December 2019

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

15.

Join An Uprising

No meaningful structural or societal change ever happened out of the charity of those in power.

This year we witnessed uprisings of people in the streets including but not limited to Hong Kong, Iran, Barcelona, Paris, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Malta, Moscow, Israel, Palestine, Serbia, Sudan, Montenego – check out this amazing list.

Street Art has its roots in protest, in its insistence on being seen by the people, on being considered, on being heard. With multinationals, institutional corruption, and unbridled greed pushing us all back on our heels, you can expect to see a lot more protests in the streets around the world in 2020. We wish you the courage to rise up and join the people and get your voice heard – that is part of what true democracy looks like.

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

14.

Consider Bob, the Flamingo

We just think that Bob is a great metaphor for the heightened awareness we all are developing to see the world as it is, and our proper place in it.

“After flying into a hotel window, this flamingo was rescued by a local vet and has become a rising educational star on the island,” according to National Geographic, whose photographer Jasper Doest followed him around on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao into homes, schools, and the street.

“If you see what looks like a flamingo in the driver’s seat of a car, don’t worry. That’s just Bob.”

We wish that you will meet Bob the flamingo, or his equivalent, this new year.

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

13.

Give the Kids Props

Weird how Greta Thunberg became a sensation worldwide this year because of her personal oppositional campaign against disgusting adults who are callously throwing away the Earth’s future. Weirder still was how many adults (men mainly) had little mini freak-out attacks because of the things she said and did this year, revealing more about them than her, frankly.

The 16 year old climate activist was named Person of the Year, by Time Magazine, and her Gen Z is going to be saddled with the fallout from the endless wars, endless pollution, and irresponsible consumption that is killing off species and fouling air and water. At the very least, we wish that we all would start listening to these kids and give these little leaders proper respect for pushing against this adversity the rest of us have selfishly created.

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

12.

Wear A Costume

It shouldn’t only be parade revelers who get to dress as Monarch’s as these folks did in the annual Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, Mexico, on October 27 this year. Cosplay, the kids are calling it.

“We know from psychology that we all play different roles through the day and week,” says Robin S. Rosenberg, a clinical psychologist at University of California at San Francisco. “Different aspects of me — ‘psychologist,’ ‘wife,’ ‘mother’ — come to the fore in different contexts. I became curious about people who truly inhabit a role, and what’s coming to the fore when you wear a costume.”

RuPaul taught us all a long time ago, whether its a Brooks Brothers suit or a tutu or a nurses scrubs or a police uniform, it’s all drag. We wish the opportunity to try on another persona sometime in 2020.

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

11.

See the Earth in Its Wonder

This scene in Hawaii showing a lava-covered road in a subdivision near Pahoa has a compelling, thrilling, jaw-dropping effect on people who see it. Imagine if you are a resident in the area near this “fissure” and you are told to evacuate from this ground deformation, but you feel powerfully drawn to go and watch it happen.

Molten rock like this simply bursts through the ground, destroying homes, livelihoods, lives. And yet this is just one of hundreds of thousands of opportunities we have to see the glorious and powerful and serene Earth and allow it to blow our minds. We wish you the chance for a full immersion into one of those opportunities in the new year.

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

10.

More Plastic-Free Days

This is not a stylized Christmas tree, but you could be forgiven for thinking so. This is one Brooklyn tree choked with yellow caution tape that was blowing around in the air during one particularly windy day. It’s funny to see it, and then maybe it is not so funny anymore.

2019 seems like the year we saw news of countless animals washing up on beaches with bellies full of plastic, and reports of minute parts of plastic ingested and floating inside all of us – micro plastics. We collectively began to realize that our laws aren’t working to force companies to stop making stuff with plastic or to force us to stop using it.

Next year, let make sure we figure out how to have more plastic-free days. Sounds good right? At the least it can help draw our attention to how much we’re using. In the future your next gen kids are going to ask “knowing what you knew, what did you do?”

Check out “I Quit Plastics”

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

9.

A Good Storm to Stir You

New Yorkers clamor for walk in Central Park, especially during a snow storm. Perhaps because it is calming, perhaps because it is aesthetically sensorially full of wonder. We dive right into the middle of a snowstorm because it stirs your interior world in equal measure to the outside one, uprooting and tossing your senses, blowing winds through your head, temporarily blinding you while regaling you with its every moving show. In a way, the storm makes you dig inside to reestablish your own sense of equilibrium. 

For fans of Christmas, this is a scene of a white one in New York, because obviously we love storms.  Let it snow let it snow let it snow!

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

8.

Be Who You Are

Our 8^th wish to you for 2020 is to be who you are, wherever you are.

Martin Luther King Jr. said “no one is free until we are all free.”

We know that many BSA fans and readers are not free to live a full open unapologetic life in their communities, whether they are gay or trans or black or female or disabled or any number of categories that a dominant culture uses to hurt people.

We want you to know that we do believe in you, just the way you are.  

On the verge of a new century twenty years ago in 1999, Brooklyn rapper Nas (Yasiin Bey) sang;

“My elders said shine your light on the world,
Shine your light for the world to see.”

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

7.

Go Play.

Working with photographer Martha Cooper these last few years, we have become sensitized to the social, anthropological, emotional needs of kids in this world, and the importance of play in our development. Maybe it was listening to her talk about her book “Street Play”, but we’re really interested in kids making their own toys. Jaime took this image of a kid in Queretero, Mexico during a public ceremony for Martha – an event that this child found rather boring so he started a game with some found sticks just to entertain himself for a while.

Pediatricians have studied how we play and how it helps us to live in a play world, especially when we are kids. “Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them,” says the American Academy of Pediatrics.

We’re pretty sure that play is crucial to the happiness of adults too. So we wish you a good supply of playfulness in the new year.

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

6.

A Safe Place to Stay

An unprecedented 70 million individuals have been forcibly displaced worldwide because of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations, says the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

That’s a rotten number. More street artists like New York’s LMNOPI are reminding us of the refugee crisis around the world and in our own countries. Is there any doubt that every major religion teaches followers to open their homes to the refugee. In fact we’re pretty sure that Mary and Joseph didn’t have any place to go, according to the Christmas story.

We wish you a safe place to stay.

We’re finishing the decade and we’re completing the year. More importantly, you are still here. And so is our holiday tradition of BSA wishes for the new year.

Certainly there is much work to be done, and we believe that art and the creative spirit can heal our people, our cities, our nations, our planet. May we all look toward 2020 with a clear vision.

At BSA our hearts are full and our minds are untroubled as we look confidently toward these new days- with hopes and wishes for the New Year – and a daily image that inspired us in 2019.

5.

See Beauty More

It’s really everywhere. We probably would not have realized it until we began tracking Street Art and graffiti around the world. The practice makes you take the measure of a scene, to consider how much has been designed by people, to be more aware. Once you do that, you also can consider how much is nature’s own design.

Then you are fairly finished, able to see beauty wherever it is. We wish you an expanded ability to see beauty.