#500randomactsofbeauty
In the frigid Toronto winter of 2013, I purchased a blanket with the intention of donating it to someone living on the streets. Before finding an individual to give it to, my friends and I rode the trains several times over the course of a couple of weeks, approaching as many strangers as possible, telling them what we were doing, and inviting them to write positive, encouraging messages on it. On certain days it was so cold that it took a lot to convince myself to make the journey from where I was living in Mississauga, which meant walking twenty minutes to the bus stop, waiting for the bus in the cold, and then taking the train down from Kipling, all while lugging this hefty duvet. And then there was the awkwardness of approaching strangers and making sure to keep our energy up despite the rejection we often faced. But I’m so glad I saw it through, and so grateful for my friends like @freemase@alimamaaand@assayaheals who helped out, because this ended up being one of my favorite random acts of beauty. What made it so amazing to me was that not only did we feel really good doing it, but every stranger who agreed to be part of it was clearly touched by the idea as well, so a lot of good vibes were spread during this process. At the end of each day my friends and I were just about floating with joy. By the time we donated the blanket there was no more room to write on it and not only was it covered with positive words but it was infused with a lot of positive energy as well.
In hindsight I definitely should have called this random act of beauty The Comforter
It was 2011 and I’d decided to start a humanitarian street art project called 500 random acts of beauty to add a bit of unexpected love and kindness to everyday life. I worked on the first several acts without telling anyone in my life what I was doing. For the 3rd random act of beauty, I went to the library and found a book about being bullied at school. I wrote an anonymous letter of encouragement to a child who might choose that book because they were being bullied and stuck the letter inside the pages of the book, hoping they’d come across it. For the 2nd random act of beauty I wrote a poem and hung it on the bare walls of a long corridor in an office building, and for the 5th random act of beauty I took some of my photographic prints and hung them inside the stalls of a public bathroom―both of these acts were executed to add art to mundane and unexpected places.
The 7th random act of beauty was the first one that required me to actually approach a stranger, which was definitely a step out of my comfort zone. I wrote a thank you note to a custodian at a nearby strip mall that said, “You’re doing a great job. Lunch is on me today,” and stuck a $20 bill inside of it. I asked my sister to film from a distance and after several moments of hesitation I finally gathered the courage to approach her. I went up to her, smiled as I handed her the envelope, and then walked away as quickly as I could. When I watched the footage my sister had captured, I saw the woman open the card, read it, and then wipe tears from her eyes.
After I’d completed a handful of these acts, I decided to share the project online, with the hope of inspiring others to do their own random acts of kindness. Right before I posted it I felt a bit of anxiety, second guessing myself and thinking that maybe people would find this idea stupid. I went ahead with my decision to post it despite the fear I was feeling, and in the split second before I pressed “post” to share the announcement on Facebook, I heard a voice of guidance, of knowing, speak to me for the first time in my life. It said, “ , .” I pressed the button.
Pictured here is the 4th random act of beauty which is admittedly rudimentary in appearance, part of why I felt shy about the project, but even in this moment years later, I can say that if I came across something like this as I was about to cross the street, it would bring a smile to my face. A reminder that things don’t have to be perfect or cost a lot of money in order to make an impact.
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The Idea That Changed My Life || My awakening inspired within me the longing to bring hope to people’s lives, but I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it until one evening a short while later. I was hanging out with @tungztwisted when he put on the movie Exit Through The Gift Shop, Banksy’s Academy Award nominated documentary. I knew very little about Banksy at the time and I rarely watch movies, so I was unenthused about it and my mind began to drift before he even pressed play. But in the opening credits alone, these lyrics by @RichardHawley hit me like a bolt of lightning:
“Those people, they got nothing in their souls
And they make our TVs blind us
From our vision and our goals
Oh, the trigger of time it tricks you
So you have no way to grow
But do you know that tonight the streets are ours
These lights in our hearts they tell no lies.”
All of a sudden this film had my full attention. I’d never heard music like that, music with a message trying to awaken people. But then again my awakening had only recently happened and my eyes and ears were newly opened to receiving messages like these. As the movie progressed, I watched as these street artists used their art to create powerful messages of rebellion, subversion and disruption. That’s when it clicked for me and I sat straight up. Sean noticed this and intuitively, brilliantly, handed me a notepad and a pencil and said, “Write.” And I did. I couldn’t stop the ideas from flowing and couldn’t seem to write them all down fast enough.
Finally it all came together: I was going to create what I called a ‘humanitarian street art project’, using my art to anonymously create messages that would inspire hope. I knew that so many people in this world were hurting and I wanted to do something to let them know someone cared about them; I had learned firsthand that there was something so powerful about being on the receiving end of unexpected kindness, specifically when it was coming from a stranger. The project came to be called ‘500 random acts of beauty: the pursuit of positive change through beautiful thinking’ and I committed to dreaming up and executing 500 acts that would add positivity to the world, even if it took me my whole life to do them. In fact I hoped it would take me my whole life, because that meant it would keep my mind in a state of looking for opportunities to do so―a state of beautiful thinking. Most of all what I hoped was that it would create a ripple effect, that when someone was on the receiving end of one of these acts of kindness, they would be inspired to do the same for someone else, the same way woman at the train station in New York had done for me.
It was this idea and the decision to act on it that completely altered the course of my life.
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