After six months and thousands of responses, the original Before I Die wall was fading and ready to go so we decided to put it to rest. We covered it in white and a small quotation from Wendell Pierce that has stayed with me since he spoke at TEDxNOLA. Thank you to everyone who poured their hearts out onto these weathered boards. Your dreams made me laugh out loud, tear up, and feel consolation during my own tough times. We showed how powerful our public spaces can be if we are given the opportunity to have a voice and share with one another. As others have said, it’s about realizing that everyone is different and yet so much the same. It’s about knowing you’re not alone. It’s about understanding your neighbors in a new and enlightening way. It’s about learning how open we can be when we let our guard down and consider why we want to be alive in the world today.

From the ashes come more… We recently helped install a wall with 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, NH, and will soon be installing a wall in Mexico when I give a talk at the Factor Clave 2011 Visión Diseño Conference. And the Before I Die Toolkit is now available! People have already created their own walls over the past few months and we hope the toolkit will now help make this easier and affordable. Send us your photos – we’re compiling them online and into a book so we can share the hopes and dreams of our communities with one another. With every wall, the design of our public spaces can better reflect what’s important to us as a community and as individuals.