None of Your Business

Year: 2012 - Ongoing

Press: Ext. 1708, Hand in glove. by Amber Esseiva
 

In the project, None of Your Business, I invite myself to be a care-taker for the communities that I encounter. I make subtle and anonymous improvements in places that I come to care about. 

None of Your Business: Coffee Shop

 

At the coffee shop to which I go everyday in Richmond, VA, I replace the paper cup holding their toothpicks with my own ceramic espresso cup. Two weeks later, they switched the paper cups holding their straw to mugs. I took this as a good sign.

 
 

None of Your Business: Please Ring Cowbell for Service

 

 

In rural Vermont, I often visited businesses where no one was at the counter. I decided to leave a cowbell anonymously at these places. I painted the name of each establishment on the back of the bell, and on the front, “Please Ring Cowbell for Service.”

 
 

None of Your Business: Art Show for the Bakery

 

 

While at an arts residency in rural Vermont, I became a regular at the popular local bakery. 

As one reviewer puts it, the bakery is “pleasantly cluttered with homey decor”- the walls are full of a mix of local art, kids drawings and snapshots.

I decided to anonymously curate an art show in the bakery. I collected works from past artists-in-residence who were also big fans of the bakery and little by little, I surreptitiously install the show among the existing art. One day I noticed that they had adjusted the arrangement of one of the drawings in the show.  I took this as a good sign.