BRATTLEBORO — A teenage boy got off the bus recently in downtown Brattleboro. With blue headphones on and bopping to his own music, he picked up a piece of one-inch-thick chalk and wrote on a high black wall that he was grateful for “life.” Another person walking by gave him a thumbs-up, and the teen continued down Flat Street.
Through the installation of her Walls of Gratitude - the centerpiece of a larger show she curated, Watching Angels - Margaret “Meg” Donahue has recently found out that some of her neighbors were grateful for bus drivers or socks; others, for homeless guys, sunshine, and autumn's colors.
Donahue, a local artist in her forties, designed the interactive, inclusive, participatory, public art project in the form of two large slate blackboards to be installed for a month in different locations in downtown Brattleboro. Each of the boards poses the question: What are you grateful for?
Below that query, she provides space for a many as 35 musings from the public to complete the sentence: I'm grateful for_________.
Donahue knew she wouldn't be able to control the content of her walls, but she has been impressed by the range of responses. “Every day is a discovery,” she said.
She prefers the Flat Street location (the other wall is in Harmony parking lot) because it's within the triangle between the bus station, downtown, and the Brattleboro Food Co-op. She likes the mix of “people with different socioeconomic levels in this place.”
Among the more common expressions of gratitude - which also include “Mom,” “faith,” and “to serve our country” - was one for “the people that created this wall.” That acknowledgment made Donahue beam with enjoyment.
But, as she recently said, “it has not been all kittens and rainbows.” Neighbors have also expressed gratitude for such forces in their lives as “free porn,” “the crack rock in Alex's pocket,” and “forgetting my Miranda rights.”
Donahue went through dozens of meetings and bureaucratic hoops, such as those of the planning commission, the art commission, and the Selectboard. The police and fire departments had to sign off. Insurance liability issues had to be resolved. There were meetings with site owners and business leaders.
A Kickstarter campaign brought in a little over $8,000 in donations for costs such as fabrication, maintenance, insurance, and permits.
As part of the fundraising campaign, she posted an explanation of what the wall would do.
“We build our big wall of gratitude: Because being grateful makes you feel good! It's been said that happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.
“That is where our Big Wall of Gratitude comes in. It is a place to celebrate what you have now, a public shout-out to the universe and anyone who reads it, of what you love and are grateful for in your life.”
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The second morning of the month-long exhibit, Donahue met a homeless man named Kevin as she came to wash the boards.
“He wanted to help out and has returned every morning since,” she says.
The two have made an effective, if unlikely, team with an easy rapport. From the back of Donahue's car, they unloaded buckets filled with water and vinegar, squeegees and towels.
A routine of maintenance has developed.
First, Donahue takes a photo of any memorable sayings and then a picture of herself and Kevin in front of a full board and holding the day's number in her hand. Then they get to washing the boards. They refill the chalk buckets that hang on the wall, and they maintain the sidewalk on Flat Street.
The process takes about 30 minutes for each board.
“I like that it changes daily, even hourly,” she says. “I estimate as many as 300 a day participate in the interactive art project. This is the most public art I've ever done.”
The morning I joined them, there was chalk art filling in every corner of the boards. (Both are 10 feet high; one is 24 feel long and the other, 16 feet long.)
I saw doodles, graffiti, drawings and many words to express gratitude. People frequently drew over previous sayings; Donahue suspects that happens mostly at night when fewer people are about, there is less free space on the boards, and there is the cover of darkness.
Donahue is not sure where this project has taken her art.
“I'm not entirely sure what this has meant to me yet. I know I'll miss it when it's gone,” she says.
“Nothing lewd, crude, or socially inappropriate,” reports Kevin as he washes away the previous day's gratitude.
That morning was bright and sunny as only fall in New England can be. There was still a nip in the air, as the saying goes. Washing the board is a little bit like when the tide comes in at night: whatever was there gets washed away by the water.
Then Donahue picks up the chalk and contributes the first musing of the day in the upper-left-hand corner of the wall to express what she is grateful for.
“A clean slate every day!” she writes.