‘We’re trying here’
Macdonaldtown, Sydney. October 2015. Brigitta Ryan.
About six years ago, I had the idea to document homemade No Parking signs in Sydney. This past month I decided to do it*.
I love these signs. I love them because they're always breaking all the rules I learned in design school. I love them because they're hand made, made by non-professionals, cobbled together with left over paint, cheap bits of plastic and sheer hope that they will work.
They're everywhere in our city landscape and perhaps under appreciated. You Can't Park Here is my chance to find them, share them and appreciate them, and I invite you to do the same.
Brigitta Ryan, October 5 2015.
*Six years(!!) I hung onto this idea and never actually made anything with it. It was one of those ideas that seemed too easy to do, so easy to get to 'one day'. But then I listened to both Magic Lessons and Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She has this theory that ideas are like creative partners. What if you had a creative partner who ignored you for six years? You probably wouldn't stick around that long, you'd have left about one month in. No one wants to be ignored. But this idea didn't leave after a month of being ignored, it stayed with me for six long years. When I recognised this I wanted to honour the idea for being patient with me, for not running away or getting lost elsewhere in my mind. So I got to work.
I've walked past this gate, with it's cobbled together signs, every work day for the past 2 years. And every time I passed it this idea has leapt to the front of my mind 'I'm here! Come work with me'. It made sense that these signs would be the first I share with the world.
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