create small pieces of art, and leave them for people to find

I haven’t actually worked on this goal for a while, except to buy supplies and make plans to do stuff, but I did something today that caused quite a stir.

I told my mom.

She acted like she had never heard of such a wonderful thing, but she is the one who originally taught me to leave things for people to find! She didn’t drive when we were kids, so we rode the bus all over the Valley and would leave books and magazines on bus benches all the time… on purpose.

She loved hearing about all my ideas for found art and we had quite the discussion on WHY it is that people would rather think they are stealing something than to find a note that says the object was left there for them to find. It’s really weird. Anyone else notice it?

I haven’t set any out yet because I haven’t had time to set up my little link from foundart.com, but here is what they look like. I think if you click on the picture, it will go to about actual size, which is about 4^1/4 x 3^7/8.

They’ve been a lot of fun to make. I have several other small art ideas, but this one could really become a hobby of its own. =D

Today, in an effort to organize my studio, I gathered all the different “small art” projects and put them in one tub.

Now I can just grab something and put it together for a trip to the mall, or the zoo, or the… gas station… anywhere!

My girls and I have a tradition of going out the Saturday before Valentine’s and collecting as many heartrocks as we can find in about an hour. Then we wash them and paint them.

Well, I had a meeting this morning, then spent the afternoon in the car on errands, and went to a Valentine’s dance this evening, so there was no time to rockhunt today.

I knew this would be the case, so instead of finding, I distributed. I grabbed a couple of painted rocks from last year and left one in the room the meeting was in. Later, I left another in a bathroom stall.

They were really cute, too, so two people will get to smile at their new little treasures.

Today I went to the school to sub for an interventionist, so I took my new, perfect prototype and a handful of colored paper with me and made a bunch of copies.

Each journal will have 12 pages and once the sections are separated, I’ll mix the colors.

Now all I have to do is cut, fold and staple them, add some altered art to each page, and they will be ready for dispatch!

Yay!

Back in September, I posted about these cute little journals I planned to make. Well, the prototype did not turn out well. Oh, the six little parts on each page were ok, but it was very difficult to get both pages to line up properly in order to print back to back and then cut and fold them. I finally gave up on trying to make the pages two-sided, which sort of defeated the entire purpose of making them at all, so I shelved the idea.

Today, I looked at my little handwritten model and it is so cute, I just had to try again. This time I must have had a more lucid mindset because IT WORKED! I’m so excited. ^wheee! =)

A couple months ago, I found a long narrow rock, rounded at one end, with a slight curve to it. I picked it up and said it looked like a thumb. The two men who were with me said I was weird and that it looked like a rock.

I painted it and showed them. It looks exactly like a thumb now and they both think it’s hilarious.

I know leaving painted rocks is not a new idea to this group, but from now on, when I see “something” in a rock, I’m going to paint it so everyone else can see it too. I will probably leave these rocks in the midst of the gravel on parking lot islands. Everyone walks there, and wouldn’t it be cool, to look down and see a little face smiling back up at you… or a heart or an angel or a … a thumb? Huh, wouldn’t it? Sure it would.

I learned how to make paper stars 12 years ago. When we moved into our house, my friend brought me a small vase full of them. I asked her to show me how to do it, but she said she couldn’t because she’s not Asian. Well, my nieces are, so I asked them and they showed me. Cute tradition.

Anyway, I’m going to go to DollarTree and get a bunch of those little clamp bottles and put maybe 10 in each one. After a hundred bottles are gone, I can add “make 1000 paper stars” to my list and call it done!

I made everyone wait for me while I made it and we left it as part of the tip when we went out to dinner on Friday night.

That’s what I’m calling them.

I am making tiny journals, just under 4”square, which will have questions on each page, like “Where and when did you find this journal?” or “List as many happy things as you can think of.”

Each journal will be made of only one sheet of paper, cut into 6 small pieces, stapled and altered with all kinds of cute stuff.

I am going to set these on chairs and benches all over the place, and maybe on top of a few gas pumps.

I set up a page on blogspot.com, but I don’t know what I’m doing yet, so it may be a while before it is linked to anything, but when I get a sample journal done, I’ll post a picture here.

I also joined www.foundart.org Maybe I’ll get some feedback.