If you were walking from Broadway Avenue up Tarbell Avenue on Saturday, you would have soon been standing before a poignant display of some 60 small white signs dotting a spacious yard on the left. The artistic presentation was created by a Bedford woman who decided to forgo the protests in downtown Cleveland, but wanted to express her solidarity with those speaking out for George Floyd and all the other black people unjustly killed in our country.
Gabby Holt, a sophomore studying at Ohio State, said she saw the killing of an unarmed Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis on Instagram, and was just numb at first.
“I had emotion, but it couldn’t come out,” she said.
Holt had thought about going to the protests in downtown, but was worried about her safety going by herself. As an artist, she soon began to think of ways that she could express how she felt visually from home. She wondered, “How could I protest in my own way?”
She started out thinking she might just create something for Floyd and perhaps just a few other victims she knew about like Cleveland’s Tamir Rice, but her research led her to learn about many other stories she wanted to represent.
She said it was a very emotional night reading the accounts of how each person died at the hands of police officers and other anti-black violence. Her desire to express her feelings turned into a stark, yet dramatic field of white placards dotting the the green grass of her yard. Holt said her younger brother Christian helped her plant each of the signs once they were completed.
Holt has received some positive response to her expression, saying a few people have honked while driving by. One woman came by and said, “This is amazing.”
Holt said she was happy she was able to do something to show her support for change in society. “I have a voice,” she said. “And I used my voice to speak out and protest.”
