We went to Johnson City last Friday … not because we planned to, but because both the restaurant and the store in Blanco that we wanted to go to were closed.

Serendipity is a wonderful thing.

So we strolled through some JC galleries we had been to before and walked past one that looked closed … all the art work was sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall, waiting to be hung.

But hey, it was open … so we went in … and met the new owner, an artist and author … and a kindred spirit it turns out. We left with this in hand …

44 small print reproductions of 44 collages he made over a six year period … 44 representations in as many languages of the word “hope.”

You can go to Mark Smith’s website and view a video of what he told us in person. But the heart of it is knowing that his project began in 2008 and the number 44 represents Barack Obama, who was elected to the presidency that year.

I was fascinated. And upon getting home, I found myself pulling out collage cards of the non-linguistic “languages” …

from the upper left and going clockwise: binary code, Braille, Morse code, sound waves and semaphore flags. It’s worth enlarging the images for a closer look.

But the collage card that really drew me in was this one in Spanish …

enough so that I felt compelled to respond to it in cloth and stitch …

esperanza … the softest whisper word of hope.