Art Left to Find
We left this wee little painting sitting on an antique lamp, in a fun hotel in Astoria, OR.
Lately, I’ve been exploring the idea of leaving art for other people to find. People have been doing this for ages with things like painted rocks, yarn bombing, and geocaching (to name just a few!), but I tried it for the first time the other day. I can’t tell you how much joy it brought me and my friend! We spent so much time scouting for the perfect place to leave my little miniature painting while giggling and feeling so delightfully sneaky the whole day.
Portland, OR
Fairy garden. Small tulip painting left on the sign post.
The idea struck me when I visited a small neighborhood fairy garden in Portland, OR. I love this garden and wanted to contribute to it. Once I discovered the thrill of left-behind art, I wanted to make more art contributions wherever I went! I thought long and hard about how to do it right. I didn’t want to feel like I was littering, or creating something for someone else to clean up, but it had to also be small and uninvolved enough that if it were to get thrown away that it would not be considered a great loss.
In that light, having something printed would not work, that felt to me like litter. An encaustic wax piece felt wrong because that is a lot of my time and energy to put into something that might get tossed out. That's when I decided on mini watercolors. They are only 1 by 1.5 inches in size, and I don’t allow myself to spend more than fifteen minutes on any of them.
I add my instagram handle to the back along with a hashtag #artlefttofind and I hope that one day someone finds a mini painting and tags me in a photo. To me, this is the modern day version of a message in a bottle, and I sincerely hope it brings joy to the recipient of the mini painting.
Would you be joyful if you found a mini painting hanging out in the world waiting to be found? Would YOU like to be a member of my message in a bottle crew? I am toying around with the idea of sending some mini paintings far and wide and encouraging others to leave them behind. Please let me know your thoughts and any other ideas you might have in the comments below!
New miniature watercolors in process.