// >//]]>
...feed your soul with art & creativity!

Monday, July 16, 2012

14 Reasons to Abandon Art

I am very psyched up by a phenomenon I came across this past week--an art movement called Abandoned Art.  It's been going on for a while and has been somewhat of a "guerrilla art" movement.  I participated some while living in Ohio and am again excited to do some more abandonment of art.  I have many pieces of incomplete artworks, many that are quite small (easy to carry around and leave behind.)  I think the biggest challenge is that people seem to be quite unobservant and/or very oblivious.  I left some artwork this weekend and people literally walked right by it and did not even see it.  Other artists have talked about the same phenomenon.  Some artwork in a tree (a current challenge for the month of July) was actually "ducked under" by someone texting on a phone and the person never even saw the art.  A case of it actually hitting her on the head...of course, there are theories by some artists that the artwork is intended for a specific someone to find and only that person can find it even though it is directly in the path of others. 


(c) SZing "Eye spy"  (oops, fuzzy picture of it tho)

What is the purpose you may ask of abandoning artwork?
1.  Share art
2.  Share beauty
3.  Create conversation about art
4.  Increase awareness of art in the general population/public
5.  A happy surprise for someone
6.  A great feeling for the artist to know someone has adopted artworks
7.  A thrill at abandoning the art in public locations
8.  A thrill to see the artwork has disappeared from public locations
9.  A mystery as to who made the art
10. A mystery as to who found the art
11.  Inspire others
12.  Inspire artists
13.  Free artwork
14.  It feels good to give things away and surprise people

Most abandoned art is done anonymously or under a pseudonym.  Here is a website dedicated to abandoned artworks.  What fun.  Now I am going to carry a handful of small artworks I can abandon at any time.  If you are an artist, have you abandoned any artwork lately?  If you aren't an artist, are you on the lookout for it?