“Be Kind, Free, and Love”

“Do Not Open. Thank You.”

“”Do Not Open. Thank You.”

“Happy Flower”

“I hope you have a happy, long life.”

“The swallow is after the bugs on the tree.”

Giving Names to Statues

MORNING DISCUSSION: INSERTING TEXT

Charlotte, the spider, left messages in her spiderweb about a pig in the story Charlotte’s Web. Her messages made the pig special and they even saved his life. How can a message make something special or change how someone sees something?

Other artists, besides Charlotte, leave messages in public spaces too in order to help people think differently about things. Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger leave messages to help people think about what is true and what isn’t true and what is right and what isn’t right. Jon Rubin wanted to make a place for other people to leave messages. He asked people, one at a time, to write a message on a big billboard in his city. Lots of people got turns to do this.

TODAY’S PRACTICE: WRITE A MESSAGE TO THE CITY

Take a tag and pencil with you on our walk today. Whenever it seems right to leave a message to the city, do. Maybe it will be a message about that exact place. Maybe it will be a message from something you were thinking about.  You probably won’t know what to write until you get there. That’s OK. You have all week to leave messages.