Our Mission at Invisible Walls

Creating a connection between art, visibility, and the homeless.

At Invisible Walls, our mission is to spread beauty through art to the homeless. We aim to shine a light of visibility on the greater social problem of homelessness. Invisible Walls encourages communities to look and see people for who they are and not where they live. Homelessness makes walls invisible, not people. 

We believe that everyone, regardless of their housing situation, deserves access to the transformative power of art. Our goal is to awaken a sense of beauty, resilience, and hope in everyone that leads them to want a better future.

Art Cards

We aim to serve our communities by giving inspirational prints of original art contributed by our members to the homeless. These art cards offer an original painting to each person with proof of new residence. We hope in this way, Invisible Walls start to shape into something real, one starter brick at a time.

Order your cards here. 

The story behind Invisible Walls...

When I was 6 or so, my family took a long weekend to Washington, D.C. While other kids my age might have found our trip boring, I was completely taken with the echoes of history that I could feel in all of the homes, memorials, and museums we visited. 

We were walking down the sidewalk to our next destination, Mom and Dad up front, my sister and me trailing behind; I was on the inside closest to the buildings. I had my newly acquired Gund stuffed animal, Hamlet the pig, tucked under my arm, as I tried to keep up with everyone while swiveling my head fast enough to see everything around me! What finally held my gaze was a homeless man sitting with his back to the building. He may not have been the first homeless person I had seen, but he definitely was the first to make such an impact on me. 

He had gray, almost white, hair and a beard. He was a white man, but his skin was covered thick with brown dirt. He wore filthy clothes - a tattered green army surplus jacket over his ripped shirt. His face was scowling and his body was hunched. 

The man kept his eyes in a small squint as his stare returned mine, and I noticed just how blue they were under their glassy watery shine. He didn't say anything, didn't have a sign that I recall. Just those eyes, following me. It was like he was saying, "Hey, kid. Don’t judge me. See me. I'm here." 

My parents, probably noting that I wasn’t keeping up, had said, "Don't stare, honey. Just keep walking." We walked on and that was that.

My family tells the story like I was guarding Hamlet with my life, convinced this man was going to snatch him from my arms. In reality, I was probably scared and just clinging to something that felt safe to me. I remember feeling fear… but I don’t think it was a fear of him; I didn’t think he was dangerous. I think it came from a place of confusion and youthful ignorance. I was scared of becoming him, maybe. 

Later, tucked in my warm hotel bed, I kept thinking about him. Why was he sitting there? Where was his family? Why did everyone else just walk by? And how could it be that simultaneously an ordinary man could be subjected to a life on a sidewalk, and I could pass by him from my warm hotel to the next adventure… It felt horribly unfair that those two very different realities could coexist. 

Many years later after both reading and watching “Same Kind of Different as Me” by Ron Hall & Denver Moore, a true story that centers around the friendship of a homeless man and an unlikely art dealer, I quickly thought back to that homeless man in D.C. in 1986. If I close my eyes, I can still see him, but his features aren’t as sharp and the lines of the memory aren’t as crisp. 

That story, like my trip to D.C., made a huge impact on me. I want to do something of value for the world. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I want to help by connecting things that I feel passionate about - art, seeing people’s humanity, and helping the homeless. I want to help, even if I don’t know how. I’m working on figuring it out here. Now. Help me do that, please.