When Jen Charboneau and Bernard McNerney met as ESL teachers in South Korea, they had no idea that they would someday finish a 12,000-mile trip to promote community-driven art through pop-up events across the United States. But that’s exactly what they’re about to do – wrap up their three and a half month-long pop-up art project, Alley Art, with a final exhibition at Bushwick’s very own  The Living Gallery this weekend.

Originally crowd-funded through Kickstarter, Jen and Bernie describe the aim of the Alley Art project: “To encourage people to get creative together, beyond the typical gallery scene.” Jen, originally from Minneapolis, developed the idea for the project after leaving the ESL teaching program abroad. Jen told Bushwick Daily that she’s been “trying to survive as an artist and traveling around a lot [since graduating from college in 2008]…I’ve been doing a lot of small art things – busking art on the streets, small shows in different countries, trying to do the whole artist thing.” Through her international travels, including pop-up art events in Australia, she realized that it was time to bring her ideas of community involvement back to the States – in a big way.

She didn’t want to do it all alone though, so Jen reached out to fellow avid traveler, Bernard – or “Bernie” as he introduced himself to me with an Irish twang – to join the project. Bernie eagerly accepted, realizing that the 9-to-5 job he’d fallen into wasn’t what he wanted at the moment. “I want to see more of America. I want to travel again,” he described.