Monday May 9, 2005
12:00 - 1:30 pm
I was putting up my fourth poster of the day and who should pull up beside me in his car but Gus (the man in maroon car from Week #3)
“Hello”
“Hi! How are you?”
“You’re still at it, eh?”
“Yep, the website’s almost done.”
“Well, good luck with it”
Usually the park is virtually uninhabited when I’m in Markham. Today, I was in the park during the school’s lunch recess. Two girls skipped up to me, arm in arm, singing the theme from “The Wizard of Oz”.
“What are you doing?”
(insert brief explanation of the project here)
“Cool! Let’s read it.”
“Tuesday, May 6, 1986 – but it’s not May 6th today!”
“It’s not...I usually put up a week of diary entries at a time, so if you go around, you can read the whole week.”
“Oh. Worked at closet and put everything back washed and clean. Went to Zeeon…”
“Zion,” corrected the other girl.
“Zion to U.C.W. with Isabelle. Good group. Canadian Indian speaking.”
“Who did this again?”
“My grandma”
“So...is she dying or something?”
“No, she was 85 when she wrote this and she died about 10 years ago.”
“Oh. Let’s go and read the rest of them!” And off they skipped singing the Wizard of Oz.
While I was putting up a poster near the ball diamond, I realized that I had attracted a small group of curious children. They were very quiet, standing a safe distance away. Some of them said hi, but most of them just stared at me.
Finally, I said, “Do you guys want to find out what this is about?”
And with that, they went from standing 6 feet away from me to standing 6 inches away from me.
I asked, “Have you guys seen these posters around lately?” Most of them nodded. By now I had a crowd of about 15 children around me. I explained the story of the project to them.
Then one girl said, “I know someone who thinks it’s a treasure quest.”
“Really?” she nodded, “That’s really interesting.”
By now I had attracted the attention of a teacher or volunteer, who asked if she could help me.
“I was just explaining what these posters are about.”
“I’ll tell you what it’s doing, it’s creating a lot of garbage, that’s what it’s doing.”
“Well, I do take down the old ones when I come back every week.”
“Even so, it’s creating a lot of garbage in the park because all the kids tear them down. I don’t know what the purpose of all this is, or what your intent is…”
“It’s an art project. I’m an artist.”
“Oh,” she said. And she started ushering the children away.
Found tucked into the top of a poster :
2005 May 9 11:04am
Name: Jim Rose
Thursday May 5
Period(s) Absent: 3 5
Ill
Appointment
√Parent Called
√Other
Authorized by: D.O.
As I was examining this orange slip of paper, a maroon car pulled over to the curb. Gus got out of the car with several Walmart bags in his hand.
“Hello again. Still at it?”
“Yep.”
“This is my house here”
“Oh yeah? Someone left a late slip from a school office in this poster.”
“Really? Do you keep that information?”
“I always take down what’s left when I come back. First of all, because of garbage, but also because if this is ever exhibited, I thought it would be interesting to have the actual posters in the show.”
“What’s your web address going to be?
“juliabaird.com B-A-I-R-D. But you can just tear it off a poster next week. You don’t have to remember how to spell my last name.”
“Well, I won’t have to go far”
“What’s your name again?”
“Julia”
“I’m Gus”
“Are you the person putting up those weird signs?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“What are they about?”
So I told them and they said ‘cool’ several times. I’m pretty sure that one of them was the guy wearing the hoody who asked me was was ‘sup?’ a few weeks ago. It’s hard to tell, though, without the telltale grey hoody.
Gus sighting #3:
This time he was out walking his dogs with a companion. He told me that it was a beautiful day to be doing what I’m doing.