A community crowdsolve & the artist behind ‘you are beautiful’

Good morning, DMV! It’s Tuesday, May 12.

Remember this photo? I offered it last week as a “mystery” we could crowdsolve together. Reader Amy Carlini, 57, said she took this pic in 2019 in a bathroom on the second floor of the Fairfax County Government Center. She said the sticker was still there a few months ago.

I could’ve searched it up online — it’s quite an easy search, I later found — but where’s the fun in that?

Just two hours after the crowdsolve newsletter hit your inboxes, I got a few replies — the first one from Alexandria resident Rosanne “Rosie” Lush, 41, whom I met last month on a bike ride with blind cyclists.

Rosie lived in Chicago for a few years, and at nearby Oakwood beach, there was a big “you are beautiful” sign that she “always wondered about but never investigated,” she said. She didn’t have photos of the sign at the beach, but she did have this one from Chicago’s Chinatown.

I got an email about a sighting in D.C.

“The exact same ‘you are beautiful’ sticker is also in the third stall of the bigger bathroom at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company!” wrote Laura Woo, 35, of Alexandria.

“I dug into my archives and found a photo of the sticker in the Woolly bathroom from 2020! (pre I-probably-shouldn't-use-my-phone-in-the-bathroom-because-COVID days),” she wrote in an email, adding she had seen it as recently as January this year.

“It's on the toilet paper dispenser and looks like it's before the bathroom remodel which means they reinstalled the same shelf(?) after remodeling 🤩.”

For Analía Gómez Vidal, 37, of Silver Spring, Maryland, the message came in the mail.

“I am stopping myself from Googling about this next sticker in case someone else has a more fun way of solving the mystery, but I will say that I have come across this sticker a few times, and it has surprised me because the first time I saw it, it was a postcard!,” she wrote.

“A friend sent me this design as a postcard a decade ago, and I still have it. Then I saw the sticker version and was surprised and amused they were around in this way, too.“

So I did ultimately search it up. The project, by artist Matthew Hoffman, started in 2002 with 100 small stickers in Chicago. We spoke yesterday by phone.

Matthew was 23 at the time. He had just moved to Chicago, and it was his first time living in a big city. He was a rural Midwesterner (like myself) and felt overwhelmed at first by urban life.

“There’s a lot of audio/visual noise — a lot of chaos. You can really feel lost and alone. I wanted to make a comforting message, that said there’s nothing you need to do. You are enough,” he said.

When he launched, he created a basic web page on which he invited people to send him self-addressed stamped envelopes to get five free stickers. He said more than 10 million stickers have been shared, and there are now more than 40 public art installations around Chicago and more than 100 in approximately 35 states nationwide. He hopes to one day have “you are beautiful” pieces in all 50 states.

When he started the project, he was working as a graphic designer at a publishing company. He was laid off in 2013 and decided to focus full-time on “you are beautiful.”

Matthew said the stickers — which have no QR code or clues for online answers — are meant to blend in. The idea is you come across the message, it almost looks like the brand name of a paper towel dispenser, for example, then the message pops out to viewers at the right moment.

“The idea is to experience that message and take it on whatever journey you want to take it on in that moment,” he said. “The best part about all of this is that sort of journey and path that it was designed to do: Create this little moment and have people be a little curious and stop them in their tracks.”

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After reading about my attempt at a community crowdsolve, Josh Calder, a resident of the Chevy Chase neighborhood in D.C., sent in this pic with a brief note.

“Your Catscan! picture reminded me of this sticker series I've seen over the years in D.C.,” Josh wrote in his submission. “I've spotted them in multiple neighborhoods, with various other humorous warnings and advisories.”

Have you seen these public-notice stickers? What’s the back story? Who’s the mastermind?

Share your recent photos of life in the DMV here.

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