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How This Alabama Painter Is Building Community Through Art and Kindness

On the Fourth of July, Tres Taylor woke with a heavy heart. Congress had just passed what President Donald Trump called "One Big Beautiful Bill," but it felt pretty ugly considering it included $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs that help our nation's most vulnerable citizens.

On social media Tres said, "I think we need to all find our own fountain to nourish our broken hearts." For Tres, that meant turning to art. "It is my fountain and fills my soul," he wrote. Then he invited people to send him a self-addressed, stamped envelope so he could send them "a little token of joy." He called it "a house blessing," hoping that "maybe it will remind us that we are all neighbors."

Tres had no way of knowing how many envelopes he would receive, but he got to work painting. Tres is a widely collected artist in Alabama who has painted everything from murals to tiny tar paper squares. He received hundreds of envelopes in response to his request, and they keep on coming in. In each one he placed two small 3-inch by 4-inch painted houses on tar paper along with two identical love letters.

"Let's just try to build a community through art and kindness," he said.

Art has been a spiritual journey for Tres. He began college with writing in mind, which took him to Japan to teach English after he graduated. While in Japan he became enamored with Eastern practices that included medicinal plants. This led him back to school and then to collecting plants in the Amazon as a biochemist. After his Amazon adventure, Tres landed in a science lab, which didn't really suit him.

Then, on a stroll with a friend in Alabama, a chance meeting with local folk artists would change Tres' trajectory. During his stroll he met R.A. Miller, the folk artist who was famously featured in R.E.M.'s video "Left of Reckoning." Miller's work spoke to Tres, "because his art was so childlike and so innocent," he said, and he also found their conversation inspiring: "It was a baptism into something I didn't realize was in my soul." Tres soon learned that he was really a visual storyteller.

By coming to art via the sciences, Tres came without a formal understanding of the rules. "The lessons that I brought from science were learning how to just, like, experiment and not be afraid of that," he said. That mindset has served him well.

Tres continues to experiment, and it's all in the spirit of joy delivered by his beloved character William Guadalupe -- the monk who is Tres' alter ego which he calls the "Patron Saint of sunflowers, birdsong and the broken-hearted." It is William Guadalupe who signs each love letter sent.

"If they take our joy," Tres said, "we've lost." Each one of the letters along with the painted houses on tar paper is a stone tossed to create a ripple. This is why each envelope gets two houses: one to keep and one to pass on. The idea is to encourage recipients to continue the ripple of joy and love. When you send the second one on, he hopes you add something of your own so the ripple continues.

What you include in the envelope to accompany the tar house is up to you. It could be a poem, a piece of art or simply a blessing. It's a way to remind one another that no matter what, we are all neighbors on this earth. When I received my two tar paper houses, I decided to stay with the house theme. I kept one tar paper house for myself and sewed a mini quilted house to pay it forward with Tres' second tar paper house. Then, I wrote a love letter of my own and mailed it all to a friend.

If you would like to be part of this ripple of joy and love, send your own self-addressed, stamped envelope (with 2-ounce postage) and a $25 donation (checks made to The Big Worl Community Garden) to William Guadalupe, P.O. Box #3 Mentone, AL 35984.

The Big Worl Community Garden is an initiative Tres is working on that was started by Pastor John Goings in Selma, Alabama. Tres is helping the pastor support 50 families by teaching them how to grow their own food. Learn more about Tres Taylor at www.trestaylor.com.

We all get to choose where we invest our time and energy. I hope you'll join me in choosing to amplify love. "Stay strong," Tres said. "We will get through this together."

Do you know anyone who's doing cool things to make the world a better place? I want to know. Send me an email at Bonnie@WriterBonnie.com. Also, stay in the loop by signing up for her weekly newsletter at WriterBonnie.com. To find out more about Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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