Community Support
People crowd around Wilson when he works and he has been praised by passersby. He has become a local celebrity as his work has chronicled the changes in the neighborhood. He has a large book where he keeps backlogged requests for paintings, such as births and deaths, marriages or some other personal commemoration. He doesn't charge for gum painting requests, a word he prefers to use over "commissions". When he was arrested in 2009 by the City of London Police on suspicion of criminal damage, the case was dropped after dozens of people wrote letters of support a few months later. The Barnet police also came to his support, filing a witness statement on his behalf.
Read more about this topic: Ben Wilson (artist)
Famous quotes containing the words community and/or support:
“The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure—but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)