Gardens Eye View Blog – A Graffiti Experiment Fence Champion
The Graffiti Experiment continues in Winter! It is a project intended to inspire positive community unity and beautiful art instead of displaying hate or negativity in our urban neighborhoods. Champions for the project have donated money to help pay the fines my homeowners association charged me in order to help keep the painted fence experiment up for a longer period of time. In special thanks to the champions who are helping me to save the painted fence and supporting my peaceful protest against gang graffiti, I am writing a “Feature of the Month” blog post focused on the champion or the champion’s blog, cause, or company. This is February’s feature.
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When I first used art to cover graffiti on my back fence, I thought I was trying to discover a different way to fight gang violence. Since that first story I posted asking for people’s help so I could try to keep the fence up for two years to see if the experiment might work, I have been blown away by the outpouring of support and love surrounding the thought behind the experiment. This is no longer JUST about gang violence prevention – it’s about people coming together. Last months post about Tina Koral and her The GardenWorks Project inspired Immanual Food Pantry , the local food pantry I donated 150 pounds of food from the front lawn vegetable garden this year, to reach out to Tina for assistance. Because of that contact they will be building a front lawn vegetable community garden at the church in order to touch more people in our community in 2014. I am so darned happy – it made me cry.
Along with people doing good for one another, another result has been that I have met some AMAZING people who are concerned about community who donated to this project in order to make a difference. One of those people is Donna Abel Donabella who writes the Gardens Eye View blog. Donna lives in New York in Zone 5b and writes about gardening. Her garden advice is excellent and her photos are breathtaking – see her gorgeous spring flowers to inspire some warmth this season below.
Please go out and follow the Gardens Eye View blog at this LINK. I hope you will all enjoy Donna’s blog as much as I do. Thank you for sponsoring the fence this month, Donna. I appreciate your support.
Thanks for the blog love. And I really love the way this has grown into so much more with the collaboration of Tina and the Immanual Food Pantry. I hope that with my sharing of this wonderful experiment you can continue to inspire others and maybe your homeowners association to change their minds.
I keep saying it and I mean it, you are a huge inspiration to me and so many Shawna!!
I’m so excited to see what happens next. Because of the pollinator symbols that Peter painted on the designs, I have a renewed excitement over pollinators and have been getting a ton of requests to cover them more. I’m gonna do it!!!!! Without the fence none of this would have ever happened. I’m so grateful for the fact I put the fence paint up in the first place. I’m still paying the fines and hope my HOA will come around, but until then – we’ll make the best of it and do even more to inspire positive change.
LOVE YOUR WORK DONNA! Keep growing and writing about it. I appreciate your kind words and generous donation and will keep cheering you on. 🙂