Hurrying to my car one afternoon, I stepped out of my way to avoid a homeless man sprawled on the sidewalk. Once I was seated in my car, hands clutching the steering wheel, my annoyance at the man melted into embarrassment and shame. I cared more about having a clear sidewalk than about a suffering fellow human being. How insidiously twisted our values become when extruded through the press of our daily, busy lives.
And thus, was born Surplus. How perfectly apt to fashion a sidewalk segment out of a homeless man’s blanket, its material suppleness mirroring the vulnerability of human flesh, while conjuring the body of a reclining homeless person with concrete rubble and rebar from a Chevy Chase sidewalk, itself shattered and displaced.
