A gallery of HOPE

Saturday, January 3, 2015



HOPE Outdoor Gallery

If you find yourself in Austin, TX try and make it a point to stop by HOPE Outdoor Gallery. You'll find a large lot of land with nothing but shrubs and tall concrete walls lined parallel to each other up the slope of a steep hill. Whatever this place use to be no longer exist and in its place stands an outdoor museum of painted artwork covering the concrete walls. A place were anyone can come and leave their mark as long as they bring a can of spray paint with them. Some might call it a graffiti junk yard, but the place is magic. A mixture of large and small painted murals, that once used to stand bold and tell a loud story, covered the walls. I couldn't help but notice that much of the beautiful artwork was disappearing under the marks left by newer visitors, fighting to be noticed under the "MATTHEW WAS HERE" or "CASEY HEARTS JOHN"spray painted  in amateur handwriting.

Some of the murals were harder to see underneath all of the names people layered on top. I questioned how anyone could ruin someone else's magnificent art work just to have their name on a wall; but it occurred to me how deeply we all want to be part the bigger picture in life, how most of us hope to leave something behind when we leave this earth.
Maybe so many of us are connected by this, we want to leave our name and make our mark, to tell the world "hey we were here!" we want people  to know that we exist and feel as much as they do.

I think the biggest marks we'll ever make are on the people we are surrounded by. We have the opportunity to love and encourage everyone we talk to; our words matter.  One of my favorite authors says that words not only have shelf life but they have the ability to shape life and I am so sure of this.

























HELLO 2015
Saying goodbye to the absolute best year of my entire life so far, and welcoming in the new year.
Its scary leaving such an incredible year behind but I get to carry all the experiences and memories and friendships with me into 2015 and that alone is exciting.