THE STREETS - Issue Eleven

THE STREETS

ISSUE ELEVEN

"Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist."

– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

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40

60

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104

Who is in THE STREETS

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EDITOR’S LETTER

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PERSPECTIVES 14 Patty Jansen 28 Jennifer McKinnon Richman 40 Dániel Horváth

INTERSECTIONS 60 The Old and the New 78 The Dream Continues 104 Art Regeneration

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Who is in THE STREETS

"I get really hopeful when I see young people fight for their ideals and willing to take risks for them." – Patty Jansen

"I love wandering the streets of a city and capturing the little details that are often overlooked." – Jennifer McKinnon Richman

"I love connections." – Meredith M Howard

"I have to say I am in the right place." – Dániel Horváth "Our greatest successes in helping people get off the streets is when we see relationships built between two groups of people that would never cross paths." – Terence Lester

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Front cover photo Dániel Horváth (featuring Trevor Stuurman) Back cover photo Meredith M Howard Editor and Creative Director Meredith M Howard Creative and Digital Assistant Eva Howard Special thanks to Christi Rhyne and Sarah Estes Contributors and collaborators Patty Jansen Jennifer McKinnon Richman Dániel Horváth Terence Lester Matt Yung Ali Braithwaite

Website www.thestreetsmag.com Email info@thestreetsmag.com Instagram @thestreetsmagazine Publisher Meredith M Howard LLC ISSN 2476-0927

All work is copyrighted to the photographer, artist, or author.

No part of this magazine may be used without permission of THE STREETS.

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E D I T O R ’ S

L E T T E R

I love connections, and this Issue was like coming full circle – several full circles, in fact – back to the 2017 Collection and further back to the very first Issue. I was recently asked on a podcast, "How do street style and homelessness go together in the same magazine?" This question is exactly why I like the image of the street. The street does not know the difference between the feet of a fashionista and the feet of a person wearing the layers of everything they own. The street is a great leveler of society. It reminds us that we are all in this together.

One could ask – In the face of homelessness, isn't fashion frivolous?

My answer is – Yes . . but its frivolity points us to something greater. As human beings, we have a lot of very practical needs. But what makes us human is the stuff that is more than practical.

"Even if we would agree that beauty is not necessary for our daily survival, it is still necessary for our flourishing."

– Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care

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Picolo Diop on the right

I recently had the opportunity to visit Italy where things have stood the test of time because of their beauty and craftsmanship. Unintentionally, my trip overlapped Pitti Uomo, a trade show for men's sartorial fashion, where I had the pleasure of meeting several people who have appeared in previous Issues of THE STREETS, including Picolo Diop who appeared on the cover of the 2017 Collection. Because these men and women are devoted to their craft and only see each other twice a year, the vibe of the event was like a very well-dressed family reunion – a family that happens to have members from Italy, France, Senegal, South Africa, Namibia, Russia, Canada, Australia, Japan and the USA.

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Editor's Letter THE STREETS talks a lot about building bridges, and Pitti was such a great example of how art can build bridges between people from different parts of the world. Fashion, which can be seen as frivolous and unnecessary, provides common ground for people to come together and build relationships. The very suits that Picolo crafts by hand are a bridge by combining traditional Italian tailoring with African prints. I see other bridges created when artists donate their time and skill to a weekend of public art (page 104) and when Terence Lester dreams of creative ways to draw attention to social issues (page 78).

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For this Issue, I asked the contributors about their struggles and their hopes. Our lives may look different on the outside, but it seems we all tend to struggle with similar things. And our struggles can sometimes overwhelm us. But the generosity, openness, beauty, and even frivolity of art can give us hope that we can do more than just survive – we can flourish. So, I thank all of the artists (and that includes people who work their 9-to-5 job with any measure of creativity or generosity) because they give us hope every day by pointing us beyond our struggles and toward the "why of living."

– Meredith

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Photograph by Meredith M Howard

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Photograph by Courtney Jones

Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives THE STREETS

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Patty Jansen P h o t o g r a p h e r THE STREETS

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Patty Jansen

Where do you live and what are three words to describe your city?

I live in Amsterdam. The three words to describe my city would be: home, multicultural, world city.

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Patty Jansen Can you tell us a little about yourself and why you take photographs?

I’m a medical doctor working in an academic setting who has specialized in hematopathology. As such, I look through the microscope for hours per day and diagnose and research hematologic diseases such as lymphomas and leukemias. In my profession, I’ve learned to look for patterns, colors, forms, consistencies and aberrancies in human disease. I noticed that when I was walking outside, I looked with a similarly curious eye and felt the urge to document the patterns, different types of people and beauty I saw, so I bought my first decent camera a year ago. Since then, I rarely go out without taking it with me.

Your photographs have strong composition and some of them remind me of a Mondrian painting. Can you tell us how you learned to see compositionally? What are you saying to yourself when you are looking for a scene to photograph?

The eye of the pathologist is trained to move around and explore the whole frame. I'm not sure if that helped me to see in compositions, but it helps in the visual awareness of detail and context. I like lines, patterns and abstractions a lot. I’ve always been fascinated by modern art, and maybe that helped as well. It makes me very shy to be compared with a great painter like Mondrian, of course, although I live in the land where he was born. Maybe I was subconsciously influenced by his work, which I admire very much.

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Patty Jansen

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Patty Jansen

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Patty Jansen Who or what inspires you?

I really don’t have a straight answer to that. Since I started my account on Instagram, I’ve looked at photos posted by other accounts, but mostly as an observer of art, and not primarily to study the photos posted or to be inspired. My own pictures are usually shot on intuition and not constructed or planned. It’s only recently that I’m actively studying some of the photographers I follow on Instagram more closely, as well as the classic and famous photographers like Saul Leiter, Fred Herzog and Ernst Haas to understand why or why not a photo is beautiful and what makes the difference to create something extraordinary. This also has made me a lot more selfconscious, because there now are a lot of pictures I take that I don’t think are good enough – but maybe that’s all part of the learning process and being confronted with sublime and experienced photographers. I also try to comfort myself with the thought that I’ve only really started a year ago.

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Patty Jansen

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Patty Jansen

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Patty Jansen

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What is the biggest struggle that you have overcome (or are working to overcome) in your life?

I think I’m not in the position to call anything in my life a struggle, which is a word I associate with threatening life circumstances like war, famine or other extreme socio-economic circumstances. I would rather think in terms of challenges, like combining work and family life and still find the space for photography, literature, concerts, alone time, etc etc. Of course compared to most of the rest of the world, this is quite a luxurious position.

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Patty Jansen

What gives you hope?

I can get really hopeful when I see young people fight for their ideals and willing to take risks for them. A good example was the founding of the “Never Again” movement by students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February this year, which was spurred by the killing of 17 students and staff members by a gunman and former student of that school, and which sparked demonstrations and unprecedented demands for gun control, resulting in legislative actions.

Follow Patty on Instagram @patty_jansen.

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman

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JENNIFER MCKINNON RICHMAN

Jennifer McKinnon Richman Where do you live and what are three words to describe your city?

I have lived in Atlanta, Georgia for almost 11 years, but I was born and raised on the West Coast.

Historic. Diverse. Developing.

"My original plan was to use my photographs as inspiration for mixed media pieces, but I fell in love with the instant gratification that digital images brought me."

Can you tell us a little about yourself and why you take photographs?

I have always enjoyed piecing things together, whether it was through decoupage (the art of adhering paper to items), quilting (the art of piecing together different fabrics), or collage (the art of layering papers). It wasn't until about five years ago, when my three children were all in elementary school, that I dusted off my Olympus and started to put it to good use. My original plan was to use my photographs as inspiration for mixed media pieces, but I fell in love with the instant gratification that digital images brought me.

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman Over the last few years, I have taken several art classes including drawing, composition, color theory, and collage. In addition, I took photography classes and learned how to use editing software. I approach my photography by shaping each composition as I do a collage. I enjoy capturing small details – focusing on layers created by color, texture, and shapes – and seeing how they interact with one another. But perhaps what I love most about photography is that it forces me to really stop, look around, and be present in my surroundings.

I love wandering the streets of a city and capturing the little details that are often overlooked but tell a story. In Cuba, I found the laundry hanging out to dry fascinating. In Amsterdam, it wasn't the old buildings that I fell in love with; instead, it was a wharf full of shipping containers covered in layers of paper and spray paint. But most of the time, I'm driving soccer carpool and shuttling my kids around Atlanta where I enjoy spotting a dumpster on the side of the road or a construction site for me to explore. For me, photography is a way to take the mundane, ordinary objects we find in a city and make them interesting.

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman Your photographs are very colorful and often so close they become abstract. What made you start to see this way?

I started to notice my love of the "up close" about 15 years ago while on my honeymoon in Belize. We had the opportunity to hold a fistsized tarantula in the palm of our hands while walking through the jungle. The photo my husband took of me includes the tarantula but also my face, my arm and a lot of the background. It’s clearly me holding the tarantula. The photo I took of my husband was of just the tarantula in his hand. He still likes to joke (though it’s true) that the picture I took could have been of anyone holding the tarantula. I just tell him that I was much more interested in capturing the details of the tarantula than the person in the photo. Focusing in on the details helps me to be present – to appreciate my surroundings. My photos are like colorful layered cakes rich in texture and color. That is where I see beauty.

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman Cuba seems right up your alley with its colors and textures. What were your impressions of Cuba?

It is an interesting place, a city of juxtapositions.

As you said, the colors and textures are fantastic, giving Cuba an amazing outward beauty, but what I found is that this beauty is mostly a facade. Many buildings look great from the outside, but once you go inside, the colors fade.

Quickly. When I wandered off the main streets away from the tours, I was immediately met with poverty and deterioration. Sometimes I would come across a dilapidated building that I thought would be vacant, but would then catch a glimpse of laundry drying outside and realize that a family lived there. At the same time, I felt incredibly safe walking around the streets of Havana on my own. The people were incredibly friendly. The streets were filled with music and dancing.

Along with my laundry photos, my favorite memories of Havana were the hours I spent walking along the Malecon, people watching and taking photos along the way.

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman Who or what inspires you?

My mom. Though seeing the work of Edgar Degas and Gustav Klimt in person in my early 20s was the beginning of my art education and appreciation, and while this past summer I visited the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and fell in love with her work from both New York City and Santa Fe, unquestionably my mom has been my greatest inspiration. She pursued her art career while raising four children and now enjoys her life as a successful mixed media artist. My mom also happens to be my favorite travel companion as she too loves to wander the streets of a new city while always on the lookout for ripped paper, deteriorating billboards, and color.

As for what inspires me, I would have to go with weathered urban areas and Mother Nature's creations. I love finding dumpsters, construction sites, graffiti, and torn paper. At the same time, I am continually in awe of nature's beauty, colors, and textures. Among my favorite natural creations are naked tree branches, flowers, silhouettes of landforms at sunset, and just about anything against a blue sky.

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman What is the biggest struggle that you have overcome (or are working to overcome) in your life?

My biggest struggle is how to find enough time to devote to my art.

(And if anyone has suggestions, I am all ears.) With three young kids (ages 12, 10 and 8), I am constantly trying to figure out how to squeeze in as much work as I can while my children are in school and how to appreciate my time with them when they are home. I am always trying to remember to be thankful for the time I have to work and the time I have to spend with my children, but at times I would love to be able to work for days on end in my studio with no interruptions or pick-up and travel on short notice, alone and unencumbered. Give me another six or eight years and maybe I will have overcome this struggle, but it is a constant in my life.

This past summer I took the kids on a cross-country road trip for five weeks so I could explore new cities and places while spending the summer with my children. It was an amazing experience and, while I didn't get to take nearly as many photos as I would have liked, I was creating memories and having adventures with my children that we will all remember for a lifetime. And I paid (bribed) my kids with Monopoly money to allow me the occasional photograph whenever inspiration struck (that is, whenever we passed a vista, a construction or garbage site). The kids loved it.

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman

What do you hope for in the future (either for yourself or others)?

I hope people stop and take the time to look around at their surroundings focusing on all of the little details that make up the big picture. Sometimes it feels like we are all so busy running around, texting, emailing, keeping up with social media, the news, etc. that we forget to stop and appreciate where we are in that moment.

While I would love to be out traveling the world, most of the time I am driving soccer carpool and taking trips to the grocery store. But when I stop for five minutes to photograph a dumpster on the side of the road, it forces me to stop and really study it looking for interesting angles and strong compositions. Photography forces me to see the world from a different angle, a different perspective – to study the small details that make up the big picture.

"Photography forces me to see the world from a different angle, a different perspective – to study the small details that make up the big picture."

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman

"I love finding dumpsters, construction sites, graffiti, and torn paper."

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Jennifer McKinnon Richman

Follow Jennifer on Instagram @jennifermckinnonrichman

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Dániel Horváth

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Roberto Milizia @this.is.malice, Pitti Uomo, Florence

Dániel Horváth P h o t o g r a p h e r

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Dániel Horváth I see that you live in Budapest, Hungary. From the photographs, it looks beautiful. How would you describe your city and what is unique about life there?

Yes, Budapest is beautiful but could be more beautiful if we would take care of it and repaint the houses and try to make the portals more solid.

Our architecture is beautiful, but we destroy it with these ugly plates. In Paris, you don't see ugly plates outside of the stores up in the air from the buildings. You see only a lovely designed front door and window.

I think it is very different to be a local or to be a tourist. As a local, I see so many sad and bad things – like how many tourists are here. How they destroy our city. I see a lot of dust. But what you say is true. We have very beautiful buildings. Happily the city center is very big and full of old buildings. I think our Parliament is the most beautiful parliament in the world!

Everything is close to your hand. Stores, markets, public transport are great here. I live in the city center so going for meetings or shooting for restaurants is easy. I will be everywhere within 30 to 50 minutes.

Hungary is very good in natural and biological things like agriculture. However the agriculture is a bit under what it should be from the market side, but facilities are great. We have four seasons and thanks to the Carpathian Basin we are rich in fresh-water, soils and minerals.

In Budapest we have lot of thermal baths.

Sometimes they say it is the City of Baths.

However I have only been once in the past ten years. Even if I had a little bit of time to relax, I would avoid going to baths because of the tourists. Sooo... :( 42

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The Hungarian Parliament Building

Dániel Horváth

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Brian Lehang @brianlehang, Florence, Italy

Dániel Horváth

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Trevor Stuurman, @trevor_stuurman, Pitti Uomo, Florence

Dániel Horváth

Beer Kitchen, Chef Matthew Spiteri,@matthewspiteri88, Malta

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Dániel Horváth You do so many different things – model, play the drums in a band, cook, travel, and photograph food, architecture, and street style.

Can you tell us about yourself and how all of this evolved?

I degreed as a classical percussionist and teacher at a music university. After that I started teaching in a music school. But ever since I was a kid, I was on the stage. The stage is my life. My parents were photographers. They did commercials in the golden age. Me and my sis were in front of the camera several times as child models.

Children and pets are still the best for selling products. As a kid it was so much fun posing with chocolate and ice creams. But when the 90s came along with the digital world, my parents left photography.

I went to music school and focused only on music. But I always had digital cameras and shot everything – just collecting the moments.

Never composed.

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Lemon tart by Dániel Horváth

Bartender Norbert Nagy @norbert_the_great, Ritz Carlton, Budapest

Dániel Horváth When I moved to Budapest and left teaching, I ran out of money. So I started to cook at home. I read recipes and asked my mum and sis, but that was not enough. Then I found Gordon Ramsay.

That was the turning point. I spent a year and a half cooking all of Ramsay's recipes from the Ultimate Cookery Course.

Because I watched him on YouTube, I learnt cooking techniques and also how to serve and plate. So I started to take photos with my phone. I really wanted everything to look the same as Ramsay's does. And that is how I learnt to take pictures of food.

Because I was a musician at the time, I travelled all over the world with a band and wrote a blog about what we ate backstage and in different countries. Then a magazine asked me to write restaurant reviews for them. I became a food critic and developed myself as a food photographer. I also talked with chefs, so I learnt a lot of cooking techniques.

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Dániel Horváth Then I tested mirrorless cameras for a blog and found Olympus. I fell in love. By this time I had reached around 8K followers on Instagram and worked to brand myself as a bearded model. I am good at self promoting, and Olympus trusted me. I became an ambassador.

That was two years ago and now I am an official ambassador for Olympus. The German headquarters invites me to talk at workshops about myself and my vision. It has been an amazing opportunity to work for this company.

Architecture comes with traveling. I am always on tour with my band.

And fashion comes from the time I started to look at gentlemen on Pinterest and found Pitti photos. I was amazed. I didn't know how this could be – lots of gentlemen walking on the streets and wearing amazing suits and dressed up as hell. So I think I went to Pitti for the first time four years ago. And because I loved photography, I started to take pictures at Pitti and not only pose. Then my friends asked if I wanted to go to the other fashion weeks, so I went for women's fashion week in Paris, Milan, etc.

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Salomon DuBois Thiombiano @ducdubois and Menzi Mcunu @menzi_xonx, Pitti Uomo, Florence

Dániel Horváth

Francesco Di Pinto Cavalli @dipo, Pitti Uomo, Florence

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Dániel Horváth

Thomas Reichegger @thomas.reichegger, Milan

Stella Luminosissima @stella.luminosissima, Milan

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Dániel Horváth

Benjamin Migsch, @bennirollbrettfahrer, Milan

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Dániel Horváth I had the pleasure of meeting you at Pitti Uomo. It seems like a family reunion (although a very well-dressed family reunion). Can you describe Pitti and how do you wear a suit in that heat?

Haha. It's hard. Fortunately, I am not sweating, BUT I am not a top level stylish man like the Italians or the African dandies who have their own tailors. They have breathable fabrics, and if you see them in three layers or more, it doesn't mean its hot. The fabric they use is very thin. It would be nice to find a good tailor for myself.

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Pitti Uomo, Florence

Dániel Horváth Your photographs all have this elegant, classic charm, but then you throw in a quirky sense of humor (as in your video of people eating at the Gourmet Festival and your Facebook profile picture).

Do you find it hard to balance the two or is that just your natural personality?

Yes I think it's my personality. I am so diverse. Did I mention that I am a commercial model, so you can see me on the TV worldwide and also in some small movie roles? When I am on stage I look like a crazy or drunk man. When I leave the stage I go back to normal and a bit shy. People are always asking what I am drinking or what drugs I use. Fortunately I never drink alcohol and never used drugs.

I started street photography one year ago watching others how they shoot but also trying to find my voice. Trying to do it differently. As a food photographer, I like dark mood photography. As a travel photographer I like bright things. So, as you see, I am open for any style. I have four different Instagram accounts. Nobody believes they belong to the same person. But I like thunderstruck people.

"I always had digital cameras and shot everything – just collecting the moments."

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Dániel Horváth What has been your biggest struggle in life that you have overcome or are working to overcome?

Paris

TIME. I never have enough time. I always think I am nowhere in life, but then I look back and say – "I started photographing only two years ago. And I work for Olympus as a brand ambassador. I work for Manfrotto. And also for Photokina, the biggest trade fair for cameras, to be on the stage and talk about myself, my vision, and how I take my pictures. I have to say I am in the right place."

My next big goal is that I want to get hired by magazines as a street photographer. It's crazy how the fashion cities increase the price of accommodations during fashion weeks so that we pay thousands of euros for our passion.

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Dániel Horváth You have traveled so many different places. Where is your favorite place and why?

Honestly, I have to say Italy is my second home. I really love the architecture, the food and the people – how they resonate to the world. I like the weather as well.

But the most amazing world to me was Japan. I was there around 13 or 14 years ago, and we could not use our phones and had no connection to the outside world. So we spent one week just touring with a percussion band in amazing places.

Milan

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Dániel Horváth

Who or what inspires you?

As a street style photographer I would mention two names. Jonathan Daniel Pryce (@garconjon) and Adam Katz Sinding (AKS). I have followed @garconjon for a very long time. When I started to grow my beard, he was one of the first names who popped up. At this time I didn't know anything about Pitti. I saw his beard project and started to follow him. Then I saw this Pitti thing, searched the web, and saw Adam's pictures. These are the two guys who I have followed from the very beginning.

As a travel and food photographer everything that is vintage and kind of old school inspires me. I think it doesn't make sense, but I am in love with fine dining, which is a very sophisticated and elegant thing, but I also love getting lost in the tiny streets of Italy and going to small local restaurants.

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Dániel Horváth

Menzi Mcunu @menzi_xonx Mike Rubin, Creative Director of Krammer and Stoudt @krammerstoudt Lourens Gebhardt @louxthevintageguru

Get lost in this beautiful world with Dániel on Instagram @danielhorvathofficial and for food @gasztronota, for travel @dho_travel, for streetstyle @styletaster, and on his website at horvathdaniel.eu

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ersections

intersection

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Meredith M Howard

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Art by Blub @lartesanuotare

The Old and the New Words and photographs by Meredith M Howard

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Italy

Italy is an intersection of the old and the new. Most of the architecture was created in an era when people had the time to craft something out of the best materials in order to make it durable as well as beautiful. My favorite piece of architecture – the Duomo di Milano (Cathedral of Milan pictured on page 60) –was started in1386 and finished in 1956 and was completely constructed out of marble from the same quarry near Lake Maggiore. The level of intricate detail on this massive cathedral makes it hard to comprehend how they ever finished it.

Contrasting with the style of the Duomo, you can look out over the city and see super modern skyscrapers. And then right down the street, you can find graffiti and innovative street art. Wherever you look, the old and the new are side by side.

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Old and New

Art by Blub @lartesanuotare Exit Enter @exit.enter.k and Carla Bruttini

Blub features historical characters underwater with goggles in his street art project called "L’arte Sa Nuotare" ("Art Knows how to Swim"). According to Daily Art Magazine his art illustrates "the fact that the art survives and swims on regardless of whatever happens."

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Old and New

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Old and New

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Old and New

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Old and New

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Old and New

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Old and New

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Italy

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The fashion at Pitti Uomo is a marriage of the old and the new, interspersed with the very new.

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Old and New

Mr. and Mrs. Decorum (Mphahlela Mokgatle and Rethabile Makhetha) @pat_cwa with @decorum_stylists #couplegoals

Mr. and Mrs. Decorum pull off matching suits like no one else can.

(They got engaged the day after this photo was taken.)

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Old and New

Wearing outfits by P&T @pt.official: Picolo Diop @picolo_diop Brian Rensoli @briankowski31 Aron Martini Da Silva @aronmartinsss

Picolo puts a new spin on custom made shirts and suits by combining traditional Italian tailoring with African prints.

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Clet Abraham @cletabraham

Clet Abraham alters street signs as a statement about their irony.

The city installs these utilitarian "No Entry" signs to preserve the aesthetics of the city thereby disturbing the aesthetics.

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Old and New

The art of Clet Abraham and Blub as well as the art worn at Pitti Uomo are all created with an awareness of history, building on the past. The new art may be very different than old, but what both the current and previous generations of artists have in common is that they remind us to make even the most practical items beautiful.

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The Dream Continues

Pictured here: Terence Lester, Founder of Love Beyond Walls Photograph by Meredith M Howard

The Dream Continues Interview by Meredith M Howard Photographs by Matt Yung and Ali Braithwaite, except as noted

The first time I met Terence Lester was on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January. My daughter and I drove downtown at 7:30am to join a hundred other people at Gather Atlanta, an event organized by Love Beyond Walls to provide food, clothing, showers, hair cuts, and, most of all, relationships to the poor and homeless. Before they sent us out into the area with donated items (sleeping bags, hand warmers, gloves, socks, water), Terence spoke to us with deep empathy about his desire to care for those who are overlooked by society and to give a voice to the voiceless. He spoke about bringing together people from all backgrounds to take a stand against racial division and injustice and systemic poverty. He encouraged us to think about how we can be connected to a greater purpose in life and how we can create change in the city of Atlanta and beyond. I was recently blessed with the opportunity to sit down with Terence to talk about his work, his passion, and his vision.

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The Dream Continues Meredith: I want to start with your childhood – what is your background and what led up to you having this passion for the poor and homeless. Because when you speak about it, you have this fire and this passion that not everybody has.

Terence: What do you mean?

Meredith: I can tell that you have this empathy and drive to make change that comes from somewhere personal. A lot of other people might think – "Why do I need to care about the poor and homeless?"

Or – “That’s too big of a problem. I can’t change that.” So, I’m just wondering from your background – what was it in your personality or your experience that gives you such empathy for people who are marginalized?

Terence: I would start in my teenage years. I had a lot of challenges.

I would say that my home life experience wasn’t the best. I saw my mom struggle. Because of some of the dysfunction I experienced early on, I felt very disconnected. I internalized that, and it started coming out through my behavior in school. In school, I was popular but oftentimes very misunderstood in that teachers saw me as a trouble-maker, a person who didn’t want to listen. And they didn’t understand all of the social challenges that I was facing in my home life. That caused me to rebel a lot more. I was put out of the high school and ended up going to an alternative school less than a mile from here.

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The Dream Continues Terence (continued): I remember vividly the day I told my mom that I wasn’t going to school again – period. It was hard for me to function and maintain my sense of self in a school where teachers and counselors misunderstood me and labeled me. So, I’m walking away from the alternative school (this was the day I was going to drop out of school – not going back), I was in this group and I meet this homeless guy. He calls me over to himself out of the group like I’m being singled out. I walk over to him. We dive into conversation, and he asks me if I go to that school. And I said yeah. And he said, “You gotta go. You need to finish school because if you don’t” and he pointed at himself "you’re going to end up like me.” He was in his mid-50s, trash hanging from his beard. He said, “One day, you’re going to be a leader.” So, one of the first times I ever heard a man tell me I was going to be a leader was from a somebody experiencing homelessness.

"One of the first times I ever heard a man tell me I was going to be a leader was from a somebody experiencing homelessness."

I stopped going to school for six months. It put me behind. But that interaction with that guy stayed in the back of my mind. That and my mom showing me tough love and telling me – “You need to finish school. You don’t need to become a statistic.” – gave me the encouragement to go back.

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So, I went back – 5th year senior – most embarrassing time of my life. For the first time, I felt like I had something to fight for, and what I was fighting for was not being controlled by what I experienced in my childhood and teen years. I was being governed by this idea that I want more for myself.

Me and my mom were still at odds. I ran away from home. Living out of the trunk of my car as a senior in high school. Many of the teachers didn’t even know. There would be times I would go and live in parks or I would move from place to place. I had one friend, Jeremy Smith, and his mom would allow me to stay with them for a few months – all of my stuff in a trash bag. And this guy who was a couple years older than me would go to work and come home and give me lunch money just to give me encouragement to finish school.

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The Dream Continues Terence (continued): So, I graduated. I went on to get married, turned my life around. I went to college and obtained four degrees. I have two graduate degrees. Then, I started sharing my story in youth detention centers and prisons and anywhere there were other youth to share this message of – “You are more than your environment. You can be more than your experiences.” That evolved into community work. I was really advocating for people who were isolated, singledout, misunderstood. That kind of developed this deeper empathy. I was able to turn my life around and prove a lot people to have false narratives about what was inside of me. That parallels a little bit with how people are viewed in society. Sometimes the greatest treasure comes from what other people perceive as trash. So, all of that developed this deep empathy to see the best in people.

"You can be more than your experiences."

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The Dream Continues Meredith: How did that evolve into Love Beyond Walls?

Terence: Speaking to youth.

Leading other young adults out into the community to be among people who are homeless or impoverished. My mentor at the time, he’s passed, Mr. Moore, he had a ministry where he would be among the poor and homeless, and I kind of identified with that. Over the years, it became a burden to turn it into something more formal.

Volunteers helping unload a truck full of donations on MLK Day.

(Meredith M Howard)

"Sometimes the greatest treasure comes from what other people perceive as trash."

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The Dream Continues Meredith: You were talking about identifying with the poor and homeless, I remember at one point you went and slept under a bridge for three days. What was that experience like?

Terence: It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life because I wasn’t physically homeless, so it had to be a choice to leave my comfort zone. But the flip side of that, being articulate and being able to fully understand and connect dots, I wanted to do it in a way where I could advocate and really explain that experience.

Eating out of trash cans, having people look down on you, being put out of restaurants, being put out of shelters, standing around camp fires without fire wood but burning clothes that people brought under a bridge and donated in the middle of winter, having to stay up 24 hours just to stay in a warm place when it was in the teens, helping one of my friends beg for dollars just so he could raise enough funds to purchase medication, to seeing the immoral and prejudice and stereotypical mistreatment from others, to being called obscene names and having people not fully understand the experiences.

It changed me. It changed me in very real ways. Because when you’re younger and you’re going through [certain things], you’re not processing all of this information to speak on behalf of [other people]. You’re just trying to get through. On this side, it’s eye opening. You begin to see gaps in people’s thoughts in their ideas or presumptions about the poor. It was also the most educating thing I’ve ever experienced in that you’re not sitting in a class reading theoretical research. You’re having these existential encounters where you’re being informed directly from sources. If you want to know real information, get to know the source. That source is people who are going through the plight. You can’t get information from a source apart from building a relationship with the source. So, we use relationships for the foundation of the work we do.

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Gather Atlanta volunteers

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The Dream Continues Meredith: What is the mission and vision of Love Beyond Walls and what are some of the programs and projects you are working on to get there?

Terence: We’re trying to solve a couple of problems. We are trying to solve the invisibility of the people who are on the margins. How do we tell stories in such a way where people in their distracted lives take time to notice others? And not just notice others but be invited into an empathetic service opportunity that leads to relationships.

The second problem that we’re trying to solve is the false narrative of the poor and people experiencing homelessness. You hear a lot of sweeping statements – “Why don’t they just get a job?” “Why don’t they just work harder?” “Poor people are lazy.” “They want to be in that situation.” It goes on and on. This false narrative creates a perception that governs the behavior of those who mistreat the poor. That legislate things that keep people in systemic poverty. That withhold access to resources that give them equity – not necessarily equality – but equity to have the same footing. We’re fighting against that narrative because the narrative is a generalization. We kind of put people into buckets as opposed to understanding that everybody arrives into poverty or the experience of homelessness differently. Some women from domestic abuse. We’ve met some women who lost a spouse. We’ve met some people who were abandoned because they were adopted. Some people lost a job. Some people have mental health issues.

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Photograph by Meredith M Howard

The Dream Continues

Volunteers handing out water and picking up trash in downtown Atlanta.

"How do we tell stories in such a way where people in their distracted lives take time to notice others?"

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Photograph by Meredith M Howard

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The Dream Continues Terence (continued): There’s an article in the Atlantic that says poverty changes the brain. What it is basically saying is that it changes how a person thinks and perceives and views the world and responds to the world. There was another study that suggested that to get out of poverty it takes 20 years without anything going wrong. And they were basically talking about the compounded experiences that a person has without the social support structure in place to withstand the bouts that life will throw at you. In knowing that information, just those two articles alone will deconstruct any ideology that you have about the poor, but when you really get to meet people you will understand that everyone’s story is different.

Then, you start reading books like The Color of Law that deals with residential segregation and the concentrated effort by the FHA to racialize housing and withhold access to wealth through housing for minorities. You can look at other policies and gentrification that kind of keep people at bay. It gives you a greater understanding of how we really have some problems that people are dealing with. It really makes you start to think about the greed issue that we have in our country. When you define greed, it is this pursuit of more without concern for anybody else. It’s this individualistic pursuit of more. If you have this as a framework in how you’ve been influenced by a consumer society then – “Neighbor, who?” It leaves out this concept of being a part of a deeper and more robust fabric. Like MLK says – “It’s a global society. We’re all interconnected.”

"We’re all interconnected.”

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My metaphor is a shirt – you’ve got a thread and when it’s hanging from the shirt, if you pull it, it ruins the whole fabric. Until we start to see that one person is connected to entire fabric and we are ready to care for those strands, then we are doing ourselves a disservice.

We have two audiences – the servers and the served. And what binds the two together is that we are all impoverished in some way.

Somebody’s poverty who has excess [resources] may look different from the physical poverty of somebody else. But if we can help people understand it’s this common thread of human suffering that we are all experiencing, then we can have greater empathy for one another and build authentic relationships in a vulnerable way.

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"I’m trying to build a bridge between two worlds."

Meredith: I know you do the Gather Atlanta. Is that a monthly gathering?

Terence: Yes. We have all these vehicles – Gather Atlanta, the art program, bus, shelter, closet, wash house, shower – all of those things are vehicles. I don’t even like to call them programs. I call them vehicles because what we’ve seen, our greatest successes in helping people get off the streets is when we see relationships built between two groups of people that would never cross paths. And we use these vehicles to make that happen. Because at the end of day, I’m trying to build a bridge between two worlds. For me, in my personal experience, it wasn’t until I had total strangers who had access and networks and a level of exposure that I didn’t have come into my world and poured into my life in a way that caused me to have my greatest growth. I didn’t get to where I am today apart from relationships even when the relationships weren’t from my own family.

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The Dream Continues Meredith: What you are saying is so interesting because those are some of the same words and phrases that I use in my experience with street photography realizing that I live in a totally different world from the people that I’m meeting. Sometimes I use the word “bubble." We all live in bubbles and see the same types of people every day and go to the same places and do the same things – and then you meet someone totally different and think – “Wow, you live a completely different life from me.” And like you are saying, it's through a vehicle like street photography or these gatherings where you can meet a complete stranger and intersect two different worlds.

Terence: You just hit the nail on the head. Our whole organization is centered on intersectionality. How do we bring different people and different groups together? Even racially – right? We use service as a way of reconciling races because our service base is very diverse.

It’s just a joy to see when relationships are formed healing occurs.

There are so many different aspects to the work that we do.

Meredith: I do see it as a vehicle. Because our world is so fast and busy, you can run through life with blinders on and you need the intersections to force you to see something from a different perspective and to build different relationships.

Terence: Yeah, even with the awareness campaign that we do (we’ve done seven or eight), those campaigns are done in a way that not only provide demonstration, education, and bringing attention to an issue, but it causes people to be introspective and to redefine their core values as a person. It’s just like a car – we all get out of alignment from time to time. Those campaigns help people to center themselves and to think about things that really matter in this life.

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"Our greatest successes in helping people get off the streets is when we see relationships built between two groups of people that would never cross paths."

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The Dream Continues Meredith: I want to ask you about MAP18 – your walk from Atlanta to Memphis. That is a really long walk. It took you how long?

Terence: 33 days.

Meredith: 33 days of walking. I know you previously walked to Washington, DC, so what made you think – "I’m going to do a walk" – and then what were you trying to accomplish?

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The Dream Continues Terence: Fifty years ago Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, and one of the last stances he was taking before he was killed was against poverty. Not just poverty on behalf of poor brown and black folks but poverty that was affecting all citizens and poverty that was affecting all people across the globe. That’s all that we are about, and I wanted to tap into that vein to lift the idea that this is a national crisis. There are 150 million people in this country that are living near or below the poverty line.

You’ve got 40+ million under the poverty line and another 100 million one check away that are considered the working poor. It’s not like we don’t have the resources or the excess to solve the problem.

It’s funny, I was sitting on a panel at the King Center when I got back and I was sitting next to Liz Theoharris, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, and she made a statement – “The word poverty in the last 8-10 years in political campaigns was mentioned less than 3 times.” That makes you think that this is something we need to be concerned with because it affects half the country. So, I wanted to bring attention to that but I also wanted to lift up this idea of what it means to have reconciliation – how do we come together and heal? I wanted to bring people together from different walks of life, different racial groups (and race is a social construct – it was invented). We live in a racialized society. I wanted to continue to advocate on behalf of those who are impoverished. MAP18 was the hardest demonstrative campaign that I’ve ever done out of all of them because of my many experiences.

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The Dream Continues Meredith: I read that you had dogs chase you, people try to run you off the road . . .

Terence: Dogs chase me, people try to run me off the road, people threaten my life, in small towns people calling the police on me eight times, encountering white supremacist motorcycle groups in Alabama. If I could describe it metaphorically, it’s almost like getting in an accident but not really. You know how when you are in the car and you are almost in a bad accident, and after it your nerves are on edge and kind of shot – that was the feeling that I had every single day. I was on edge like that because it was like almost getting hit by a truck by somebody who wanted to hit me, almost having things done to me by people who threatened my life, having cops called on me, police officers hopping out of the car with false narratives with their hands on pistols – all of that stuff, it had me in the constant state of – “Am I gonna live the next day?”

But I was reading a lot of Martin Luther King quotes and quotes from Civil Rights leaders who fought and did this work and sacrificed their lives. There’s this one King quote – “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” People ask me – “What kept you going?” What kept me going was the cause and knowing that the cause affects everybody – even the people who showed me mistreatment and hate were impoverished themselves. So, love caused me to rise above that. And that was hard. But it’s how many of the leaders I look up to led. They led from that place.

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"Love caused me to rise above that."

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The Dream Continues Meredith: So, when you got to the Lorraine Motel, what was that like?

Terence: Me and my friend, James Brookshire (he walked with me a lot of the way) we joke about it, walking out of Mississippi and into Tennessee, you could almost sense a relief. And the closer I got, the more emotional it was – getting closer to the day and knowing I had made it through some pretty hard states and was going to end up at Lorraine. It was exciting. It was surreal. It was humbling. And it just felt really great to be one of the few people a part of so many people advocating on behalf of those who are impoverished and advocating for racial justice and equity. There were people from all walks of life there. From all around the world. And it just felt great to be among that side of history.

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The Dream Continues Meredith: You were saying that a relationship helps get someone off the streets and out of poverty. I wanted to ask if you could talk specifically about the process of walking someone – like Mark, whom you've talked about on your website – through that. It seems very time-intensive, emotionally-intensive, labor-intensive to get one person from living on the streets to getting them stable housing and finding them a job. What is that process like?

Terence: I use the Wellness Wheel as the framework. The Wellness Wheel is like a pie that deals with different categories such as spirituality, emotional, social, physical, environmental, occupational.

If you use that as a backdrop up against the person you encounter, once you get to know them, you are able to access where they are.

Mark was adopted, so he really lacks the social piece. He doesn’t have access to food, so it’s environmental that could affect his physical. Where is this person at really? Then, you start to mobilize people around those areas to build relationships with him or her in those areas. I’m using him as an example, but we’ve done this with a few hundred now. The process is long, it’s tiring, but you’re not doing it alone. You’re inviting other people into the process. And that’s what I was talking about having this pool of Doers and also them needing to be in a relationship outside of their bubble. And it’s a lot of bridge building.

Or Ronald – we were working with a guy who hadn’t been in touch with his family for 30 years. He was locked up and got out and his close relatives kind of died off. A volunteer who had a skill set for research helped us find his sister. It’s about giving opportunities to one group of people who have an excess of skills and talents and giving them the opportunity to serve this other group. We are basically building bridges between people who have gaps and people who have the skills and the resources to fill those gaps centering all of that around a relationship.

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The Dream Continues

"We are building bridges between people who have gaps and people who have the skills and the resources to fill those gaps centering all of that around a relationship."

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The Dream Continues Meredith: So, if there is someone who wants to try to help, should they just email you?

Terence: We have people like that who come up and hang out and meet people and forge relationships. We have some guys we’ve worked with where people who own their own businesses, construction or whatever, and have given guys a shot. We’ve had people who work in the business community who have lended their networks to help people get jobs. We’ve had church communities come and get around people. And all driven by story telling and social media. We have such a trusting community now that when we put out stuff, people support. And we’re not always going to one group or one person asking for things. It takes everyone.

Meredith: In thinking about excess assets, you wrote something in the "Poor People’s Manifesto" about the usage of abandoned buildings in Atlanta. You proposed that the government allocate tax dollars to the usage of these buildings if they sit idle for over five years. What would you envision doing with those buildings?

Terence: Using them for whatever the community needs. It could be used for job creation. It could be used for housing. It could be used for skill development. I read a quote that went along the lines of – "True revitalization is about building up the people who are already in the community." We normally take the opposite approach. We focus on building buildings and bringing other people in. Moving a population out. When you can start from the bottom up and have a marriage of the two. Like right now, there are buildings in this community that are vacant, and it’s a food desert. Why couldn’t one of those buildings be turned into a grocery store where people have access to fresh produce? When you look at the Wellness Wheel, people who don’t have access to healthier foods will be physically disabled at some point.

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The Dream Continues Meredith: Have you talked to the people at Focused Community Strategies? Because I just talked to them last month in Issue Ten about facing the same problem in Historic South Atlanta that the community had no grocery store, and they tried to get Publix or Kroger to come in, but it wasn’t economically feasible for them. So, they started their own grocery store. They’re doing it, but they are having to raise money to support it. They’re making it work, but it takes people dedicated to make it work.

Terence: Yeah, Bob Lupton. He’s a good friend. I was talking to Bob last year. We interviewed him for our documentary "Voiceless".

During our conversation, we talked about how he had given 44 years of his life. He left a comfortable lifestyle and intentionally moved to a part of town and gave 44 years of his life. When you think about the normal person, who thinks about giving their whole life away to ensure that the world is better? You know what I’m saying? People are mostly accumulators. Trying to accumulate a bunch of things for themselves. That takes a distributors mindset. How can I live my life as a conduit to ensure that those people around me are better? We need more people like that. And that’s how I’m trying to live my life. It’s hard. But legacy is something that is left in the hearts and minds of people – not in trinkets and toys and things that will fade eventually.

"Who thinks about giving their whole life away to ensure that the world is better?

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The Dream Continues Meredith: I have one last question. What gives you hope that there will be change?

Terence: What gives me hope? When I was just outside earlier and opened the gate for you, and Mr. Carl says – “Hey, man. Are you doing alright?” – it spoke to the value of us knowing each other. I think what gives us hope are the people that we know. What else can you measure it by? Being able to look people in the eyes, hug people, to have conversations – authentic, real, transparent – and share in this life with people who need social equity and capital.

Because in a real sense, we all need that.

Connect with Love Beyond Walls through their website at www.lovebeyondwalls.org and on Instagram @lovebeyondwalls.

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Forward Warrior

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Art Regeneration Words and photographs by Meredith M Howard

Forward Warrior continues to help set the tone for the Atlanta art community with its generous and collaborative weekend public mural event. Every year, in the midst of hot and humid weather, over 40 artists (along with their friends and family) come out to paint. Outdoor murals are generous by nature in that they are available to everyone, and their size often makes them collaborative by necessity. But Peter Ferrari, the Founder and Organizer, is also very intentional in inviting new artists every year. This is where so many muralists get their start.

Some old murals are sadly covered as new murals are born, but this is also the nature of murals. It reminds us to appreciate the beauty of the moment. The following pages contain just a few of the amazing pieces that are currently on display in Cabbagetown (east of Atlanta) for all to enjoy (until next year).

Previous page: Jessica Caldas @zinkaproject with Angela Bortone @angela_bortone Krista Jones @jonesyartatl

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Jessica Caldas @zinkaproject with Angela Bortone @angela_bortone Krista Jones @jonesyartatl

Forward Warrior

Shanequa Gay www.shanequagay.com assisted by her son and Sachi Rome @sachistudioart

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Forward Warrior

Faatimah Stevens @thepainterbae

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Erin Nicole Henry @soil.mate

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Cousin Dan @cousindan

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Jurell Cayetano @turnjurell

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Niki Zarrabi @nikizarrabi

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Mónica Alexander @itsmmmonica

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Austin Blue @proper_blue

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Pierre Cerrato @ohyeahpyeah

Mario @doitdoitleague

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Mike Black @blackmike_art

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Michi Meko @michimeko

Forward Warrior

Discover your favorites in person.

And follow @forwardwarrior to find out about future events.

Brandon Sadler @risingredlotus

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Not the End

Follow us on Instagram @thestreetsmagazine

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Not the End

Get out of your bubble and back on the streets . . .

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Photograph by Meredith M Howard

ISSUE EIGHT