A new Wind Phone at the Price Center is one of more than two hundred around the world offering comfort to anyone who is grieving. The Phone is the result of the donation and installation by Price Center Arts Committee and Board Member Garrie Borden and her husband Ronnie.
Once they made their recommendation to the Board, the Bordens searched for an ideal phone and eventually discovered a vintage wall phone at an area resale shop. The couple then fashioned the components of the display and installed them in a protected corner of the Price Center’s front porch overlooking the peaceful garden. The vintage black rotary phone features an original extra- long cord so users may take a seat while using it.
“Ronnie and I heard about wind phones a few years ago. We both thought it was a charming, and healing, idea to promote talking with loved ones who have passed away. Who doesn’t yearn to have a conversation, update a family member, or just say again, ‘I miss you and I love you’,” said Garrie Borden when asked about the project.
A Wind Phone is a beautifully simple idea: an old-fashioned telephone, often rotary, placed in a quiet space for reflection. Inspired by the original Wind Phone created by Itaru Sasaki in Ōtsuchi, Japan, in 2010, a disconnected phone booth became a place of comfort for thousands following the 2011 tsunami. Wind Phones offer a gentle invitation to pause, remember, and speak from the heart.
Visitors are invited to pick up the receiver, dial a number, and speak with the one they miss. It is a place where grief is welcomed without judgment, where love is spoken freely, and where memories can breathe. Above all, the Wind Phone represents hope: the gentle, enduring hope that love continues, that connection remains, and that even death does not truly separate us.
“The Price Center is the perfect location for a wind phone in San Marcos,” said Borden. “We love how the gardens, sculptures, and other outdoor art as well as events, classes and workshops inspire creative, mindful and physical well-being.”
This is not Garrie and Ronnie Borden’s first donation to the Price Center. In addition to donating a great deal of time and energy to the board and arts efforts each year, last fall they donated a large outdoor metal sculpture to help establish a new pollinator garden on the Comanche Street side of the property inspired by the new Hummingbird Mural.
