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GREENSBORO — Erika Villarreal walked South Elm for three days, carrying a big red sack as a blister began to build on her right foot.

She toted 100 hand-made fabric bundles smaller than a bag lunch. She made them herself and handed them out randomly, left them on almost every doorstep up and down the street, and even got accosted by a stranger.

“Hey, what are you doing?’’ he yelled.

“Nothing,’’ she responded. “What are you doing?’’

Those bundles are odd, you gotta admit. But Villarreal hails from Elsewhere, the artist collaborative across the railroad tracks. It’s the spot on South Elm where artists call themselves Elsewher­ians.

Some downtowners call them “just plain weird.’’

But Villarreal’s not from around here. She comes from Indiana, and earlier this month, she arrived at Elsewhere as its visiting artist and — as part of her project ­— posed all sorts of questions we hardly ask without a few beers under our belts.

Villarreal asked for intimate confessions, childhood memories, self-portraits and those forever moments frozen in our brains.

Question: “What’s the stupidest question anyone ever asked you?”

Answer: “Do you want to have sex?’’

All written on note cards.

Question: “What is something you have never told anyone before?”

Answer: “If the above question is serious and if the author hopes to have a serious response I suggest that it be given some context. If it’s just a random, whimsical question, it is a waste of valuable time.”

Villarreal calls that responder “the angry dude.’’ But not all were angry dudes.

She asked about our city, its problems, its potential as a place for self-discovery. She got all kinds of responses — including a “better police force’’ and “it really would be better if I would have a job again.’’

She asked about us. She poked around in our personal corners, often hidden from public inspection, and asked questions about love, faith, community and feelings about a favorite toy, a first kiss, a last laugh.

What does it all mean? Not much, some would say. It’s simply a snapshot of June 2009, created by a 23-year-old graduate student from Purdue bearing a big red sack she calls “Grandfather Bundle.’’

Still, she was game enough to ask in a city she didn’t know.

She met a street character in a cowboy hat. She met a dude crew in a car. She discovered North Carolina in June — three days of walking, eight hours at a time in her Reeboks, with no sunglasses and not enough water.

All that walking? “It ripped my foot open,’’ she says.

That’s Villarreal talk for a blister.

Her project, called “I Have A Question!’’ plugs into the future plans of Elsewhere: the creation of the South Elm Alliance to spark community conversations in a spot some call “Greensboro’s shabby chic.’’

That’s across the tracks, the 500 and 600 blocks of South Elm, Elsewhere’s backyard. Every few feet, you see the visible fingerprint of Greensboro’s history, architectural character and eclectic charm.

The people there — characters all, mavericks many — embody that. Even the one in the cowboy hat.

Yet that historic spot across the tracks is incredibly fragile, a place susceptible to the whims of big-dollar entrepreneurs and a fickle economy.

So, questions about ideals and beliefs, memories and confessions are a necessary reminder about what’s at stake. Even if the questions come from cute, little bundles left on a doorstep by someone that hardly anyone knows.

But really, what does this all mean, this project of questions?

Ask Villarreal’s father, Enrique . He’s a Chicago dye-maker who never finished college. A long time ago, he told his only daughter, his oldest child, to think critically about the social implications of her art.

Now, right above her desk, she has written in charcoal five words in big letters: I want to change things.

She believes that. She wants us to believe that, too.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com