light, love

I like to keep a little chalk handy. because, you never know.

may we be the light that drives out darkness in this world, may we be lovers that drive out hate. not just today, on the day we honor the life and work and powerful words of our beloved dr. martin luther king, jr., but every day. every single day.

fifty suns

well, the rain is back. with a vengeance. and when it comes and covers the city like this, I can't help but think about the time ava and I decided to stop complaining and take on the rain.
it was june of 2010 and felt like it had been cold and rainy for months. it hadn't been, of course but it had felt like it and it was june, for pete's sake. june. we were ready for summer so we decided to take matters into our own hands. we gathered the necessary materials (white paper plus every yellow and orange marker, crayon and colored pencil in the house) and drew as many suns as our hands could handle. which turned out to be about fifty. in hindsight, we probably should've used sturdier paper and bigger, brighter markers but it was a spur of the moment kind of project and everyone knows spur of the moment projects are all about using what you have. spur of the moment projects are also all about momentum.

we packed up our sunshine flyers and our rolls of tape and took to the streets of portland, downtown portland.

the plan: bomb the city with sunshine flyers. or try to, at least. here are a few of the places we hit:

a signpost on burnside, just outside powell's books. and then the shelves of the self help section inside. because if you are in the self help section of a book store, you might be a person who would appreciate a little sunshine flyer.

the park, near the rose bushes. rose bushes that greatly benefit from all that portland rain, I realize, but would also benefit from a little sunshine every once in a while.

an abandoned building.

the bathroom of the lobby of the ace hotel.

the secret drawers, where people leave all matters of notes, drawings and letters. did you know the lobby of the ace hotel had secret drawers? well, they do.

the photobooth, of course.

pioneer square.

a construction site.

and then finally, the window of the streetcar on our ride back.

but maybe the best part of the story is this: a few days later, we drove around downtown to see if any of our sunshine flyers were still up. there were a few, though most of them were gone. but as we drove by a phonebooth where we'd intentionally covered up a horrible white supremacist sticker, we spotted a note. I jumped out of the car and the above is what I found.

and so, on this rainy rainy day, this is something to remember, this note that was left for us. this is something to remember, this thing that we did. sometimes sunshine is not so much a big yellow ball in the sky but a state of mind.

may I recommend

a couple of packs of vinyl helvetica stickers, a little creative thinking and a few hours around town. best money you'll ever spend. promise.

how to poetry bomb a thrift store

via booooooom/via my sweet friend amy, who instinctively knew I would fall head over heels in love with agustina woodgate and her brilliant idea to secretly sew poems inside thrift store clothing. there are so many ways to put art and goodness out into the world, so many ways. thank you, amy. I love this. I really really do.

well, you are

what happened in cincinnati (besides a little collaborating with my brother on a music video shoot for the band seabird) is that I had more fun with stencils, stickers, paint chips and spray paint than is perhaps humanly possible. the street artist inside me had a little coming out party, she surely did.

photobooth friday

(miss abby)

of course, we did more than just hide secret fortunes all over downtown portland last friday. we also ventured into little finnegans for a bit of shopping and a couple of turns in the photobooth.


(that ava-girl)

and yes, we did leave a few fortunes behind.


(millie bo billie)


(mister ezra)

well, mister ezra refused to wear the silly glasses. so vehemently opposed to our perfect girly plan and dead set on doing his own thing. which was a supafly version of the robot dance. I can say nothing more here than this: the boy has his own ideas about things. which is totally okay with me. even if it did throw off our whole crazy-eye theme.

hey, I want to show you something:

weaker vessel (this one too)
jesC
scrumdillydilly
acumamakiki
rising to the challenge (this one too)
keks
matt!?
nessie noodle
koreana
gwen
jodi mckee
that bee girl
revivify
pinky doll
in my shoes
totally wired

in addition: check out startling moniker who has a fantastically enormous collection of photobooth strips. oh, and daniel minnick has just added tons of new frames to the flickr group. yes, please don't forget the photobooth friday flickr group. because I've surely missed someone along the way and we just can't have that.

friday afternoon

we took to the streets of downtown portland, loads of little paper fortunes in hand. we were hoping to leave them in a hundred different places, we were hoping all kinds of people would find them. and smile or laugh or stop for a second and look around. or something, anything. who knows how much of that actually happened but it doesn't really matter. as it turns out, the act of doing was enough.



inspired by keri smith's guerilla art kit, I cut paper into teeny tiny slips and set out a mess of colored pencils. the crew was hungry for a project and didn't need a lot of extra prompting from me. the crew (aka guerilla art army) at hand: ava and friends abby and millie, plus kind of/sort of ezra.



there really weren't any rules except, you know, to write something nice. what I told them was to write something they might like to find and read. interesting, the slight variations in interpretation: for example, abby felt strongly about dating each of her fortunes while millie's messages were more succinct and abstract, decorated with hearts and stars and exclamation points. mine were in the vein of hey, your hair looks good today or go on, play hooky from work and ava's were so heartbreakingly sweet I could barely stand to read them. messages like don't listen to the mean things people say and you will always look pretty. I saved that last one, by the way. tucked it away someplace special. sort of makes me want to cry when I look at it. but also, it makes me feel pretty.



after lunch we set out for downtown. on our way to catch the street car, millie hid the first secret fortune in a small, rectangular nook close to the ground. abby said only a kid would find that one because adults are mostly too busy looking ahead and walking fast. uh, she's probably right. no wait, she is absolutely right.



it didn't take long before the whole thing turned into the best game ever. where to hide the fortunes? where could they be effectively hidden but still be found? how will they keep from blowing away? what if we'd thought to bring tape? millie wins the prize for most brilliant hiding place: in the coils of the springs of a bicycle seat. so wishing I'd thought of that one.

a few other hiding places:



in the basket of a bicycle parked outside the library. personally, I think anyone who takes the time to decorate their bicycle basket with flowers deserves a secret fortune.



underneath some leaves on a concrete bench outside the downtown public library.



in the crack of yet another concrete bench and again with the downtown library. we hit the inside pretty hard too.



and speaking of the library, as we were walking by, we passed a homeless woman who'd set up camp on one of the concrete benches and was surrounded by several bags stuffed with what looked to be all her earthly possessions. and before I could stop it (or even have time to think about whether or not I should stop it), ava carefully placed one of her secret fortunes in the one small spot that wasn't occupied by the woman's bags. I was too busy chasing after ezra to react but once I caught up with him, I turned to see if the woman had noticed the fortune. and then I saw her pick up that tiny piece of paper and look in our direction. I turned away just then, hastily put my camera down. felt something akin to shame. actually, I wasn't sure how I felt because I wasn't sure how she felt. I wasn't sure if she was crazy or if maybe she thought I was crazy or if it was even okay that we had done what we'd done. but I couldn't help myself, I turned to look at her once more and dang it if she wasn't smiling.

more hiding places:



for the next person who picks up a copy of the jewish review.



for the next person who goes to feed the meter.



for the person roaming the western philosophy aisle at powell's.



for the next person who needs to make a call. wait, is there anyone left in the world who still uses the pay phone? I hope so.

I can't wait to do this again. I absolutely cannot wait. should you feel the need to try this out yourself, please do. and report back. we could all use a little bit more of the shiny happy, yes? precisely the point.