Your Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions Inside In-Between Spaces

Posted on by Luci Westphal
writing on the public walls and in-between spaces installation at Creative Pinellas

If you have seen the installation I created for the 2024 Emerging Artists Exhibit, then you probably know it’s a growing, changing, and interactive artwork. There three main dynamic aspects of “Public Walls and In-Between Spaces” are the wildflowers (weeds?) growing along the outside walls, inside the belongings of a person that add up to a stylized “living on the streets” shelter, and the drawings and writings on the inside walls created by… you!

The only static elements are the 229 photos, I transferred into the fence walls. Find out more about each photo: Photo Reference Map of “Public Walls and In-Between Spaces”

I may follow up this artist story, with two more focused on the plants and on the shelter, so just briefly… The plants naturally keep growing, blooming, wilting, and reseeding – nurtured by Creative Pinellas staff and me – but not visited by bees. All items making up the stylized “living on the streets” shelter are there for the visitors to interact with – from exploring, borrowing, to drinking, eating, and adding to. Take what you need, give what you want.

watch out

Now it’s time to put a spotlight on you and some of your thoughts, feelings, and art that you added to the inside of “Public Walls and In-Between Spaces”. Thank you for growing this installation with me.

Love is one of the recurring themes.
… by Scott Solary, of Man Glitter Studio, the unicorn who built the wood structure with my help (and not the other way around).
One of the previous year’s emerging artists, Jenipher Chandley, adds her beautiful touch…
… by Jenipher Chandley
Another previous Creative Pinellas emerging artist, Reid Jenkins, added creativity and joy…
… by Reid Jenkins

 

a rose is a rose is the other, protect the unprotected, nothing you love is really lost

will you keep me safe

being unhoused is not a crime, invisable, invisible, ars long vita brevis

There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
… Luby Haider adding her thoughts while being photographed by the previous writer.
Love and a warm welcome in Chinese and in Urdu
… quote from a poem by Wordsworth added by my dear friend Hollie Greer, who came from Gainesville just to see the exhibit. Turns out that the poem is what starts the book by John O’Donahue, from which I pulled the quote at the beginning of my artist statement for this installation. Hollie didn’t yet know that book.

… dancing and peace are two more recurring themes.

Encouraging words by Oliver of Blaque Jack Studios – and “you should know that you are magical”
The quote that started it all “I don’t like it when people are not nice” because I couldn’t find the photo I thought I had taken of such a graffiti in Berlin many years ago… and they key, which was the first addition to the walls not by me… and all that grew around it over the next 2 weeks.. and it keeps evolving…
Love by Sara Black and a poem by Jamaal Rocke.
A visitor at the gallery told me this was a sigil, probably for protection. But I haven’t found it through image search. Does anyone know? …maybe the person who drew it?
Not the first words on the walls, but my attempt at putting in words what “Public Walls and In-Between Spaces” and urban outdoor aesthetics… are about, conjure up, are associated with… to be continued…

What wilOn the left, wood sculptor and friend Randy Colbath. To the right, the first other person who added to the installation; he opened it and left the key.What will you add?

If you’d like to add your own thoughts, feelings, drawings…  you can do so during my artist talk on June 1st (starting at 1pm).

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