The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery
The Gustine Street Wing: Aesthetic Obstructions
This is the second exhibit in a series of found art “installations”. The first was the St. Louis *Incidental Art Gallery — The Roger Place Wing, featuring a collection of works called Peripheral Matters (with a dash of tongue-in-cheek artspeak and well-meant pomposity).
For this exhibit we move one block east to Gustine Street, where fences make up the St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery Aesthetic Obstructions — The Gustine Street Wing. Jokes are set aside to allow more room for resistance.
Someday there will be two exhibits more in different nearby wings (streets). Each will have its own flavor and theme.
Format:
Photo
Title of Piece
Artist’s Name (Artist’s Birth Year)
Medium: (Materials)Description
Numbering: (X/10)
How Does Possibility Happen?
Artist: 3900 Arsenal Street (b. 1909)
Wood; metal; potential
Among an even line of posts, one stands apart — taller, uncertain, almost aspirational. It could be the beginning of a soaring tower or the remnant of one long gone. There’s something unresolved in its reach, like a note held too long, stuck between intention and accident.
Inside that wisp of indecision is where possibility begins to take shape.
Piece #1 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
The Weight of Imposed Tradition
Artist: 3901 Hartford Avenue (b. 1923)
Wood; stain; fortitude
Surrounded by faded elders, a new picket gleams. Older, conservative boards press in, set in their ways, expecting conformity. If it doesn’t resist, the young picket will be weathered into submission. This is the weight of imposed tradition: the past clinging to power, shaping a future it won’t see, and the present, desperately trying to be better than the past.
Piece #2 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
That New Fence Smell
Artist: 3889 Juniata Street (b. 1927)
Wood; metal; alpha-pinene
Arriving with the enthusiasm of childhood, and smelling of pine and confidence, this piece stands unspoiled, barely touched by sun or season. The newness is striking — a clean break in the gallery’s worn timeline. In contrast to its senior companions, it hums: “I am the start of a new story.”
Our young inherit a history they didn’t witness. They don’t need to know everything, just how to fight Nazis.
Piece #3 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
Alpenglow
Artist: 3892 Connecticut Street (b. 1922)
Wind; wood; chance
A graceful patina surges and fades — a mark, a mimic, a musing? Here, the line between natural and made softens, like breath on glass. Behind the foliage, the rhythmic haze of distant peaks stirs something primal. An ache for where something and nothing meet. For true beauty. For wherever away is.
Like beauty, the truth doesn’t just vanish — it weathers in place, waiting to be revealed, reworked, or removed.
Piece #4 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
I Am the Fence, You Are the Fence, We Are the Fence
Artist: 3893 Humphrey Street (b. 1922)
Wood; concrete; time
Boards curl like fingers, reaching, releasing, reaching again. The fence no longer fully contains, hides, or divides — its form unravels, its function begins to fail. What once enforced boundaries now gestures toward change, openness.
In its undoing, this piece lets us glimpse the possibility of something better: progress rather than permanence.
Piece #5 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
Egress
Artist: 3901 Humphrey Street (b. 1953)
Wood; stone; resistance
Communities of small stones carve out quiet escape routes; openings that are unsanctioned but effective. The fence, big and dumb, stands tall as it’s quietly undone. This work speaks to the power of small acts of rebellion. Resistance doesn’t always storm the gates, sometimes it just outsmarts and outlasts the corruption behind them.
Freedom, like water, finds the cracks.
Piece #6 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
Tension and Tenderness
Artist: 3892 Humphrey Street (b. 1914)
Wood; stone; love
Two fences — one steady and tall, the other tentative and small — stand together, bound by purpose and proximity. A meditation on family, this piece reflects the daily balance of strength and softness, of devotion and demand, that is parenthood. In a time of blatant corruption, hypocrisy, and performative cruelty, real strength leans in, stays true, and is quietly brave.
There is rarely an adoring crowd when what you’re doing truly matters.
Piece #7 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
Jesus on Toast
Artist: 3890/3892 Utah Place (b. 1908)
Wind; wood; superstition
Wind-blown branches etch stories into the grain — sacred to some, meaningless to others. It’s a rhythm without a song, a message without words; the crash of divine revelation and subtle coincidence, signifying nothing. This piece amplifies how certainty is frustratingly elusive.
In the reach for something reassuring, something soothing, many will believe whatever affirms their hopes, their fears, or their side, no matter how magical or mean.
Piece #8 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
Power, Corruption, and Lies
Artist: 3891 McDonald Avenue (b. 1911)
Wood; metal; malignant narcissism
A brash orange fence rises, loud and sure of itself, certain of its superiority (especially over non-orange ones). The goal is domination, not leadership. Charged with the illusion of progress, it’s a rotting escalator to nowhere. Pride without purpose, confidence without intelligence, strength without substance. This kind of malignant power never fades; it metastasizes.
But today much of America behaves more like cancer than chemo. So now what?
Piece #9 of 10, Q2 2026 Exhibit — The St. Louis *Accidental Art Gallery, Gustine Wing
Ingrained Symmetries (Divided We Fall)
Artist: 3901 Miami Street (b. 1939)
Wood; metal; scapegoating
Once a whole tree, these boards now stand divided. Ingrained symmetry traces memory across the gaps, recalling shared origin, giving a glimpse into what was once so whole. The matching patterns of grain in this work reveal shared history, but the colors fade and the gaps widen with every season.
It is like watching a nation rehearsing its own undoing.