The city of Richmond is hosting an unusual art show featuring more than three dozen doors. They’re on display across town, and sponsors have offered a prize for people who can find and photograph all forty of them.
Andrea Butler is with Virginia Supportive Housing – a non-profit real estate developer determined to help the homeless in Charlottesville, Hampton Roads and Richmond. There are about 800 people in the state’s capital who live in shelters or on the street, and when the organization began work on one of its buildings, Butler had an idea.
“We were renovating one of our properties in south Richmond, and the project manager said, ‘You know we’ve got a lot of doors coming out of this building, and it would be a shame to not do something with them.'”
She did an Internet search, looking for what could be done with doors, and she came across a story from Beloit, Wisconsin.
“They had 46 doors from a historic hotel and they had artists paint them, and they had an Instagram component so that people could take photographs and post them and win prizes.”
So Butler phoned a community group called Art on Wheels, hoping to find people willing to take the doors and paint on them. Each artist would portray the story of a Virginia Supportive Housing client, and Kevin Orlosky took the call. He was glad to personalize the experience of people in need of shelter.
“This is not somebody who is just a derelict. It’s someone who had a life, probably had a good job and just had some misfortunes happen -- substance abuse, job loss or just very unfortunate situations – things that could have happened to any one of us.”
62-year-old Robert Terry Yates Briggs is one of the clients profiled. He’d been through some hard times and was happy to share his story of trouble and triumph.
“A lot of it was my pride and my ego. I didn’t want to admit that I had problems. My family was old fashioned, and when I got deeper into drugs and alcohol, they pushed me aside. Were you working at the time? Yes. I worked at Reynolds metal for 20 years. I thought I was high echelon – making good money, so I was acting like everyone else. You made good money. Now you want to experiment with cocaine, and see I didn’t think that it would do me the way it did.”
He spent four years living on the street, in shelters or with family and at one point contracted pneumonia.
“I couldn’t eat. It was my fault, because I just laid there sick, not wanting to go to the hospital and I did that for about 30 days, and by the time I did get there I was about 117 pounds, down from 193.”
Today, thanks to Virginia Supportive Housing, he’s got a place of his own.
It felt real good to have a key you can put into your own door.”
Briggs story and those of 40 others are now told on cards posted beside each of 41 doors around town, and Virginia Supportive Housing has offered a prize to the first three people who can find and photograph all of them. Winners are eligible for VIP tickets to NASCAR, a night at the Marriott, champagne brunch at the Jefferson or tickets to see the Flying Squirrels play baseball. Again, Andrea Butler.
“People are finding parts of the city that they didn’t know existed, and I think a lot of people are falling in love with Richmond all over again.”
And for those who fall in love with the art, an auction is planned for mid-October. The proceeds will, of course, benefit the homeless.
