Anne Brodsky was pissed.
“When they took away the rainbow crosswalks in the dark of night, it stirred something in me,” she said. “It was like a ripping. A sorrow. And then I thought of something Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had said: ‘If your voice held no power, they wouldn’t try to silence you.’”
In relaying the quote, Brodsky jumped up from her kitchen table to retrieve something from a nearby shelf.
It was an action figure. About five inches tall. But this figure didn’t come with a tights and cape. There were no weapons stuck in its molded plastic hands. It was a figure of Ginsburg — black judicial robe and trademark crocheted white collar.
She was known for a different type of action, but became a superhero to millions, all the same. Brodsky, a Chicago native, moved to Key West with her wife, Ea Ruth, from North Carolina in 2018.
“I was angry after the crosswalks, but I didn’t want to be an angry woman,” Brodsky recalled. “So I decided to be a catalyst for change.”
She had seen on social media that Coley Sohn had painted her Fleming Street fence in rainbow colors.
Brodsky reached out to Coley and said three words that would dictate the next several months of her existence — “Pass the paint.”
Brodsky painted their fence on Patricia Street.
“We did ours, but then people started getting in touch. Within a few days, I had painted 60 fences all over town and it kept growing,” she said, thumbing through her phone as new orders and requests kept dinging. “And I realized I was taking my anger and turning it into something positive, which feels great. It really does.”
So on a recent Friday morning, Brodsky, dressed in a paint-splattered tank top and shorts, positioned herself in her workroom, a line of opened paint cans displayed before her. Here, she assumed the persona that now identifies her on social media — Fence Fairy.
And she started painting rainbows. Wooden fences. About 14 inches wide and a foot tall.
These are in addition to the life-size fence posts that have been painted at homes all over town. Well, except for in the historic district, where a legal battle is brewing over whether the city’s historic guidelines and restrictions against painted fences constitute a First Amendment violation. The smaller rainbow fences came about as a result of the complaints filed in Old Town against the rainbow fences.
“These can be attached to bikes,” Brodsky said. “I’ve seen them on baby strollers, scooters, golf carts, everywhere. By now, I’ve painted 650 fences of all sizes.”
And she’s not selling the smaller-sized fences. She’s painting them in exchange for donations to one of five local nonprofits. Brodsky printed a flyer with scannable QR codes that allow donors to send donations via Venmo to the charity of their choice.
Brodsky will have a booth set up at the Pride Street Fair on Saturday, June 6 outside of the Key West Business Guild. Three different sized fences will be available. For various donation amounts, supporters can paint their own pickets while supporting Key West’s LGBT community and its allies.
“This has taken on a life of its own,” Brodsky said. “People started giving me money for paint and supplies. And now I have a man who donates the wood, while someone else cuts it and assembles the pickets for me to paint.
The Home Depot, where Brodsky works, has agreed to donate the paint, along with Strunk ACE Hardware, she said.
“This has really taken on a life of its own,” she said. “People are trying to erase our history, but we’re not letting that happen. And it all goes back to Ruth — ‘If your voice held no power, they wouldn’t try to silence you.’”
