Candy Chang didn’t set out to create a memorial to her late friend Joan, who had been like a mother to her for 15 years before she died.
To deal with the loss, Chang set out to find a way for people to avoid hiding from the realities of death. She made a stencil that read “Before I die I want to” and painted the side of an abandoned building in her neighborhood with the prompt. Almost immediately messages flooded the wall, with people leaving notes about their wildest dreams and simplest goals.
“There was this big commonality,” said Laura-Susan Thomas, director of the Ann Foxworthy Gallery in Santa Maria. “Even though you don’t know who wrote it, what they looked like, or what their walk of life was, you can actually find all these common bonds in what was important to everyone.”
Messages that dotted the wall in New Orleans were diverse, sometimes humorous, and often heartbreaking. “I want to swim without holding my nose.” “I want to name a star.” “I want to live with the Amish.” “I want to see equality.”
Today, Before I Die is a global art project with more than 4,000 walls set up in 71 countries. Messages appear in more than 30 languages, as museums, galleries, community centers, and other public forums invite people to leave their own words. The Foxworthy Gallery is the latest gallery to partake in Before I Die, bringing Chang’s project to Santa Maria and inviting the general public to leave their own messages of support.
“Chang created this exhibit in her hometown of New Orleans to help bring her community together,” Thomas said. “It was huge, the amount of people who participated. It was more than just leaving a resolution for the year. It was about finding the big thing that was important to each person.”
Thomas said the project will feature an opportunity for gallery visitors to do more than just view art. As part of a larger global initiative, images from the wall will be loaded up to the Before I Die project website.
There is a kiosk outside the gallery that also invites participation and once inside the gallery, there are eight boards for messages placed on the walls and a large booth in the center. The project is in English and Spanish as well, Thomas said.
But the goal of the project isn’t just to leave inspiring messages or share quips about wanting to have tea with the queen of England. A broader aim of Before I Die is to find ways to reduce the stigma of talking about death and dying. Project organizers hope the wall will help people become more comfortable talking about mortality–even their own.
One of the things that attracted Thomas to the Before I Die project was that it opened up ways to let viewers and gallery attendees be part of an installation, making it more accessible.
“It’s an opportunity to be part of an art piece,” Thomas explained. “To do some introspective thinking at the beginning of the year, and it should lead beautifully into some other exhibits we’re having throughout the year.”
One of the gallery’s plans is to bring Before I Die walls to the Open Streets festival in Santa Maria later this year, again allowing the public to interact with and write messages on it. Thomas said opportunities such as that allow art normally confined to within the gallery’s walls to have another life and engage with community members who may not have previously had a chance to see the walls.
In conjunction with the show, the gallery is also hosting a Community Art Afternoon on Jan. 24. The activity is planned so visitors can learn more about the original creator, Chang, as well as to see more images of Before I Die walls from other parts of the world.
“It’s just a really great way to engage with your neighbors and with art,” Thomas said. “Even if you don’t want to write, it’s a way for people to learn more about who the people in their community are.”
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose is walled up. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 17-24, 2019.