Kev-o,

Thanks so much for the offer but it looks like I will be unable to leave Europe to attend SIFF 2020. My plans to turn the plaza horseshoe palm tree into a giant grape flavored tootsie roll pop, stencil “What is ART?” in 10 foot letters across the Sonoma Museum, and change the SONOMAWOOD sign to read DO NO HARM or SONOMAWEED or DIVISION or MORNINGWOOD (One of Walt’s students came up with that one-highly inappropriate but still kinda funny) will all have to be shelved.

But such is life, just when you spend a year working on an event a tiny virus becomes a worldwide pandemic. At least it might wake America up to work on the next crisis, that whole heating the earth thing. Oh right, you already fixed that one by banning plastic bags and straws. Congratulations on that.

So how about next year you plan the first ever Sonoma International Save The F-ing World Festival where all films, art and events center on saving the big green ball. Peter Hansen’s students will have a unifying theme of environmentalism for their short films. Walt can paint the SONOMAWOOD sign like the earth and and have fire shooting out the back of the letters. Totally sustainable, zero waste, no plastic: a turning point for festivals.

Cause, as you know, art can change the world or at least get people thinking like I did with Dismaland or the Walled Off Hotel or the movie, “Exit Through The Gift shop” or the new documentary, “Banksy & The Rise of Outlaw Art” which you were going to show before you got virused.

Anyway, thanks for all the hard work and planning. Things will get better, the sun will rise tomorrow and if the palm tree turns into a giant tootsie pop, you know who to blame.

-BANKSY