idea with people that is not fully
formulated in your brain yet can be
slightly terrifying but what if we put
fear aside for a second and did go ahead
and share that idea and we share it with
friends and family and we share it with
the UPS guy that delivered your parcels
and then we shared it with our kids
teachers and then what would happen if
that idea eventually ended up in the
hands of perfect strangers in cities and
towns that we’d never visited before and
maybe one day all the way across the
world in a country had never even been
before in 2012 I was living in a small
town in the deep south country in in
Louisiana about an hour north of New
Orleans and it was idyllic I lived on 10
acres we had a pond there was grass
there was trees there was bird singing
there was not big malls it was the
typical and what you would consider
country life but it wasn’t long we
weren’t living there that long before we
realized that every two to three days I
was picking up litter off the side of
the highway this image right here is my
highway at the time so there’s something
about this that was a complete contrast
to why I was moving to the country so I
hate litter I’ve always hated litter I’m
annoyed by it I’m annoyed by people
dropping it I don’t understand why it’s
there at the time I was Coralville way
through my MFA in graphic design and
starting to sort of go online and
figuring out what was I going to do with
my MFA what was I going to spend my time
doing and I came across this quote that
said I think it was Lily Tomlin who said
I always wondered why someone didn’t do
something about that and then I realized
I was somebody well here I was as a
signer in the middle of the country
there’s some litter on the side of the
road why doesn’t somebody do something
about that maybe I should do something
about that but what do you do so I’ve
been a designer for 20 years up until
this point and I always considered
design as a tool for some kind of
message we were always problem-solving
and but when we solve the problems we
use traditional methods to do that so we
would design something on a billboard or
a flyer which was litter incidentally
and I thought I wanted to do something
different so what if I took the litter
that was on the side of my highway and
used it to address the litter issue how
would I do that I went to the local
hardware store in town and thought about
how I could collect the litter in some
kind of material and then form it into
some kind of shape or message again I
was in the country chicken wire is
everywhere so chicken wire it was gonna
be it was cheap it was easy to get I
didn’t know what I was gonna do with it
but I went back home and stared at this
chicken wire for awhile and the seven
bags of litter that I’d picked up off
the highway I thought what the heck am I
going to do so my son at the time was
about three or four and the great thing
about young children is they don’t
question your sanity so I I came out the
house and I said to him would you call
on the back porch with me for a second
and how about we try and make something
out of this litter and he’s like yeah
cool mom let’s do it again
so I knew I had one supporter so what
you’re seeing right here is the first
prototypes that I started off with where
do I start
ABC right it seems so simple at the time
they’re a little crude they got better
but what was different about this was I
started sharing the ideas while I was
working on them and that really sort of
kind of made me progress into
thinking about what do other people
think about this issue and always been a
big fan of that whole cliche that says
think globally act locally lit is a huge
issue its massive its global it’s too
big
how am I going to fix that I can’t fix
that I can’t think that way but maybe if
I just focus on my little stretch of
highway my little part of the world but
in my little part of the world there
were other people in that part of the
world so so I took this idea to some of
the local schools and said you know at
the very least it could be this art
project we can go in there and we can
talk about litter and we can make some
these are country kids right so I’m
going in there to sort of give this
instruction on how to build something
these are country kids that make chicken
coops on the weekend right so they know
how to mold this stuff so they were they
were teaching me this is how you do it
and so on and this tool works better and
so on like this so but what had happened
in the actually process of building
these were the conversations about the
litter what did we feel about it how do
we care do we care how does it how does
it end up on the side of the road and so
on the conversations were going while we
was making stuff so I got to this point
where I was making these letters and
these words kept coming into the
conversations all the time care thing
respect pride change why all these
things that people felt about the issue
and here I was saying well this has cut
me a tool that you can use to address
that issue what about if we make some of
these words that you are thinking about
so what you’re seeing right here are the
two-foot tall letters that we initially
built and actually looks a little bit
more later like letter form so not quite
so cringing looking at these so I then
thought that well if I’m just making
these letters and going into schools and
they’re 2 foot tall and I’m putting them
on the side of a high
way well you drive down the highway at
55 miles an hour you’re not gonna see
these things right so I’m gonna have to
think a little bit bigger at the time I
had immersed myself in my community I
got involved in some local organizations
there were really very grassroots type
of organizations that were trying to do
something about the litter trying to get
people engaged and they were tired and
they’d run out of ideas and I went there
and I said hey how about you try this
this might be an idea and they said well
that’s all very well and good but how am
I going to do that we have no money I
had the opportunity through through
going to some recycling lunch in New
Orleans and I met the people that keep
Louisiana beautiful and they invited me
to come and share this idea again scary
right standing there with a two-foot
tall letter saying hey how about you
think about this as a project so I did
that I can’t think out to pitch it in
about seven minutes or something like
that was like speed dating almost so I
did that and thought well that’s
probably the end of it you know they’re
not going to put money into this thing
right but they did they came up to me at
the end of the conference and they said
you know we’ve got some money we can
share with we can share that with you
and but you have to do it through an
organization and you have to write a
grant and so on and I don’t know if
anybody here has written the grant but
they asked you a bunch of questions on
that grant that I didn’t know the
answers to like how much is it going to
cost
where are they going to go who are the
people that you’re going to work with I
don’t know the answers to any of those
things so this was an idea I’d got the
money and but I still didn’t know the
answers to all these questions but guess
what the community did so I I gave I
gave my time and energy into putting the
idea into their hands and what happened
was sort of like an organic process they
there was somebody on the board that
said we can we can do welding there was
someone on the board that says we have
the landfill we can do the space there
was the mayor on the board that says we
can put it up and the idea was starting
to become this real thing so
what you’re seeing right here is the
prison system I know sounds a bit absurd
but our prison system welded the letters
into a six-foot-tall framing for us so
still using the chicken wire is the
basic prototype that I said I’ve already
created about six months prior so the
system was just the same but the framing
allowed it to sort of stand and be
sturdy what you’re seeing right here
again is the six foot the first word of
pride pride was the word that came up
all the time in every conversation we
had and this was in Louisiana in April
and I don’t know if you’ve been to
Louisiana in April but it’s hot it’s
disgusting
Lee Hart I was sat it I was stood in a
landfill we were dealing with a lot of
litter in a building that had no
air-conditioning it didn’t smell very
good it didn’t feel very good and I was
super excited about it and I was like
this is a six-foot-tall letter R I am
fired up
people were saying are you sure this is
a good thing to do what’s gonna happen
when these things get out of there and I
said you know what it’s okay say it’ll
be fine he’ll be fine you know so there
was this kind of I was helping them they
were helping me we were we were
questioning it even while we’d already
had it approved so it was still being
developed along the way so almost a year
to the day since I had this crazy idea
in my head these went out on public view
in the town of Franklinton in Louisiana
and Washington Parish and they caused a
stir some people love this thing some
people didn’t like it so much I had
lawyers they came up to me and said I
cannot believe you’ve taken the litter
off the side of the road and you’ve
placed it there across my lawyer’s
office I don’t want to see that and I
say guess what
neither do I so it basically what
happened was it was a series of
conversations that allowed this project
to instill own
ship in the project so everyone that had
placed at there by this point we had
something like I don’t know forty fifty
people had put their hands on this and I
always believe when you put your hands
on a project you own it it belongs to
you we went ahead and fulfilled the
grant and we made several other words in
there in the in the parish and I thought
that was the end of it I went to Vermont
I finished my MFA I graduated I took the
six book question mark to Vermont so I
took the litter from Louisiana on a
little vacation to Vermont that is that
sit in the box and on the way back down
I had posted the all the things that
we’ve done in Washington Parish and Keep
America Beautiful I’d seen it on social
media and they contact me and they said
this is kind of intriguing can we can we
talk about this and I said of course I
said actually I’m in a u-haul and I’ve
got a six-foot question mark and how
about a drop in your offices in
Connecticut and show you so this picture
in the in the middle is my husband
lifting the six-foot question mark and
keep America’s beautiful office they
then presented the idea of maybe we can
we maybe we can showcase this idea on on
Keep America Beautiful website are you
okay with that I said absolutely Sharon
Sharon two days later I was still on the
way back down from Vermont and somebody
from Tennessee called me and said I’m
really interested I saw this on Keep
America Beautiful site and again I said
hey guess what I can drive through
Tennessee so this picture right here is
me standing in a winn-dixie parking lot
in the middle of Tennessee with a
six-foot question mark talking to a
perfect stranger yay don’t we all do
that every day so she said I’m so
intrigued with this idea I love it is
there any way I can do it can I can I do
my version of it and I said not only can
you do your version of it I’m gonna help
you do this thing I don’t know how but
we’re gonna we’re going to get this done
so three months after our conversation
they had little letters in Pigeon Forge
Tennessee
and it’s kind of snowballed from there
so because it’s been on social media and
people have seen the idea they have
they’ve used it for several different
purposes so it’s been used for small
events with small groups of people with
kids that age for up through to their
grandparents and then it’s used for much
larger events for like 600 people and so
on so it’s across the board some people
have used it for literal wareness some
people have used these as vessels to
contain recycling materials so it’s been
used it’s the same project but it’s been
it’s been used differently in every in
every city so as of right now on I’m
standing here right now
I have little letters in over 30 cities
in the United States across six states
and they’re all little different they
all are a true reflection of the
collaboration that is involved in their
city in their town they met they we are
profoundly connected together because
it’s the same idea I had on my back
porch with my four-year-old but again
they’ve been used for different purposes
and they belong to them this is a gift I
gifted this to them and this is what
they created
so in terms of outcomes what does this
all mean well I know that in certain
places it has reduced the litter I know
that in many places they have been able
to identify the way the issues are with
the litter so if there’s certain
fast-food restaurants in a certain
location when they’re actually on view
and the in the letters you can see so
you can sort of identify but Keep
America Beautiful comes back to me and
says sorry they came back to me and they
the mission that they have that says
people on places are profoundly
interconnected you know change happens
change is not an event it’s a process
collaboration is the key so there’s
if I can leave you with anything today
it’s to say that you know it’s a gift if
you have these ideas if you’re sitting
here and there’s an idea there’s a
little tiny seed of an idea in your mind
go share it with somebody share it with
20 people share it with 30 people maybe
15 if those 30 people will be on your
side and they’ll help you make it happen
thank you [Applause]