The HousEART Project, a Smith Hill Community Development Corporation initiative, denied my project proposal as pictured above in a digital mockup. Their website describes HousEART as “… a community-wide transformative art project.  It connects artists with neighborhood volunteers in order to bring life and color to foreclosed, vacant houses…”  Their “call for artists” specs granted those awarded a $400 stipend and one or two assistants from the local neighborhood to help each artist. Not bad, eh?

Long story short, my project would have consisted of site-specific paintings, looking much like what my current work is now, garnished around the facade of the foreclosed building. They would have been placed anywhere but locations that may be used for exterior decoration (hence, almost anywhere I wanted, but I gotta give myself some boundaries). The paintings would have remained to run parallel with the structure’s neglect, becoming a marker for change or a lack thereof. Their eventual and hopeful complete removal would have signaled a move toward positive development of the property and neighborhood. Yeahhhh!!

It was worth a shot. Can’t get ’em all. What’s good news w/out bad news? Right? Right!