I Too Was Once a Child With Dreams

I Too Was Once a Child With Dreams

Artist: Marilyn Geary

Title: I Too Was Once a Child With Dreams

Attribution: "I Too Was Once a Child With Dreams," 2021, Marilyn L. Geary

Year: 2021

Materials: Plastic tarp, landscape fabric, kraft paper, wool

Dimensions: 48" x 48"

Image Statement: I conceived this piece after reading an article describing a San Francisco neighborhood where residents placed large boulders in front of their homes to prevent people from sleeping there. Then I read that the City of San Francisco installed 400-pound boulders under the Cesar Chavez freeway underpass for the same reason, wishing these people would all go away. I thought first of creating a San Francisco map depicting the many homeless sites, but over time I simplified the image to a single young man who could be lying on the streets anywhere and everywhere in the city. None of us dream when we’re little children that we will end up sleeping on the streets without a home. This young person could be you or me, your son or daughter, or mine. I used materials commonly found on the streets, including scraps of a San Francisco newspaper which must have contained in it somewhere an article about the perpetual problem of those forced to sleep out in the cold.