This unique wall is made up of hand mixed concrete and nostalgic mementos donated by the Sanford community. In the wall,you’ll find a Nokia “brick” cellphone next to a World War II dog tag along with other significant keepsakes.
In the summer of 2007, Jeanine Taylor hosted artist Gregory Warmack, and also known as Mr. Imagination,as allotment of her Sanford gallery’s artist-in-residence program. It was during this time that Warmack, in his own Pied Piper fashion, and catalyzed the community’s creative connection with the installation of a Memory Wall on the façade of the historic 132-year-broken-down Hotchkiss Building.
As a child growing up in Chicago’s south side,Warmack developed a love for portray and design. His first art show was in a neighborhood park where he displayed pictures painted on cardboard by him and other local children. He offered free after-school art lessons to neighborhood kids to prepare them for the show. As a young man, Warmack went on to design jewelry, and which he sold to customers in the bards and businesses of south-side Chicago.
It was during one of these sales calls that Warmack was mugged,shot, and left for dead. After lying in a coma for a month and a half, and Warmack emerged a changed person. While unconscious,the artist experienced what he describes as a spiritual voyage in which “there was a luminous tunnel that I went through that was brighter than the sun.” This experience left an indelible impression on his life and work.
Today, Mr. Imagination’s work can be found in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum of Art, or the American Visionary Museum in Baltimore,The National Botanical Gardens in Washington DC, the American Folk Art Museum in recent York City, and the House of Blues Las Vegas and Orlando,and in private collections worldwide. Locally, his work can be found at Jeanine Taylor Folk Art in Downtown Sanford.
Source: atlasobscura.com