‘Slightly illegal’ bridge banner brings Tacoma together during coronavirus
It was a message of solidarity and community. It was a rallying cry. It was an organic moment of togetherness when a virus has all of us stuck afar.
It was also just a tiny bit illegal, said Tom Llewellyn, who would only cop to being “allegedly” involved.
What we know for certain is that Llewellyn and Lance Kagey are the creative minds behind Beautiful Angle, Tacoma’s long-running and well-known guerrilla poster project. The duo has been at it for nearly two decades, regularly plastering the city with unique prints that bring people together and help make Tacoma what it is.
Last Sunday morning at 6 a.m. was a little bit different.
Allegedly. (Wink, wink.)
For starters, Llewellyn and Kagey weren’t hanging posters. If the rumors and circumstantial evidence are to be trusted, they were hanging a 70-foot long handmade quilt off the southern side of the Murray Morgan bridge.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the collection of lettered bed sheets delivered a timely message of optimism and resilience:
“Get well soon.”
All told, it hung for “26 and a half hours,” Llewellyn said, making it until about 8:30 a.m. Monday before it was taken down.
The big idea was to “engage community, encourage people and remind them that they’re not alone,” Kagey said, being careful not to directly admit culpability.
Based on the online reaction — and the number of people who helped pull off the stunt — mission accomplished.
While most of Llewellyn and Kagey’s endeavors are carried out in relative secret, germinating from Beautiful Angle’s Tacoma basement studio, for this one they enlisted a team of more than 20 people.
After they put a call out on social media late last month, each lettered bed sheet square was designed and constructed by a volunteer — individuals and families.
“What we were hoping is we would get maybe half (of the squares) covered by someone else, and we would do the rest ourselves,” Kagey said.
Instead, according to Llewellyn, they had 13 eager volunteers in “about 15 minutes.”
The group effort is clearly one of the things Kagey and Llewellyn are most proud of.
“The joy of this was just coordinating other people participating,” Llewellyn said, calling the response “astonishing and overwhelming.”
“People want to participate. They’re hungry to participate,” he said. “I think it means people are really looking for a way to help out, to share some light.”
Once it was fully constructed, the 13 sheets stretched “half a city block,” Llewellyn estimated.
The project had “audacity,” he said
Perhaps that audacity is part of the reason the quilted banner and its message resonated so strongly in a community desperate for connection.
Grit City Magazine documented the early morning debut of the short-lived sign. A Facebook post on the magazine’s page — featuring still photos — quickly garnered more than 1,000 “likes” and has so far been shared hundreds of times.
“Love it! Just a reminder we will get through this together,” reads just one of many comments.
To Llewellyn and Kagey, inspiring such a sentiment was precisely the point. The longtime friends also noted that the quilted banner was just one of many examples of Tacomans forging connectivity through art during a difficult time, whether it’s new murals or flowers in windows.
“Lance and I are huge believers in the power of art. Words make worlds. They bring ideas to light,” Llewellyn said. “If the idea is just a message of hope and encouragement, I think this did that.”
“It’s also fun to do something that’s just slightly illegal,” he added.
Allegedly.
