Posted: Conversation(s) Three in a Series

I began writing letters, and later the Dear John experiment, in an effort to share more of myself with others. Those "others" were friends, they were loved ones, they were anyone who had encouraged me to grow and challenged me to question my perspective. But if sharing more with more was my pursuit, I was forced to consider: What would happen if I shared my thoughts, my fears, my faults, my faiths with strangers? What would happen if I increased my vulnerability to a public scale? What would happen if we all chose to make ourselves more vulnerable? Would we celebrate each other? Would we shun one another? 

Previous installations were pasted (and posted) anonymously.  A viewer could learn about me from my letters (or perhaps this blog), but beyond that there was little connection.  If my hope was to encourage neighbors, strangers, and community members to open up (share some conversation) and become more vulnerable (expose their soft underbellies), I must do the same.  If I was to connect with someone without my own cloak of Chameleonism, the final series of letters needed to be an open, honest, public display.  And I had to be there.  A face to the words, a voice to the letters.  A conversation, if desired, to be shared.  

At the corner of Frenchmen and Decatur on a sweaty Sunday afternoon, more than 60 letters were strung and hung from a second story balcony to the street below.  Drifting in the breeze, the strung letters invited passers-by, travelers, tourists, locals, the curious and the concerned to walk amid the words that chronicle my evolution and tear them off should one happen to surprise them.

I dreamed that the Dear John experiment might serve as an invitation for conversation.  I hoped it might offer a platform for some neighborly discussion.  I am fond to wish that maybe a handwritten letter hanging on a string might inspire someone somewhere to write a letter of their own to someone somewhere, a little more of someone shared with each pen, each paper, and each envelope. How successful the endeavor, I might never know.

Instead, the success of the experiment came from those I encountered who so wonderfully shared their time and space with me, and it was I who was reminded that when we open up, the world opens up with us.  To all those, the friends and the strangers who chose to engage in Conversation(s) Three, I wish to express my gratitude.

With Great Affection,

Camille 

Rebecca