with your website on it? Thanks”
Skateboard: “Interesting, interesting…” I could tell the wheels were turning in his head. His friend started to slowly peddle away. “Thanks. Have a good day.”
“Are those your posters? My son found your website. You know the building your Grandparents used to live in? A friend of mine owns it. When did they live there?”
“I think from 1977 to 1988…”
“Well, he could have owned it at the end, I’m not sure. I had coffee with him the other day, and I completely forgot to tell him about your project…”
There has been one thing that I found somewhat surprising when interacting with the public during this project. I know that children are for the most part eternally optimistic, friendly and innocent. I also thought that the adults in their lives would have drilled this mantra into their heads: Do not talk to strangers. And perhaps they did. Let me tell you, it has not worked. Perhaps my experiences simply show that children do what they want when adults aren’t around. Or maybe my experiences are proof that, although logically this advice makes perfect sense, it goes against an innately human sense of camaraderie, which get beaten out of us as time goes on.
You may remember the mystery of the faded poster on a pole next to the school. For five weeks now, I have placed one of my posters next to a piece of paper that had been on the pole so long that it’s impossible to decipher what was printed on it. Every week, I have come back to discover that my poster was ripped down and the faded one had somehow survived. That is, until this week. Remarkably, both of them were still up! I was rather happy (it’s the small things that make doing the same thing every week interesting to me) and I started to snap some photos of the pole. This attracted the attention of a group of five or six kids who were hanging out on the grass outside the school building.
“Ummm…why are you taking pictures of that pole?”
I told them a bit about the project and about my battle with the faded poster.
“And this is special for you?”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I said.
“Ohhh kay…so what is this thing going to be when it’s done?” I explained about the website and all the different things that were on it.
“Are you doing it for school?”
“No, I’m done school, actually.”
“So why are you doing it then?”
“This is what I do. I’m an artist.”
“Oh. Cool. But how come you aren’t painting or something then?”
“I do paint sometimes. I think that art can be a painting or a sculpture, but it can also be about ideas. And I like to use the internet because people don’t have to go all the way to a gallery to look at art…they can just go online in their living room - ”
“Yeah, they don’t have to go all the way to that big gallery in Toronto…”
“You mean the Art Gallery of Ontario?”
“Yeah, that one. And they don’t have to worry about getting lost and stuff...”
We talked for a bit longer while I was putting up the next poster. Once I ceased to be interesting, they went back to sitting on the grass next to the tree. I think I caused the momentum of their social time to stop, because they really didn’t know what to do next.
“What time is it?”
“About 5:30 – what are you doing now?”
“I don’t know…I might go home. What are you doing?”
“I might stay here for a bit – hey, there’s your brother!”
“That’s your brother?”
“Yep”
“I didn’t know that!”
“C’mon, Mom said you have to go home”
“Alright…”
He hopped on his bike and peddled off. I started off down the street, heading to the next pole. The kids that were left crowed around to read the poster I just put up.
“Hi.” The person talking to me is a man, who stopped his red sports car in the middle of the street. He was leaning out of the driver’s side window, looking very cool. He was wearing sunglasses and had a carefully sculpted pompadour hair-do like Ricky on The Trailer Park Boys.
I replied, “Hi, How’s it going?”
“Good….uhhh…I thought you were someone else.” And off he drove.